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Appendix A: Civic Engagement Task Force Membership
Appendix B: Assessment and Evaluation Committee Report
Appendix C: Institutional Incentives Committee Report
Appendix D: Community Connections Committee Report

Appendix
A: Civic Engagement Task Force Membership
Civic Engagement Initiative Task Force 2001-02 Contact
List
| NAME |
COLLEGE/UNIVERSITY/DEPT |
PHONE |
FAX |
COMMITTEE |
| Ilene D. Alexander |
Center for Teaching/Learning Services |
612-624-6507 |
|
Institutional Incentives |
| Sharon Roe Anderson |
HHH Institute for Public Affairs, TC |
612-625-8367 |
|
Community Connection |
| **Vic Bloomfield |
Vice Provost for Research, Office of EVPP |
612-625-2809 |
612-626-7431 |
Assessment and Evaluation |
| **Harry Boyle |
Sen. Fellow, HHH Institute of Pub Affairs, TC |
612-625-5509 |
|
Institutional Incentives |
| Carl Brandt |
Prog Director, Career and Comm Lrng Cntr |
612-624-7577 |
|
Institutional Incentives |
| Kathy Brown |
Assoc. VP, Multicultural Affairs, TC |
612-626-8336 |
|
Institutional Incentives |
| *David Carl |
Provost, UM Rochester |
507-281-7791 |
|
|
| Carla Carlson |
Chief of Staff, Col of Ag, Food, and Env Sci |
612-625-6755 |
612-625-1260 |
Assessment and Evaluation |
| *Chuck Casey |
Dean, Extension Office of Dean *amp; Director |
612-624-2703 |
612-625-6227 |
|
| *Frank Cerra |
Senior VP, Health Sciences, TC |
612-626-3116 |
612-626-2111 |
|
| Max Donath |
Professor, Mechanical Engineering, TC |
612-625-2304 |
612-625-8884 |
Institutional Incentives |
| Paul Deputy |
Dean, UMD College of Ed & Hum Dev |
218-726-6537 |
|
Institutional Incentives |
| **Susan Engelmann |
Prog Coordinator, Ofc of Exec VP and Provost |
612-626-9186 |
612-624-3814 |
|
| Jim Farr |
Professor, Political Science, TC |
612-624-4144 |
|
Assessment and Evaluation |
| Anne Farrell |
Coordinator, Humanities, Morris |
320-589-6271 |
|
Institutional Incentives |
| Tom Fisher |
Dean, College of Arch and Lndscp Arch, TC |
612-624-1013 |
|
Institutional Incentives |
| **Ed Fogelman |
Professor, Education Policy and Admin, TC |
612-624-4144 |
|
Institutional Incentives |
| *Sandra Gardebring |
VP, University Relations, TC |
612-624-2855 |
|
|
| Jim Hearn |
Professor, Education Policy and Admin, TC |
612-624-7594 |
|
Assessment and Evaluation |
| Ken Hepburn |
Assoc Prof, Fam Practice and Comm Health |
612-625-1678 |
|
Community Connection |
| Laurel E. Hirt |
Career/Community Learning Center |
612-626-2044 |
|
Institutional Incentives |
| Jan Hively |
College of Continuing Education, TC |
612-624-5329 |
|
Community Connection |
| Pam Holsinger-Fuchs |
Dept Director, UMC-Student Activities |
218-281-8505 |
|
Assessment and Evaluation |
| Catherine Jordan |
Asst Professor, Neurology, TC |
612-625-1861 |
|
Assessment and Evaluation |
| Sandra Krebsbach |
Program Director, UM Rochester |
507-280-2858 |
|
Assessment and Evaluation |
| Mark Langseth |
Executive Director, MN Campus Compact |
651-603-5087 |
|
Community Connection |
| Steve Daly Laursen |
Professor, Coll of Adm-Natural Resources |
612-624-9298 |
612-624-8701 |
Community Connection |
| Margaret Ligon |
Dir, CCE-Personal Enrichment Progs, TC |
612-625-1245 |
612-624-6210 |
Community Connection |
| Jeanne Markell |
Asst. Dir, UM Extension Ofc of Dean and Dir |
612-624-5360 |
612-625-6227 |
Community Connection |
| Rama Murthy |
Professor, Geology and Geophysics, TC |
612-625-6836 |
612-625-3819 |
Assessment and Evaluation |
| Richard Nelson |
Dir Campus Life/College lvl UMC Ag Mgt |
218-281-8100 |
|
Community Connection |
| *Mary Nichols |
Dean, College of Continuing Education |
612-624-1751 |
|
|
| **Tom Scott |
Director, Urban and Rgnl Affairs, TC |
612-625-7340 |
612-626-0273 |
