2019 Journal on Anchor Institutions and Communities
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2019 Vol 2 Journal on Anchor Institutions and Communities 3 | P a g e Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................ 2 Partnerships for Education ................................................................................................................................... 3 Lehman College: A Mission Anchored in Our History ....................................................................................... 4 José Luis Cruz ................................................................................................................................................ 4 Aligning Anchor Strategies Within A Catholic Mission ................................................................................... 12 James T Harris III ........................................................................................................................................ 12 Opportunity and Access: Democratizing Higher Education .............................................................................. 19 Phoebe A. Haddon and Nyeema C. Watson ................................................................................................ 19 Anchor Institutions Collaborating with Their Municipalities ......................................................................... 26 Tackling “The Two Americas” with City-Wide Collaboration in Newark ....................................................... 27 Nancy Cantor, Tai Cooper, Marcia Brown, and Peter Englot ..................................................................... 27 San Francisco exploring the promise of partnerships with Anchor Institutions ................................................ 39 Sheryl Evans Davis ...................................................................................................................................... 39 The Port Richmond Partnership: The College Readiness Pipeline .................................................................... 48 Richard Guarasci .......................................................................................................................................... 48 Multi-Anchor Institution Economic Development Partnerships ..................................................................... 53 Central Corridor Anchor Partnership: Securing Regional Prosperity ................................................................ 54 Paul Pribbenow and Laura Beeth ................................................................................................................. 54 So much more than a stage: How New Jersey Performing Arts Center embraced its role as Newark’s anchor cultural institution .............................................................................................................................................. 67 John Schreiber .............................................................................................................................................. 67 1 | P a g e Introduction Welcome to the second Volume of the Anchor Institutions Task Force’s (AITF) Journal on Anchor Institutions and Communities. This issue continues to capture some of the evolving trends in the role of anchor institutions in their local communities. Our Journal has been an important way to build upon initiatives and ideas discussed during AITF’s Annual Conferences. Authors in this Volume have been speakers at recent conferences. This issue is organized in three sections: Partnerships for Education, Anchor Institutions Collaborating with Their Municipalities, and Multi-Anchor Institution Economic Development Partnerships. These are all areas of great importance for how anchor institutions are engaging in their communities. Partnerships for Education have always been a priority for AITF. Every AITF conference features a plenary session on how anchor institutions build partnerships with local schools and school systems to expand educational opportunities, particularly for vulnerable children and young people. This section of the Journal features the education collaborative strategies of Lehman College in the Bronx, New York, the University of San Diego, and Rutgers University-Camden. The idea of Anchor Institutions Collaborating with Their Municipalities is particularly important to the future of the anchor institutions movement. In order to truly transform communities, local governments and anchor institutions will have to work together. Anchor institutions can be crucial partners to municipalities in extending the impact and potential of local governments. This section of the Journal details ways in which the cities of Newark, New Jersey, San Francisco, California, and Staten Island, New York have been collaborating with anchor institutions. Multi-Anchor Institution Economic Development Partnerships represent one of the most innovative ways in which anchor institutions are contributing to their communities. Every community represents an ecosystem of different types of institutions that share a stake in the future of their geographic areas. In recent years, anchor institutions’ local partnerships have become more complex and inclusive of numerous different types of anchor institutions and community partners. This section of the Journal includes a discussion of the Central Corridor Anchor Partnership in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It also includes perspectives of the role of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center as an anchor in Newark, New Jersey, which partners with Rutgers-Newark and others in the Newark Anchor Collaborative. The significance of arts and cultural anchor institutions has been increasingly highlighted in the anchor institutions movement. Overall, this Volume presents a range of examples as to how anchor institutions demonstrate their commitment to AITF’s values – democracy and democratic practice, collaboration, equity and social justice, and place, and, in so doing, strengthen their neighborhoods, cities, and regions. 2 | P a g e Partnerships for Education 3 | P a g e Partnerships for Education —— Lehman College: A Mission Anchored in Our History Lehman College: A Mission Anchored in Our History José Luis Cruz1 Lehman’s story began 50 years ago. Originally designed as Hunter in the Bronx, a satellite of CUNY’s Park Avenue campus, a rebellious faculty gained institutional autonomy from Hunter College and went on to transform what was then a 37-year-old branch campus — with its own illustrious history— into what today is one of our country’s premier public, urban-serving institutions. No longer an extension of a college located primarily in Manhattan, Lehman was free to focus on serving the needs of the Bronx neighborhood in which it is located. Such a mission is part of the fabric of Lehman College. When Leonard Lief, the College’s founding president, was asked if Lehman College would take a leadership position in helping the Bronx to address the social ills of the day, he responded as an invested steward of place: “Yes. It would be criminal for us to sit by the wayside.” As the only public four-year college in the borough, Lehman is ideally situated as an anchor institution for the Bronx, the home of 60 percent of our undergraduates and 45 percent of our graduate students. Our purpose is not only to provide students with a quality liberal arts education and professionalization training, but to connect our institution with the greater Bronx community. In aligning our goals with the needs of our neighborhood, we sow the seeds of education in its residents, paving the way for Bronx students to one day attend Lehman and reap the benefits and opportunities that only a world-class liberal arts college education can provide. The basic purpose of an anchor institution is to use its unique educational and financial resources to “better the welfare of the community in which it resides” (1). On its 50th anniversary, Lehman College continues to use this statement as a litmus test as it builds upon its foundation and creates a vision for the future. With each new initiative we create, we see our effect on the students who come to our campus every day. Yet, with each step an anchor institution takes, it casts a longer shadow upon its community. Every decision that Lehman College makes — as is true for all anchor institutions — has the potential to ripple through the community and better the lives of its residents. As we craft the narrative that will come to define Lehman College over the next fifty years, we must ask ourselves how our plans can radiate outwards and benefit the Bronx at large. Such a goal requires diligence and a deliberateness on the part of the institution. Every anchor institution occupies a unique niche within its community. A hospital, for example, will focus on meeting the health and medical needs of the community. Lehman College, in turn, best serves the needs of the borough by focusing its efforts on educational attainment. While according to U.S Census data, more than half of Bronxites 25 and older have at least a high school diploma or equivalency, these 462,000 residents have not earned a bachelor’s degree. In addition, of New York State’s 62 counties, the Bronx is next to last in that category, with only 27.7 percent of residents attaining an associate’s degree or higher. However, two-thirds of United States’ newly created jobs are for individuals with postsecondary education or training. Furthermore, over eight million