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Reports and References - Civic Engagement Task Force Final Report 2002 - Appendices

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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
  1. Specific implications of civic engagement for professional work and institutional activities
  2. Ways in which the University would be different in five years as a more fully engaged institution
  3. 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.

    OUTCOMES:
  • 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.

 

The University of Minnesota is an equal opportunity educator and employer.