Community-University Engagement

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A resource guide of networks: Community-university engagement & partnerships community-based research participatory action research social responsibility in higher education
(UNESCO Chair, 2013-07) Taylor, Amanda
Action research in universities and higher education worldwide
(SAGE Publications, 2015) Boden, Rebecca; Greenwood, Davydd J; Hall, Budd L; Levin, Morten; Marshall, Judi; Wright, Susan
The Sage Encyclopedia of Action Research is a two-volume work of entries on action research, compiled by a team of editors and specialists in different areas of the field. Greenwood specializes in general action research, while Coughlan and Dick specialize in organization development. Brydon-Miller, Flicker and Hall work in community-based action research, and Friedman in organizational behaviour. Sankaran specializes in action research as a meta-methodology, Gaya in agency and activism, and Zhao in educational action research. Guhathakurta, Jaitli and Tandon specialize in participatory action research. The editors sought entries from 200 researchers. The topics are extensive and include biographies of well-respected action researchers, concepts, epistemologies, ethics, goals, methods, methodologies, organizations and movements, philosophical underpinnings, settings, skills, spirituality, theories and tools.
Background document for university - community engagement
(University of Victoria, 2007-09-15) Office of Community-Based Research (OCBR); Dragne, Cornelia
The report examined the ways universities coordinate their engagement efforts from the university's side, by examining academic reports and universities websites. Being a two-way relationship, the picture would have been complete if the community side would have been presenting its own account. However, due to the large number of different interactions with various community partners, even for a single university such picture is not feasible for this report to build. Academics engaged in community-based research and activities are people committed to the idea of engagement and its strong supporters. By reviewing accounts of existing institutional commitments, the report presents a view strongly supportive of the idea that allocating institutional resources to university-community engagement is the way to go. The report overlooks the epistemological debates surrounding engagement scholarship and community-based forms of research, as well as the concerns about the ethics of academic-community interaction. Another limitation stems from the fact that English language was used for all the searches.
Big Tent Communique VI. Local identities and global citizenship: A message from Catania and challenges for universities
(2015-11-04) Hall, Budd L
In a world facing growing inequality, conflict, and environmental strain, the Sixth Big Tent Communiqué reflects on what role universities can play in responding to these challenges. It sees higher education as more than classrooms and research, calling for closer ties with communities and a stronger sense of responsibility to society. The communiqué raises questions about how universities can support young people, create knowledge that connects rather than divides, and rebuild trust in uncertain times. Instead of final answers, it leaves open the possibility that the future of universities will depend on how far they are willing to rethink their purpose.
Bridging knowledge cultures: A guide for community practitioners and community organizations
(UNESCO Chair, 2024) Lepore, Walter; Hall, Budd L; Tandon, Rajesh
This guide by Walter Lepore, Budd Hall and Rajesh Tandon is about helping community practitioners and organisations build stronger research partnerships with universities. It draws on the larger Bridging Knowledge Cultures project, which studied ten K4C hubs across Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Colombia and Canada. The book explores partnerships in areas such as fishing communities, maternal health care, waste management, and early childhood education. Community knowledge is rooted in lived experience and oral tradition, while academic knowledge is typically validated through peer review and disciplinary standards, a gap that often leaves community knowledge undervalued within formal academic settings. It closes with practical recommendations for practitioners facilitating collaboration between communities and universities, pointing to trust, mutual respect, and the recognition of practices like storytelling as legitimate forms of knowledge
Building in dialogue between consumers and staff in acute mental health services
(Systemic Practice and Action Research, 1998) Wadsworth, Yoland; Epstein, Merinda
This paper describes some aspects of the methodology, material, and findings from a lengthy participatory action research engagement by a consumer organization in Australia, which was undertaken in collaboration with staff at a major public psychiatric hospital and then went on to involve "players" throughout the local state, and national mental health services system. A small first phase established a dialogic methodology for the exchange of experiences and thinking between staff and consumers. The purpose of the second phase of the research was to explore how consumers' voices might be heard, and how staff-consumer communication about that feedback, might be "built in" to ongoing organizational structure and culture. Systems thinking about defensive routines, silences, and voice-as-discourse is reported as offering a possible way of cracking the puzzle of the closed-loop cycle of claim/blame-defense-and-counter-claim/blame-defense that has been characteristic to date.
Call for Afro-centric theory and practice in community based research and engagement closing remarks to African regional conference on university-community partnerships in Dakar, March 25-26, 2011
(2011-03-26) Hall, Budd L
In these closing remarks to the African Regional Conference on University-Community Partnerships, held in Dakar in March 2011, Budd L. Dr. Hall argues that community-based research and engagement have African roots. He opens with a poem, “Creation Song”, and then recalls African thinkers and activists, including Senghor, Cissé, Kane, Diop, Nyerere and Cabral, whose work laid the ground for participatory research. Hall also points to the damage done to African higher education by World Bank policies and by the recruitment of African students into northern universities. He calls for universities in Africa that rest on African history, knowledge and languages, and for an Afro-centric theory and practice of community-based research and engagement.
Challenges in the co-construction of knowledge: A global study on strengthening structures for community university research partnerships
(0000) Hall, Budd L; Tandon, Rajesh; Tremblay, Crystal; Singh, Wafa
In this paper, Budd Hall, Rajesh Tandon, Crystal Tremblay and Wafa Singh present a global study on structures that support community-university research partnerships. The study draws on an international survey and national case studies from twelve countries, examining how universities institutionalise community engagement and where this engagement connects with actual research practice. The authors turn to the discourse of knowledge democracy, arguing that community-based research offers a way to address long-standing inequities in whose knowledge counts within the academy. Survey findings point to a gap between universities' stated commitment to co-constructing knowledge and the reality that very few research projects originate from communities themselves. The paper reviews facilitative structures across universities in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, India and elsewhere, and considers the role of national networks and policies in strengthening these partnerships. It closes with recommendations for national policy, higher education institutions, and community and civil society organisations.
Community engagement in higher education institutions: Status report 2015
(UNESCO Chair, 2015-04) Tandon, Rajesh; Singh, Wafa
Community-university engagement in a time of COVID-19
(2020) Tandon, Rajesh; Hall, Budd L
Dr Budd Hall and Dr Rajesh Tandon reflect on how COVID-19 is reshaping community-university engagement, collapsing the physical boundary between town and gown as students and academics work from home. The pandemic has exposed a stark digital divide, with universities in high-income countries far better placed to sustain online teaching than those in low-income countries. One familiar approach treats science and academic expertise as the sole authority in a crisis. Another approach is gaining ground through the pandemic instead, one that brings local knowledge, citizen science and community wisdom into direct partnership with formal research, so findings reach the public faster than conventional academic channels allow. The paper suggests this shift tests whether higher education is genuinely committed to its communities or only performing engagement. It closes with practical directions for the future, from redesigning curricula around field study to reviewing knowledge systems through an ecology of epistemologies.
Curriculum, higher education, and the public good
(2009) Hall, Budd L; Bhatt, Nandita; Lepore, