Our urban-located land grant institution has long been committed to engaged research, teaching, and service. This paper describes efforts to articulate and implement a strategic urban land grant vision that places urban/metropolitan engagement at the center of our institution's "urban age" future. We describe intentional and broad-based efforts in…

The University of Texas at El Paso offers over seventy learning communities to first-year students from extremely diverse socioeconomic and educational backgrounds. Ninety percent are Hispanic, 54 percent are first-generation college students, and 59 percent must participate in developmental classes before moving forward with college-level…

A long-running university-school partnership is the foundation on which LEAP UP, the Literacy Enrichment and Active Participation University Partnership, is built. Services learners from a variety of The University of Akron programs provide one-on-one support for struggling readers at Leggett Elementary School. Key to the program's success is high…

Education is a primary mission of metropolitan universities. This article measures the value of education at the level of a student credit hour-the metric. It applies this metric to determine the value of education transmitted at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) for one academic year and the total contribution of UNO to the economy of the…

The mission of American metropolitan universities has never before been so relevant, both to the future of institutions themselves and to the United States. The success of the mission requires that we develop a deep understanding of the impact of both urbanization and de-urbanization, as well as the challenges metropolitan universities face with…

Today's higher education students are more technologically savvy than past generations. For metropolitan universities this phenomenon is particularly important as they attempt to provide an engaging and rigorous environment for these digital natives, who view their world somewhat differently than other generational cohorts. Because of contemporary…

Technology can support the interface between urban and metropolitan universities and the cities and regions of which they are a part. Through partnerships and the Web as a medium for communication and collaboration, technology can support community dialog around institutional goals. Through identifying opportunities and facilitating reflection in…

Since the fall of 2006 a number of Towson University students concentrating in the discipline of anthropology have been part of a civic engagement and service-learning project focusing on an historic African-American community in Baltimore. While the focus of the research project concentrates on the processes of gentrification, individual student…

Urban university students bring multiple assets to learning and the study of learning. As partners with faculty in the scholarship of teaching and learning, they have life circumstances opportune for study of impacts on learning of technology, cultural diversity, lifelong learning, assumption of social responsibility, and self direction.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) has undertaken numerous initiatives over the past fifteen years that have contributed to the development, clarification, and increased understanding of civic engagement and its related components. This case study demonstrates how advancing the public purposes of higher education requires…

This paper discusses the model of the "Western university" from the viewpoint of a non-Western person. The concept of an "Urban Public University" is then discussed and analyzed in terms of its role and relevance in today's context. The paper further argues that while universities are non-static, and while their changes and adaptations to new…

Accountability and evidence-based decision-making have become the mantra of government policymakers, and even private foundations. Yet most attempts to foster cultures of evidence have not brought about change in practices, notably because they are treated as management tools rather than learning processes. Equity for All is an approach to…

Prodigy is an example of a program that is successful due to its being a program that is community engaged. Prodigy is a community arts program, crime prevention and diversion program, serving ten thousand people in seven counties. This article discusses the roles, challenges, and successes of the partnerships with the School of Social Work at the…

The University of Dayton's Raymond L. Fitz, S.M. Center for Leadership in Community has a long history that is emblematic of its mission to "initiate and sustain partnerships with urban neighborhoods and larger communities by working at comprehensive community building and providing a context for connected learning and scholarship" (Fitz…

Describes the partnerships developed by Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis with public schools and community organizations to improve urban student performance through teacher education and full-service schools (schools that offer a wrap-around of services to eliminate or minimize socioeconomic or health-related barriers to…