Community Connection |
| Stephen Simon |
Senior Attorney, Law School, TC |
612-625-5515 |
|
Community Connection |
| *Craig Swan |
Vice Provost, Ofc of Exec VP and Provost |
612-625-0051 |
612-624-3814 |
|
| **John Wallace |
Professor, Philosophy, TC |
612-624-5210 |
|
Institutional Incentives |
| Oliver Williams |
Assoc. Prof, School of Social Work, TC |
612-624-9217 |
|
Assessment and Evaluation |
| John Wright |
Assoc Prof, Afro-Amer and African Studies, TC |
612-624-0845 |
|
Assessment and Evaluation |
* Ex Officio ** Steering Committee
Appendix
B: Assessment and Evaluation Committee
of the Civic Engagement Task Force
April 9, 2002
Committee Membership: Vic Bloomfield, Chair, Carla Carlson, Jim
Farr, Jim Hearn, Pam Holsinger-Fuchs, Cathy Jordan, Sandra Kresbach,
Rama Murthy, John Wright
Charges to Committee
- Specific implications of civic engagement for professional work
and institutional activities
- Ways in which the University would be different in five years
as a more fully engaged institution
- Indicators for assessing civic engagement as an institutional
commitment
1. Specific implications of civic engagement (CE) for professional
work and institutional acitivies
a) Integration of civic engagement with normal scholarly
activities
CE should be an intrinsic part of teaching, research, and outreach,
not a separable or add-on piece of faculty activity. It should reflect
a way of thinking about the uses and impacts of the scholarly disciplines.
CE need not add more burden to already overburdened faculty, if
they carefully weave CE into their work, and are properly acknowledged
for it. In each of the disciplines, and in interdisciplinary ways
as well, finding and developing the CE component of faculty work
can be a significant scholarly frontier.
Each academic discipline is different, so CE activities will also
have to be different. In some, (e.g., education) CE is a natural
part of the discipline. In others (e.g., social sciences), it used
to be; but the disciplines have become more theoretical and abstract.
A return to research on social problems could be appropriate and
fruitful for scholarship. In others (e.g., natural sciences and
the humanities), basic research and scholarship may of necessity
be several steps removed from CE; but collaborative teaching, K-12
collaborations, and summer projects provide opportunities that can
be professionally as well as socially beneficial.
The external support system for academia is paying increasing attention
to CE, though it might be called by different names. Federal funding
agencies, foundations, and professional societies devote increasing
attention to outreach, community connections, and the social impacts
of research. Faculty will support the emerging norms of their professions
by devoting effort to CE activities.
b) Civic engagement opportunities in research
It would be presumptuous to attempt to list specifics about research
in particular disciplines. However, there are some general points
that can be made:
* Much -- perhaps most -- research, scholarship, and creative activity
that goes on at the U of M has a CE/public scholarship component,
in that it is funded by public money or foundations in the expectation
that it will produce something that the public will value and benefit
from. However, because modern research is so specialized, the public
connection may not be recognized either by the public or by university
researchers. We therefore need to find ways to communicate public
scholarship more effectively.
* Significant problems, especially those of public concern, are
unlikely to align neatly with disciplinary boundaries. This has
led to an efflorescence of interdisciplinary research, a trend which
should be encouraged.
