The Road Half Traveled: University Engagement at a Crossroads
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The Road Half Traveled University Engagement at a Crossroads Rita Axelroth and Steve Dubb The Democracy Collaborative at the University of Maryland December 2010 About the Authors Rita Axelroth is a consultant in the fields of education policy, university engagement, and com- munity development. She formerly served as the Research Coordinator for the Netter Center for Community Partnerships at the University of Pennsylvania. Axelroth is the lead writer of the Netter Center’s Annual Reports (2007–08 and 2008–09) and author ofThe Community Schools Approach: Raising Graduation and College Going Rates — Community High School Case Studies, a publication of the Coalition for Community Schools (2009). Steve Dubb is the Research Director of The Democracy Collaborative. Dubb is the principal author of Linking Colleges to Communities: Engaging the University for Community Development (2007) and Building Wealth: The New Asset-Based Approach to Solving Social and Economic Prob- lems (2005). Dubb is also a co-author (with Deborah B. Warren) of Growing a Green Economy for All: From Green Jobs to Green Ownership (2010). The Road Half Traveled University Engagement at a Crossroads Rita Axelroth and Steve Dubb The Democracy Collaborative at the University of Maryland December 2010 The Democracy Collaborative 1140-F Tydings Hall University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 Copyright © 2010 by The Democracy Collaborative This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en_US Contents List of Figures................................................................................ v Acknowledgements ........................................................................... vii Preface ...................................................................................... ix Executive Summary ....................................................................... 1 Section One: The Past and Present of University Engagement........................... 17 Brief History of Universities, Community Partnerships and Economic Development ........................................................................... 19 An Overview of Key Anchor Institution Strategies Today ................................ 27 Addressing the Challenges............................................................... 34 Section Two: Anchor-Based Community Development — Three Roles ................. 43 University as Facilitator: IUPUI, Portland State, and Miami Dade College................ 45 University as Leader: Penn, Cincinnati, and Yale......................................... 69 University as Convener: Syracuse, Minnesota, LeMoyne-Owen, and Emory ............. 96 Section Three: Best Practices ............................................................. 123 Section Four: Envisioning the Road To Be Taken — Realizing the Anchor Institution Mission ........................................................................ 153 Steps on the Road: Building Internal Constituencies for Partnership Work .............. 155 Catalyzing Change with Philanthropy ................................................... 160 Policy Support for the Anchor Institution Mission....................................... 164 Thinking Forward ......................................................................... 169 Appendices ................................................................................ 173 Appendix A: Budget Documents from Anchor Institutions Task Force................... 173 Appendix B: Interview Subjects and Contributors ...................................... 183 Appendix C: Additional Resources ...................................................... 190 Endnotes .................................................................................... 197 List of Figures Executive Summary Figure 1: Three Roles of Universities in Anchor-Based Community Development ....... 8 Figure 2: Best Practices among Anchor Strategies — Select Features...................... 13 Figure 3: Recommendations for Realizing the Anchor Institution Mission............... 15 Section One: The Past and Present of University Engagement Figure 4: Expressions of the Anchor Institution Role .................................... 25 Section Two: Anchor-Based Community Development — Three Roles Figure 5: IUPUI Anchor Strategies ....................................................... 47 Figure 6: Portland Sate University Anchor Strategies .................................... 51 Figure 7: Miami Dade College Anchor Strategies ........................................ 55 Figure 8: Penn Anchor Strategies ........................................................ 71 Figure 9: Cincinnati Anchor Strategies .................................................. 76 Figure 10: Yale Anchor Strategies ........................................................ 80 Figure 11: Syracuse Anchor Strategies ................................................... 98 Figure 12: Minnesota Anchor Strategies ................................................. 102 Figure 13: LeMoyne-Owen Anchor Strategies ........................................... 106 Figure 14: Emory Anchor Strategies ..................................................... 110 Section Three: Best Practices Figure 15: Comprehensive Neighborhood Revitalization at Penn........................ 125 Figure 16: Revitalization through Coalition Building at Syracuse ........................ 127 Figure 17: Leveraging Contracting Dollars at Minnesota................................. 129 Figure 18: Local Purchasing at Penn ..................................................... 130 Figure 19: Community Capacity Building at Emory ..................................... 132 Figure 20: Supporting Community Schools at IUPUI .................................... 134 Figure 21: Science Education Partnerships at Yale ....................................... 135 Figure 22: Scholarly Engagement at IUPUI............................................... 137 Figure 23: City and Regional Partnerships at Portland State ............................. 138 Figure 24: Multi-Anchor Partnerships at Cincinnati . 140 Figure 25: Institutionalizing an Anchor Vision at Syracuse ............................... 141 Figure 26: Community Investment of Endowment Assets at Cincinnati ................. 143 Figure 27: Leveraging Public and Private Dollars at LeMoyne-Owen .................... 145 Figure 28: Building a Culture of Economic Inclusion at Miami Dade College ............ 147 Figure 29: Sustaining Inclusive Planning and Robust Relationships at Minnesota ........ 149 Section Four: Envisioning the Road To Be Taken — Realizing the Anchor Institution Mission Figure 30: Internal Steps to Build an Anchor Institution Mission ........................ 157 Figure 31: Building the Anchor Institution Mission through Philanthropy ............... 162 Figure 32: Policy Measures to Support the Anchor Institution Mission .................. 167 vi • List of Figures Acknowledgements Research for The Road Half Traveled began early in 2009, but this report has a much longer gestation. The Democracy Collaborative was founded in 2000 by a group of scholars at the Uni- versity of Maryland, College Park, who saw the need for a center that could promote engaged scholarship that linked research to democratic practice. Maryland itself is a land-grant university, so the Collaborative has seen as one of its goals to examine what being a land-grant institution means in the 21st century. In 2005, The Democracy Collaborative published an article outlining its engagement vision. Later, in 2007, the Collaborative produced a full report titled Linking Colleges to Communi- ties: Engaging the University for Community Development. Several dozen people participated in interviews for that report and their contributions helped frame the questions of this study. In Linking Colleges, we outlined the history of university engagement and examined recent devel- opments in policy and in the field, but with limited detail on any one school. Here, we wanted to examine fewer schools in greater depth, thereby enabling us to personally visit every school we selected — and helping us to generate a better understanding of both the challenges and opportunities for universities that seek to develop and realize an anchor institution mission. There are numerous other influences, but two are particularly important to mention. One is the Netter Center for Community Partnerships at the University of Pennsylvania, which produced its Anchor Institutions Toolkit in March 2008 to provide a manual for universities seeking to expand their community partnership work in a responsible way. Report author Rita Axelroth hails from the Netter Center and thus brings an inside perspective to this work on how community partnership centers function. A second influence is the Anchor Institutions Task Force, a group created in December 2008 to advise incoming U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan on how the federal government might leverage the intellectual and economic resources of universities to better conditions in low-income communities. Both authors participated in the Task Force and in writing its report. We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Ira Harkavy and the two-dozen original members of the Task Force. Ted Howard, Executive Director of The Democracy Collaborative, has played a key role in framing the Democracy Collaborative’s research. Financial support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Kendeda