The scholarship on community-university partnerships concerns the challenges in creating these partnerships, as well as suggestions on how to develop successful associations that are of benefit to both the university and the community. Generally, scholars recommend that community partners be involved in most, if not all, aspects of the work that comes out of the partnership, including data gathering, data analysis, curriculum development, student placement, etc. In fact, a number of the pieces in this section include a response to the lack of community focus in engagement work, be it in the design of projects or in the analysis and interpretation of collected data. Also addressed is the issue of the sustainability of such partnerships.

Cruz, N.I. & Giles, Jr. D.E.(2000). Where’s the community in service-learning research?
Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, Fall 2000, pp. 28-34.

(Scholarly; persuasive; service-learning)

The lack of research on the community dimensions of service-learning is a glaring omission in the literature. Analysis of the causes of this gap indicates that community-focused research is possible and desirable. This article presents a four dimensional model for doing research with community partners on the process and outcomes of community service-learning. The authors argue that the research should focus on the community-university partnership as the unit of analysis and that it should use a participatory action research approach.

Edwards, B., Mooney, L., & Heald, C. (2001). Who is being served? The impact of student volunteering on local community organizations. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 30 (3), pp. 444-461.

(Quantitative; description; service-learning)

The purpose of the article is: “to determine to what extent and how off-campus constituencies benefit from cooperation with CBL initiatives” (p. 445). The motivation behind the article can be taken from the authors’ use of a quote from Gray et al. (2000), noting that community-based learning (CBL) initiatives must provide benefits to community partners if the programs are to survive and thrive. The research data comes from questionnaires submitted to directors of community-based organizations that were listed in the school’s Student Volunteer Program opportunities directory. The data revealed that on average 51% of total volunteers to the organization were students, and thus, respondents valued students for their contributions to the operation of the organization, even though they were unlikely to utilize students for service provision and fund-raising. In general, there was a difference between how volunteers from the community were used versus the jobs performed by student volunteers, with community volunteers typically performing planning and office work under the direction of staff members, while students took their direction from community volunteers. However, that does not mean that students were not used for important or substantive tasks. In fact, the authors found that the students provided a volunteer labor pool that was irreplaceable for such nonprofit organizations, concluding that student contributions more than offset the costs of training and organizational tasks incurred by the agencies.

Gilderbloom, J. I. (2004). University partnerships to reclaim and rebuild communities. Practicing Planner, Winter 2004.

(Qualitative/case study; description; programmatic)

In Kentucky, the University of Louisville’s Sustainable Urban Neighborhoods (SUN) program has worked to support the redevelopment of neighborhoods in the historically Black section of West Louisville. SUN develops partnerships that focus on four functional categories: housing, economic development, community organizing, and neighborhood revitalization. In one instance, architectural and community planning students worked with business, government, and community leaders to redevelop the Russell neighborhood of West Louisville, which was seen as having the potential to become the first nearly all-Black smart growth, or New Urbanist, redevelopment project. In another effort, SUN, which believes in a “bottom-up” approach to development by invoking the help of residents, came up with a plan to create 65 units of affordable senior housing in West Louisville. Initially considering a brand new housing development, the plan later changed to incorporate the rehabilitation of a 100-year-old school building which was a historic community landmark. As Gilderbloom states, “universities do not need to be in the ivory tower but can be active agents of positive change…Universities could have the potential to revitalize thousands of neglected neighborhoods around the U.S. and give students a ‘real world experience.’”

Sorensen, J., Reardon, K. M., & Klump, C.(2003). Empowering residents and students to rebuild neighborhoods: A case study. In Jacoby, B. & Associates (Ed.), Building partnerships for service-learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

(Qualitative; description; programmatic/service-learning)

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s (UIUC) Neighborhood Planning Workshop presented faculty and students with the challenge of being able to create relationships while working in East St. Louis, Illinois. As part of this course, undergraduate and graduate students have conducted organizing campaigns to assist in the redevelopment of East St. Louis. Among the demands put forward by residents working with students and faculty is the stipulation that community groups, and not the university, choose the issues to be worked on. In addition, faculty had to agree that residents would be involved in every step of the planning process and that the university make a minimum commitment of five years. A couple of years into the project, the partners were describing their efforts at empowerment “designed to enhance the capacity of community-based organizations to provide residents living in distressed neighborhoods a greater voice in local government affairs” (2003, p. 200).