* Particularly when the research makes direct contact with the
public, it is important to work with the affected community to assure
that its goals, methods, and personnel are acceptable -- to assess
its social validity (Schwartz and Baer, 1991). As Baer (1987) pointed
out, "consumers" of a research program who disapprove of it may
undermine it in various ways: "... withdrawing from the program,
encouraging others to do the same, complaining to community officials
and the media, or, more subtly, not implementing some or all of
the program's procedures ... despite positive responses on questionnaires."
In other words, working to gain community acceptance of a research
program, though it may take longer, is likely to lead to more valid
research. The issues are set out compellingly in the report "GRASS
Routes" by Jordan, Gust, and Scheman.
* Involving the public in research -- e.g., high school students
working in a lab for the summer, or community members trained and
employed as technicians in a neighborhood-based project -- is civically
engaged research.
* The research underlying the traditional and evolving activities
of the Minnesota Extension Service is largely classifiable as CE.
So is technology transfer with high-tech startups and mature corporations.
So are creative arts and performances aimed at public audiences.
c) Civic engagement opportunities in teaching
The U of M does much teaching that should be considered CE. Extension
and Continuing Education are the most obvious examples. Rural medical
education and community practicums for health science professionals,
internships for engineering students, and various service learning
courses should all be counted. Our summer programs for students
and faculty from other institutions generally have a strong teaching
as well as research component, and many are definitely CE.
Even if some specific research areas are not readily amenable to
CE, problem-based collaborative teaching could provide some very
interesting opportunities. Collaborative teaching, focused on social
problems rather than disciplines, may be a way of both bringing
faculty together and of getting students (with faculty) thinking
about and working on social issues from a broad variety of perspectives.
Service learning, while valuable, is not the only way of connecting
teaching with civic engagement. Whatever the teaching mechanism,
it has the virtue of encouraging our students to be future engaged
citizens.
Older faculty looking for new ventures might be particularly interested
in such collaborative, problem-centered courses. However, the interests
of younger and mid-career faculty should also be encouraged.
If collaborative teaching is to be a mechanism for integrating
civic engagement with our academic mission, there has to be support
from deans and department heads, not too much concern with tuition
attribution, and a realistic assessment by faculty as well as department
heads of the workload implications of shared teaching.
Many departments and graduate programs in the social sciences,
education, and psychology disciplines have courses in survey and
community-based research. While some of these courses advocate the
requisite sensitivity to community participation and involvement,
others may not. The efforts put forth by GRASS Routes and Designing
Research for Change are devoted to developing new paradigms for
community-based research. Teaching about these new paradigms should
be an important consideration in developing and revising CE instruction.
d) Outreach, service and communication
We presume that the valuable outreach roles of Extension and Continuing
Education will continue, with audiences and priorities continually
evolving. The remainder of this section deals with other parts of
the University.
Although CE should ideally be integrated in teaching and research,
there is also a valuable role for faculty and P&A staff to play
as "connectors", to mediate between the university and the community.
This is like the role of Extension; the difference is that CE should
connect back more to the classroom.
Increased publicity and use of University Relations can be viewed
as self-serving, but it can provide a valuable window on university
activities for the public. We must, however, be ready to take the
next step: to respond to public requests for further information
or help.
CE needs "environmental scanners" and facilitators as well as connectors
and publicists. Scanners would scout for CE opportunities; Institutional
Relations and alumni are two potential agents. Facilitators would
cover a wide span of stages of university-community relationships:
preparing communities, engaging, mentoring, getting information
out, etc. To some extent this role can be assumed by faculty, but
it may also be a separate professional role.
2. Ways in which the University would be different in five years
as a more fully engaged institution
* If CE has become a higher priority of the University of Minnesota,
then top university officials (President, Provost, Deans) will emphasize
this explicitly and regularly in communications with the public
and within the U of M, and will indicate that CE activities should
be considered in a discipline-appropriate manner in tenure, promotion,
and salary decisions. The University of Minnesota will not be alone
in this, but will be part of a national movement among public research
universities, which will have come to recognize that increased CE
is essential if public support is to be maintained and increased.
* Civic engagement will have become an integral part of the U's
grassroots culture. Faculty, students, and staff will have become
more conscious about the CE implications of their scholarly work,
and will view this work in a broad social context as well as a focused
disciplinary context.
