This research examines the significance of higher education institutions (HEIs) as anchors in their host cities and their community engagement strategies between 1980 and 2020. By examining four case studies of urban-based universities that are members of the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities (CUMU) across diverse geographical and…

Purpose: This study aims to describe and illuminate the ways in which Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU)--an urban, undergraduate institution with a strong focus on teaching, learning and related research and scholarship, and a substantial international student population--adapted to pandemic conditions in 2020 in an effort to meet community…

Sustainable research culture is impetus for the realization of educational institution's mission and vision. Academic leaders such as president, dean, and research director must act into power and think of strategy and programs so that their faculty members will be inspired to conduct research and publication. This study aims to discover the best…

This study explores the changing mission statements of the University of Toledo and how those changes impacted the social contract between the University and city of Toledo. Specially, the study engages in historical and documental analysis and investigates three major moments in the history of the University of Toledo when Toledoans engaged…

Drawing on cultural studies and the practice of engaged learning and scholarship, this paper proposes a cultural approach to institutional transformation, which we argue necessarily follows anchor partnerships. The authors advance a model of cohesion and alignment among equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), community engagement, and social…

Research on community impacts from service-learning has been scarce, yet this area is worth exploring in order to understand how and why service-learning can make a difference. The current research sought to validate a conceptual framework (Lau & Snell, 2020), which categorizes the impacts of service-learning on community partner organizations…

The concept of the anchor institution, and its subsequent mission, was first considered in the mid-1990s, a time during which the dominant academic culture of higher education was driven by the "public good regime." The decades since have seen the emergence of the public engagement knowledge regime, and the academic capitalist regime.…

Upholding an equity-focused mission can be challenging for administrators, particularly in light of recently implemented policies that center funding based on student performance. Based on interviews with administrators across four universities in the same state, this work examines the ways in which performance-based funding (PBF) requirements are…

The degree to which urban and metropolitan colleges and universities can have a positive impact on their respective communities is heavily influenced by the nature and extent of their connectedness to, and alignment with, civic need. Drawn from the experiences and outcomes of the College of Staten Island's Legacy Trilogy initiative, a…

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of prestige seeking on access for Black and Latino students at urban-serving universities, addressing gaps in the literature to raise questions as to the extent to which prestige seeking is detrimental to achieving equity goals. To do so, I used an OLS [ordinary least squares] regression with…

This article emerges from a collaborative research project between a religious studies professor at DePaul University and the executive director of the Chicago-based non-profit Interfaith Community for Detained Immigrants (ICDI). In 2016, we forged a community partnership to explore and enhance the relationship between pedagogy, faith, and social…

Institutions of higher learning are located within the context of neighborhoods. But to what degree do they see themselves as neighbors? What does it mean to be an engaged institutional neighbor? Inspired by this question, I utilize place-based community engagement principles, combined with self-study research methods, to trace the development of…

This manuscript seeks to situate access to higher education as part of the public good of universities, and connect that specifically to the mission of institutions that are charged with carrying this out more than others. One such institution--the Urban-Serving Research University (USRUs)--has a distinct mission that emphasizes not just location…

The University of Central Oklahoma (UCO) is a public metropolitan university that has developed a highly collaborative relationship with the Greater Oklahoma City Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (HC). This partnership unites several UCO divisions and the HC in support of a set of shared goals, articulated in UCO's "Vision 2020" strategic…

The higher education context that our CUMU institutions must navigate is complex and begets challenges resulting from the distinct mission our institutions seek to uphold. The implications of these challenges give rise to impacts on everyone within the institution and consequently our constituents within the cities we seek to serve. Bringing…