Walsh, D. & Annis, R.(2003). Exploring university-community relations: The case of Brandon University’s Community Outreach Service. Paper presented at The Changing and Complementary Role of the University in the Rural Sector, University of Saskatchewan, October 19, 2003.

(Qualitative; description; programmatic/service-learning)

The Purpose of the paper is to address the need for more literature on Canadian university-community collaborations, and to describe the Community Outreach Service at Brandon University as one example of this type of work. In describing this case, the authors’ present their definition of outreach for the purposes of this paper: “the engagement of an academic institution with a community(s) in a reciprocal, mutually beneficial relationship.” They go on to say that “outreach aligns the research, teaching, and community service interests of faculty and students with community needs” (p. 2). Accordingly, the university’s Community Outreach Service is dedicated to matching the needs of community organizations with the research interests of students and faculty. They do this by facilitating connections between faculty and the community, offering applied learning opportunities for students, and identifying paths of access to university resources by communities in need. Thus, the Service equally recognizes the role of students, faculty, and communities as part of an Outreach Triad. The BU approach is to be flexible and to operate on what they call the Community-University Engagement Continuum. They allow for requests to come from any member of the triad, and respond to requests for research projects, community service, or anything else that might benefit members of the triad. They also understand that motivations for civic engagement are broad, but that they usually fall under four categories: egoism, altruism, collectivism, and those based on moral principals.

Ward, K., & Wolf-Wendel, L. (2000). Community-centered service learning: Moving from doing for to doing with. American Behavioral Scientist, 43(5), 767-780.

(Scholarly; description, persuasive; service-learning)

Many colleges and universities seek to enliven their service missions through service learning. This article critically analyzes the service-learning literature, illustrating the idea that higher education institutions traditionally operate under an orientation of doing for communities rather than doing with them. Doing for is typically aligned with a charity perspective and emphasizes the position of privilege of campuses in relationship to their local communities, whereas a doing with perspective of service emphasizes collaboration and mutuality. Using special focus colleges and universities as a model, the authors provide suggestions on how to shift the paradigm to one that is more community centered. (Authors’ abstract, p. 767)

Wolff, M., & Maurana, C. A. (2001). Building effective community-academic partnerships to improve health: A qualitative study of perspectives from communities. Academic Medicine, 76(2), 166-172.

Qualitative; description; programmatic)

The purpose of this study was to identify, through a qualitative study, community perspectives on the critical factors that facilitate the development, effectiveness, and sustainability of community-academic partnerships. Between June 1998 and April 1999, 25 semi-structured interviews were conducted with community members who represented eight partnerships at five academic health centers. Content analysis and open coding were performed on the data, and patterns of ideas and concepts were categorized. Nine major themes that community respondents thought strongly influenced the effectiveness of community-academic partnerships emerged from respondents from the remaining five partnerships: (1) creation and nurturing of trust; (2) respect for a community's knowledge; (3) community-defined and prioritized needs and goals; (4) mutual division of roles and responsibilities; (5) continuous flexibility, compromise, and feedback; (6) strengthening of community capacity; (7) joint and equitable allocation of resources; (8) sustainability and community ownership; and (9) insufficient funding periods. The themes that emerged from this study of the perceptions and experiences of the community partners in community-academic partnerships can be critical to further developing and evolving these partnerships. (Authors’ abstract, p. 166)

Other: Links and Downloads

Urban Colleges Learn to Be Good Neighbors, Washington Post (download article)