* University Relations will have developed regular ways of working
with faculty to develop and promulgate stories about CE-related
research, teaching, and outreach. Both U Relations and faculty will
recognize that a CE component may be present even in most abstract
and specialized scholarship, and that it is important to make such
aspects comprehensible to the widest possible audience.
* Researchers and service providers working in communities will
have established appropriate personal as well as professional ties
with people in those communities, recognizing that community members
are not just research subjects. There will be a change in attitude
regarding expertise, recognizing that such relationships are co-learning
relationships in which community members are as valued for their
expertise as are the researchers and service providers. Where possible,
jobs will be created for community workers who have been trained
as project assistants and technicians. Research results will be
shared with community members as well as professional peers.
* With increased support from state government and foundations,
we will have established more community-based clinical (such as
the Community-University Health Care Center, or CUHCC) and educational
centers. Some of these will be operated by Extension, some by the
AHC, and some by other colleges. They will provide services, be
the base for new kinds of research and in-service training, and
strengthen partnerships with the communities that they serve.
* Through those aspects of CE that focus on democratic social change
and the strengthening of democracy, the University will have instilled
greater civic mindedness in students, helped to empower communities,
and equipped the public with the knowledge, critical thinking and
decision making skills, and ability to analyze research and information
that will assist them in getting their needs met from their government,
from social service agencies, and from political and civic leaders.
* All the colleges will have established stronger and more effective
ties with K-12 and with minority groups that are under-represented
in higher education, so as to provide to all segments of the population
the education that will be needed in the 21st century, and to assure
that the higher education enterprise will draw the necessary talent
from an increasingly diverse populace.
* The College of Continuing Education will be working with the
academic colleges to facilitate provision of a broad menu of high-quality
certificate and professional masters programs that will be valued
by mid-career professionals and workers who want to develop new
expertise. CCE will also continue to provide personal enrichment
courses that enhance the quality of life for Minnesota citizens.
* U of M faculty and staff will be more involved with the communities
in which they live, taking the lead as citizens and participants.
We will talk with our neighbors about our work at the U just as
they talk about their work at the bank or the store. Involvement
with community activities will be regarded as a contribution to
the community itself, to appreciation of the University's role in
the community, and to personal enrichment.
* We will be involved and active in the University of Minnesota
community, recognizing that time spent eating lunch with colleagues
at the Campus Club, attending an occasional lecture outside our
discipline, and getting involved in teaching and research collaborations
are both personally enjoyable and professionally productive.
* More major interdisciplinary programs - both within and between
colleges - will be developed that focus on broad social issues,
thereby enlisting and broadening the range of impact of disciplinary
expertise. The input of people from outside the university will
be valued in developing such programs. Current collegiate efforts
along these lines, such as the rethinking of the mission of COAFES,
and the development of eight priority areas in the Medical School,
will have been shown to be successful and productive.
* Cooperatively taught courses will be developed that brings teachers
and students together on problem-centered (rather than discipline-centered)
learning. For example, a biochemist, a sociologist, an architect,
a pediatrician, an epidemiologist, and a lawyer might teach together
on remediation of toxic contaminants in low-cost housing. This could
be viewed as very high-cost teaching, but it will instead be recognized
as a valuable opportunity to make connections within the university
and to expose students to the wide diversity of approaches needed
to attack real-world problems.
* These new programs will have been launched with enthusiasm, but
then tracked with care and realism. New ventures need assessment
and follow-through. They must be accompanied by the careful choice
of well-defined, "product oriented" outcomes that can be recognized
both internally and externally. Intermediate achievables and deliverables
need to be defined, with the recognition that the process itself
is significant and achievement of the final goal may be well into
the future. Not all new ventures can be expected to be successful,
but those that are need administrative backup and recognition in
our evolving educational mission.
* The new consciousness of the importance of CE, and the new programs
that result, will extend throughout the state. Enhanced communication
technology and rapid changes in the economic base and population
makeup of greater Minnesota will provide great opportunities to
expand our reach beyond the metro area. Attention to state-wide
technology transfer, community knowledge transfer, and continuing
and distributed education will contribute to the well-being of all
Minnesotans and enhance support for the University of Minnesota.
