New Book on Linking Colleges to Communities

[Discussion list for COMM-ORG]

From: Sarena Seifer <sarena at u.washington.edu>


Dear community organizing colleagues,

The Democracy Collaborative at the University of Maryland has published 
a new book, Linking Colleges to Communities: Engaging the University for 
Community Development.  Electronic copies are available at
http://www.community-wealth.org/articles/index.html

The preface, authored by Ted Howard, Director of the Democracy 
Collaborative, appears at the bottom of this email.

The Democracy Collaborative's website includes a section on 
university-community partnerships
(www.community-wealth.org/strategies/panel/universities/index.html)
and another that focuses more broadly on anchor institutions
(www.community-wealth.org/strategies/panel/anchors/index.html).

They update their website on a quarterly basis and their work on
universities, community partnerships, and the economic role of anchor
institutions is ongoing.  If you have suggestions for additional links 
and information they might want to add to the site, please email them to 
the report's principal author Steve Dubb at sgdubb at yahoo.com.

Community-Campus Partnerships for Health manages a number of related 
listservs you may be interested in subscribing to: anchor institutions, 
community-engaged scholarship, community-based participatory research 
and community partner peer mentoring/advocacy.  To learn more and sign 
up, go to http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/faq.html#Listservs

******************************************************************************
Community-Campus Partnerships for Health promotes health (broadly defined)
through partnerships between communities and higher educational 
institutions.
Become a member today at www.ccph.info

CCPH is the Higher Education Senior Program Advisor for the Learn and
Serve America National Service-Learning Clearinghouse.  Visit the
Clearinghouse at www.servicelearning.org

Celebrating a Decade of Transforming Communities & Higher Education, 
1997-2007
******************************************************************************

"Preface by Ted Howard

Our nation's more than 4,000 public and private colleges and 
universities are increasingly referred to as anchor institutions. With 
rare exceptions, once established they almost never move location.  
Thus, they have a vested interest in building strong relationships with 
the neighborhoods that surround their campuses. As such, they are a 
tremendous potential resource for strengthening Americas communities, 
particularly in this era of diminishing federal support for local 
economic and social development.

Universities employ two million workers (one-third of who are faculty), 
enroll more than 15 million students, possess endowments of over $300 
billion, hold more than $100 billion in real estate, and purchase 
hundreds of billions of dollars in goods and services annually. In 
short, they are economic engines of considerable power in our nation.

Over the past few decades many faculty, students, and administrators 
have struggled to create space to utilize these resources and break down 
the isolation to which universities have too often succumbed. There are 
scores of outstanding examples of campuses that have begun to harness 
their scholarly and economic power to directly benefit society outside 
the walls of the campus. These university-community partnerships are 
becoming an important element in reinvigorating our civic life. Yet, 
overall, higher education remains a sleeping giant when it comes to 
strategically using its considerable resources to meet the challenges 
facing our communities, particularly the needs of our most disadvantaged 
citizens.

This report seeks to answer the question: How might this sleeping giant 
be awakened to benefit our communities? History shows that universities 
are highly susceptible to outside  influences that have shaped their 
research, teaching, and institutional agendas. As the following pages 
demonstrate, dating back to the 1860s, federal and state policy; funding 
from government, corporate, and philanthropic sources; and student and 
faculty pressure have altered the direction of higher education. From 
the federal governments creation of the land-grant system (the peoples 
colleges)
and passage of the GI bill to foundation-supported efforts that have 
produced entire new fields of academic research and study, higher 
education has time and again responded to external forces and embraced 
new directions.

In our own day, how can public policy and foundation grantmaking power 
encourage universities to become more directly and usefully involved in 
the life of their surrounding communities? What incentives can be put in 
place to move higher education to a new level of engagement with 
communities and to significantly leverage the flow of university 
resources to help meet community needs?

In this report, we review the history of policy and funding decisions 
that have shaped the agenda and direction of higher education. We survey 
the growing movement for university community engagement from 
service-learning
and community-based research to university financial strategies that are 
investing many tens of millions of dollars annually in community 
development. And in the conclusion of this report, we suggest a 
strategic framework by which America's foundations, in particular, could 
play a catalytic role in awakening the sleeping giant of higher education."