Choice, power and perspective: The neglected question of who initiates engaged campus-community partnerships

Robert W. Glover; Linda Silka

doi:10.5130/ijcre.v6i1.3192

PDF

Published: Sep 25, 2013

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5130/ijcre.v6i1.3192

Robert W. Glover

University of Maine

Linda Silka

University of Maine

Abstract

To address society’s complex challenges, campus-community partnerships are increasingly being undertaken by academia. As a result, questions of how to ensure that these partnerships succeed have taken on a new urgency. This urgency has led to an emphasis on the creation of ‘how to’ guides focused on the mechanics of building effective partnerships. This article argues that this focus is premature and attention instead needs to be directed to the neglected but ultimately more fundamental question of who is ‘allowed’ to initiate the partnerships. It is argued here that the seemingly simple and straightforward issue of who initiates the partnership leads us into the complex problems of choice, power and perspective which bedevil campus-community partnerships. Until these problems are fully addressed, the partnership approach is unlikely to achieve its status as a central means by which community-university engagement can be realised in academia.

Keywords: campus-community partnerships, community engagement, partnership initiation, research, knowledge creation, reciprocity.

Issue

Vol. 6 (2013)

Section

Research articles (Refereed)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Copyright Notice

Authors who submit articles to this journal from 31st March 2014 for publication, agree to the following terms:

a) Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share and adapt the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

b) Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

c) Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Open Access Citation Advantage Service). Where authors include such a work in an institutional repository or on their website (ie. a copy of a work which has been published in a UTS ePRESS journal, or a pre-print or post-print version of that work), we request that they include a statement that acknowledges the UTS ePRESS publication including the name of the journal, the volume number and a web-link to the journal item.

d) Authors should be aware that the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) License permits readers to share (copy and redistribute the work in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the work) for any purpose, even commercially, provided they also give appropriate credit to the work, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. They may do these things in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests you or your publisher endorses their use.

Articles published by UTSePress are protected by copyright which is retained by the authors who assert their moral rights. Authors control translation and reproduction rights to their works published by UTSePress. UTSePress publications are copyright and all rights are reserved worldwide. Downloads of specific portions of them are permitted for personal use only, not for commercial use or resale. Permissions to reprint or use any materials should be directed to UTSePress.

Author Biographies

Robert W. Glover, University of Maine

Robert W. Glover is the CLAS-Honors Preceptor of Political Science, a joint appointment in the Honors College and the Department of Political Science at the University of Maine. His research focuses on democratic theory, community engagement, and the politics of immigration. His recent work has been featured in Political Studies, Philosophy & Social Criticism, and Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies.

Linda Silka, University of Maine

Linda Silka directs UMaine’s Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center and is a professor in the School of Economics. Prior to moving to the University of Maine, Dr. Silka was a faculty member for three decades at the University of Massachusetts Lowell where she directed the Center for Family, Work, Community and served as the Special Assistant to the UML Provost for Community Outreach and Partnerships. A social and community psychologist by training, much of her work has focused on building community-university research partnerships. Recent research partnerships she has facilitated include the NIEHS-funded Southeast Asian Environmental Justice Partnership and the New Ventures Partnership, the HUD-funded Community Outreach Partnership Center and Diverse Healthy Homes Initiative, and the Center for Immigrant and Refugee Community Leadership and Empowerment. Silka has written extensively on the challenges and opportunities of building research partnerships with diverse groups and has consulted internationally on how to build community-university research partnerships.

Article Sidebar

Main Article Content

Abstract

Article Details

Robert W. Glover, University of Maine

Linda Silka, University of Maine