3. Indicators for assessing civic engagement as an institutional
commitment
We need to pay attention to the public dimensions of all scholarly
work, not just to specific methodologies. Perhaps we can develop
more systemic awareness by asking faculty to briefly describe the
civic implications of their work at the time of annual reviews.
This would indicate that departments and colleges put value on publicly-engaged
scholarship, would get faculty to think about the broader implications
of their work, and might lead to stories for U Relations, connections
between faculty, etc.
Some possible quantitative indicators of U-wide CE activity:
- Number of faculty and staff engaged in CE activities
- Number of public participating in CE activities
- Satisfaction surveys of public
- Number of public (not regular UM employees) employed in UM community
projects
- Number of CE projects
- External funding of CE projects - might/should include all grants
from federal and state agencies
- Number of mentions of CE activities in news media
- Number of collaborative teaching ventures focused on a social
issue
- Number of collaborative research ventures focused on a social
issue
We might evaluate CE similarly to the way we now evaluate teaching:
- student (and community) evaluations
- peer evaluation
- courses and lectures (and community contacts and projets) engaged
in
- teaching (CE) portfolio
- pedagogical (CE) innovations, etc.
However, we must recognize that the thorough kind of teaching evaluation
referred to here (i.e., anything more than end-of-term student evaluations)
is quite unusual, and is generally ignored by most departments and
colleges, and resisted by faculty. Without major changes of attitude,
CE evaluation is unlikely to fare any better.
We must realize that CE outcomes may not be immediate, just as
the fruits of research or teaching are not immediately apparent.
Higher education properly has a long time horizon. CE should not
be an exception, if it is to be carried out with the care and rigor
that is appropriate for a university setting.
Appendix
C: Report from Committee on Institutional Incentives
Committee Members: Ilene Alexander, Harry Boyte, Car Brandt, Kathy
Brown, Paul Deputy, Max Donath, Anne Farrell, Tom Fisher, Ed Fogelman
(Chair), Laurel Hirt, John Wallace, Oliver Williams
The general goal of the Task Force this year is to recommend practical
ways for embedding civic engagement within regular university practices
and priorities. Among the means for institutionalizing civic engagement
are:
- to assign responsibility for strengthening civic engagement
to a designated administrator and administrative body;
- to include the public connection and public impact of professional
work as a formal criterion for evaluation in the system of incentives
and rewards;
- to incorporate responsibility for public engagement within the
faculty governance structure;
- to establish an official link with community partners within
the university's administrative structure.
(a) To assure ongoing responsibility for strengthening civic engagement
across all campuses, we recommend establishment of a university-wide
Council for Public Engagement, appointed by and reporting to the
Provost, charged with fostering, coordinating, assessing, and communicating
the university's public contributions as an engaged institution.
The Council would reflect and further deepen community connections
as an institutional priority that benefits the people of Minnesota
as well as the university. It would enhance institutional identity
as an engaged university, help to renew the land-grant mission,
and strengthen publicly-engaged activities on all four campuses.
(The outline of a proposal for such a Council -- defining its purposes,
responsibilities, organization, and outcomes is included at the
end of this report.)
(b) Recognizing public connections in professional work can be
accomplished through a variety of practical measures at each institutional
level. A number of such practices are already in place within particular
units, which may be adapted for more general application. The goal
is to promote appropriate forms of public engagement as an institutional
priority throughout the university.
The following are examples of practical steps to help embed public
engagement as a valued priority and would be taken to the FCC for
their consideration:
- Recruitment: Include a statement in job descriptions about positive
expectations for publicly-engaged professional work. For example,
"The department welcomes applicants with an express interest in
the public connections of research and teaching."
- Institutional Messages: Emphasize the value and benefits of
public connections for research, teaching, and other professional
work as well as the importance of public contributions for an
engaged university in statements from department heads, deans,
and senior administrators.
- Evaluation: Include "public impact (or public connection) of
research, teaching, and service" as an explicit category in annual
activity reports and merit recommendations.
