This Projects With Promise case study offers insights for addressing tensions between universities and communities in building partnerships and collectively rethinking "the field" of community engagement. We explore moving beyond a solely place-based understanding of "the field" into an ethos based on human interactions and…

Responding to an ongoing disconnect between higher education institutions (HEIs) and contemporary challenges communities face worldwide, universities can become a driving force to strengthen communities' capacity toward innovative solutions to the challenges they face. This article introduces an analytical framework that provides a roadmap to…

Over the past 50 years, colleges and universities have taken on increasingly important roles as anchor institutions in U.S. cities, partnering with local communities to promote development and well-being. Such community-campus partnerships rely on the work of community engagement professionals (CEPs), staff tasked with administering, coordinating,…

In this reflective essay, we describe Widener University's 10-year transformation from a disengaged institution to an institution that has a metropolitan-focused mission vested in civic leadership, community engagement, and service-learning. We describe our journey to embed an expansive civic frame that includes concrete practices of pedagogy,…

This article explores how on-the-ground Extension educators interface with higher education service-learning. Most service-learning in Extension has focused on precollege youth and 4-H. When we look at higher education service-learning and Extension in Wisconsin, we see that there is not as much connection as might be expected. County-based…

The mission of The Research University Civic Engagement Network (TRUCEN) is to advance civic engagement and engaged scholarship among research universities. TRUCEN has adopted the following goals for advancing civic engagement and engaged scholarship as part of the core mission of all research universities: (1) Encourage community-engaged…

This essay builds on and extends earlier research and writing that the authors have done, trying to understand how a commitment to local engagement, which is the term commonly used at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), becomes embedded in the core work of the institution. Their inquiries have been guided by social psychologist Kurt Lewin's…

University faculty and outreach program directors have been called to deliver more effective, equitable, and sustainable ways in which neighborhood and university communities may creatively interact. The authors report on the case of the Pittsburgh Studio, an initiative that matches students and resident stakeholders in researching local issues…

In this article, the author talks about incorporating what those in academia do best--scholarship and teaching--and what government bureaucrats do best in administering housing and community revitalization programs into a strong and sustainable system of community engagement and outreach. He frames the discussion by focusing on some examples of…

America's universities are facing unprecedented scrutiny and criticism. As pressure for institutional change has mounted, universities have taken steps to more effectively respond to the needs of their stakeholders. All of these activities are part of a broad movement to develop new and productive connections between the university and its…

Describes Neighbors Helping Neighbors: Turning Ideas into Action, a two-part program involving the Medical College of Wisconsin that facilitates the community-building process for low-income public housing residents in Milwaukee. (EV)

In response to a state budget deficit, the University of Minnesota Extension restructured its field staff, establishing a new regional and county delivery system, shifting all supervision of field staff to campus faculty, and encouraging greater field staff specialization, program focus, and entrepreneurial efforts. Nine economic concepts and…

Higher education-community partnerships can lead to fruitful rewards that are difficult to realize any other way. However, efforts to create, maintain, and sustain collaborative working relationships include inevitable tensions, the "politics of engagement." Lessons learned about the politics of engagement are presented in this paper.…

Largely absent from college and university engagement efforts are the community members who work on our own campuses, often those in the lowest-paid positions, even though they are from the communities the campus purports to serve. This article represents the results of a project that scanned the civic microcosm of our colleges and universities to…

Universities today exert an ever-increasing stimulus to small business development, contributing to national and local economic development as the general economy becomes increasingly knowledge-based. The transition to a knowledge-based economy, coupled with the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980, has resulted in stronger university-industry…