- Promotion and Tenure: Consider evidence of "public impact of
professional work" as a criterion in assessing professional achievement
in the P & T process.
- Institutional Recognition: Continue the Community Service Awards
as official acknowledgment of the value attached by the university
to public contributions.
- Sponsored Civic Projects: Continue to fund innovative, multi-disciplinary,
publicly-engaged projects as a special institutional program.
These are a limited number of specific measures, including some
current practices, that would help to incorporate public engagement
into the institutional structure of incentives and rewards.
(c) Faculty governance committees have shown an interest in the
civic initiative, and some steps have been taken to include public
engagement among their responsibilities. Most notably, SCEP has
established a special committee on civic learning. Another suggestion
is to create a separate Senate Committee on Public Engagement, parallel
to the proposed administrative Council for Public Engagement, which
would assure sustained faculty involvement in the entire range of
civic initiatives, specifically including community partnerships.
At present there is no governance committee responsible for "outreach,"
comparable to SCEP and the Research Committee. A Senate Committee
on Public Engagement could assume responsibility for this general
area within the wider perspective of the university's public connections
and public contributions.
A hallmark of an engaged university is sustained and constructive
connection with community partners. All sorts of partnerships are
presently ongoing, which the Community Connection committee has
categorized and analyzed. The importance of such partnerships could
be further institutionalized by including community representatives
as members or affiliates of the Council for Public Engagement. We
should consider how best to accomplish this implementation of community
partnership as an institutional priority.
Draft Proposal to the Provost for a Council on Public Engagement
PURPOSE OF THE COUNCIL: to enhance the civic identity of the University
and strengthen publicly-engaged activities throughout the institution
and build relationships between the University and community/citizens.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
- promote, monitor, and assess the results of public engagement
in core activities of research, teaching, and community partnership
- build public support by identifying specific public contributions
of teaching, research, and engagement
- identify and communicate important benefits of public engagement
to the community and to the univeristy
- provide leadership for the outstanding community service awards
- assist with EVPP initiatives on public engagement, including
distributed learning, vital aging, non-profits, and related topics
- foster multi-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary initiatives
that further public engagement as an institutional priority
- support innovative projects and sustained discussion of the
practical implications and public contributions of public engagement
within different units
- recommend institutional practices to encourage and reward engaged
work as a regular part of faculty and staff activity and to involve
students in civic learning experiences
- foster the integration of public engagement within the university's
institutional culture that affects expectations for professional
work, student orientation programs, and external relations
- ask colleges/campuses to identify their distinctive civic engagement
contributions
- identify and address barriers to public engagement that affect
core activities at all levels of the institution
- assist in articulating and communicating the university's civic
mission and public contributions internally and externally
- develop measures for assessing public engagement as an indicator
of institutional performance
- identify and monitor other public/civic engagement models and
how they function and gather innovations in a deliberate way to
consider options for UMN
- provide leadership to propose civic engagement as a CIC (Big
Ten) priority
- report annually to the Provost on the university's effectiveness
in public engagement as a regular dimension of institutional performance
ORGANIZATION:
- the Council should be composed of no more than twenty-five members,
appointed by the Provost, including a mix of deans, senior administrators,
faculty leaders, and student leaders, alumni association, and
community partners from all campuses
- members of the Council should have a strong commitment to public
engagement as a major institutional priority
- members should ordinarily serve for a three-year term, with
the possibility of renewal
- the Chair of the Council should be a senior administrator designated
by the Provost for a three-year term
- the Council should be appointed in June, 2002
- the Council should meet at least twice each semester during
the academic year, with particular responsibilities assigned to
subcommittees which may invite the participation of other appropriate
individuals from inside and outside the university
- the Council would include liaison members from Consortium of
Children, Youth, and Families. Rural Development Council, Regional
Partnerships, TEL Council, etc.
- increased recognition and emphasis on public scholarship, civic
learning, and community partnership in units throughout the university
- incorporation of additional incentives for public engagement,
including annual awards for community service, in the institutional
reward process
- inclusion of public engagement as a regular indicator of institutional
performance, with appropriate measures for assessing public engagement
- support for public engagement as an acknowledged value in the
university's institutional culture
- enhanced external image and political support for the university
as a publicly engaged institution
Appendix
D: Community Connections Committee
Committee Members: Tom Scott, Steve Daley Laursen, Jeanne Markell,Ken
Hepburn, Jan Hively, Margaret Ligon, Richard Nelson, Jan Joannides,
Sharon Roe Anderson
Introduction
Provost Robert Bruininks has encouraged us to organize our civic
engagement work around the major functional units of the university.
At the same time, we recognize that community partnerships are grounded
in the knowledge that exists throughout society, not just within
the academy.
The covenant between the public and this university is always under
construction. Some argue there are forces pushing higher education
toward a market model where the University's research, education,
and service are sold to the highest bidder. In this model the people
we work with are referred to as "customers" or "clients." The Civic
Engagement dialogue challenges the market model by stimulating public
debate about the University's social contract and promoting work
structured though interdependent, shared-power, reciprocal, and
mutually beneficial community partnerships.
A civically engaged university works in partnership with communities,
industries and organizations to address real issues in society.
In community-university partnerships, all parties are full partners
in the exercise. Civically engaged research, education and service
are created by a variety of interests that are operating in mutually
beneficial relationships for common purposes. The new constellation
of community-university partnerships is about people working together,
not citizens working on behalf of the university or the university
working on behalf of citizens. This type of partnership is played
out on a virtual landscape that is not owned or managed by any one
of the partners, but by all of them together.
In preparation for this report, we looked at a wide range of examples
of best practice and success in community-university partnerships.
Rather than selecting one partnership model, the following report
illustrates the rich constellation of efforts currently underway.
We recognize our report is merely a beginning and invite others
to add their own examples.
Partnership Types
1. Consultative Partnership. In this kind of relationship, a faculty
member, unit, department, or school has the same relationship to
a client as a self-employed or privately established consultant.
Some of the elements of a Consultative Partnership:
- The relationship is temporary or intermittent; the main work
of the client will continue after the consultative event, hopefully
in an improved manner, and the consultant will not be identified
as a partner or co-equal in this main work
- Contact can be initiated by either party
- Part of the work might be to help a client identify a need for
the consultative service
- The consultant provides a format, strategy, or process for addressing
the client's need
- The consultant provides needed expertise
- (Optional) the consultant relationship lends a certain cachet
to the client's venture
The work the Humphrey Institute does with the legislature and cities
and the Extension program on Business, Relationships, and Expansion
seem to fit into this category of partnerships.
2. Technical Assistance Partnership. In this kind of relationship,
a client entity has much more comprehensive responsibility for identifying
a need and specifying an outcome or product of the relationship
- The client defines the partnership environment - by identifying
the scope of work or the limits of involvement of the partner
- The partner is not identified as a partner in the larger agenda
in which the technical assistance is contextualized
- The work is specialized, and the performance of the work draws
attention to the special expertise of the technical assistant
- (Optional) the technical assistant relationship lends a certain
cachet to the client's venture
The work the University of Minnesota, Crookston is doing with school
districts and with natural resource consortia fits into this category
of partnerships.
3. Partnership of Convenience. This is the conceptual converse of
the Consultative Partnership in that it is a relationship initiated
by an academic entity (faculty member, department, school, etc.)
with an external party.
- The relationship is project-linked (i.e., specific in nature)
and often time-limited.
- There is an identified exchange of some sort (e.g., in exchange
for cooperation/collaboration, there will be a service, status,
fiscal, etc benefit to the external partner)
Many community-based research activities - for example Ken Heyburn's
Savvy Caregiver research - fit into this category.
4. Generative Partnership. This is a relationship between some part
of the academy and some external entity that produces something
- deliberately vague - that takes on its own life. As such, this
third entity may begin to interact independently with each of its
progenitors
- The initiating relationship may be initiated by either party
- The partnership may begin de novo or may grow out of (or be
discovered within) other partnership relationships
- At some point the initiating parties recognize a changed relationship,
one that acknowledges at least the partial independence of the
partner-created entity
There are a number of striking examples of this kind of partnership.
The Community University Health Care Center, the Regional Geriatric
Education Centers and the Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships
function like this.
5. Partnerships for Mutual Benefit. In this relationship, an academic
and an external entity recognize that each can gain from working
on a common project.
- Either side may initiate the partnership
- The work depends on the partnership and will not continue past
the partnership (i.e., both sides are relatively equal in their
ownership of the project)
- The partnership is co terminal with the continued benefit to
each side (this implies that each side can see the benefit of
the arrangement)
The clinical center for interdisciplinary geriatric education is an
example of this kind of partnership.
6. Outreach. In this relationship between academic entities and
either organizations (including communities) and/or individuals,
the balance of power tilts towards the academic entity.
- This activity is initiated by the academic entity
- Recipients may have been queried about their needs so as to
make the academic product relevant
- The activity may be designed to address the good of the recipient
as identified through the expertise of the academic entity
- The activity fits the mission of the academic entity
Many of the examples provided by the University of Minnesota Extension
Service fit this model of partnership.
Reflections on Partnership
- Big Virtues. We emphasize the fundamental need to base partnerships
on shared values, trust and respect and a sensitivity to the culture
of the community partner (the partner's mores, values, worldview,
stakes, etc.).
- Pragmatic Values. The implications of the partnership need to
be examined from a number of angles:
- Will the partnership tinker with power/political relationships
- in either camp?
- Would entering into a partnership adversely affect the image
of the academy?
- Would the "costs" be disproportionately distributed?
- Contractual Realities. Elements that may need attention in setting
up partnerships include:
- Specifying expectations and responsibilities of the parties
- Specifying any financial arrangements
- Working out logistics
- Clarifying timetables
- Working out ownership issues
- Recognizing what rules apply (e.g., IRB regulations)
- Agreeing on a structure for changing the agreement
- Agreeing on dissemination strategies.
- Facilitating Structures. Guidelines and assistance in forming
partnerships will be helpful in a number of ways:
- Faculty Development. Helping faculty to develop or sharpen
a set of skills, and gain knowledge about partnerships and partnering
- A technical assistance capacity. Some mechanism to help faculty/units
to think about, find and enter into fruitful partnerships (e.g.,
to provide consultation to help university partners examine
the pragmatic or contractual elements of potential partnerships).
It would be helpful to have some kind of brokering agency could
help university faculty or units identify partners for projects
they are seeking to undertake or to help community groups identify
academic partners.
- Boundary guidelines. We recognize too much partnering with
industry might create problems in the public's perception of
the university. Implicit in this thought is the notion that
some partnerships might be not good. It would be helpful to
have a facilitating structure within which conversations about
such boundaries could be carried on and, where appropriate,
codified.
Recommendations to the Civic Engagement Task Force and possible
roles for the (proposed) Public Engagement Council:
- Provide guidelines and assistance in developing community partnerships.
- Coordinate and facilitate the development of community partnerships.
- On an ongoing basis, inventory effective community partnerships
and harvest practical measures for developing partnerships across
a full range of activities. This will clarify what is meant
by best practices for partnerships, and help us remove barriers
to their development and measure their success.
- Connect partnerships with institutional resources
- Address problems in keeping community partnerships viable
- Recognize and celebrate effective community partnerships.
- Continue to develop a shared understanding of public scholarship,
civic learning and community partnerships as an integral part
of the fabric of a civically engaged university.
- In our examination of best practices of community partnerships,
partnerships directly affect research, teaching and service.
- Offer incentives and training for public scholarship, civic
learning, and community partnerships.
- Address the question: How do we have authentic community partnerships
without the University being the "100 pound gorilla?"
- The nature and process of partnerships between the university
and the community will need ongoing attention. The Public Engagement
Council will be called to address legal responsibilities, the
complexities of pluralism, and increasing emphasis on accountability.
- Include community representatives as members of the Council
for Public Engagement.
- Civic engagement necessarily works in partnership with community-based
networks.
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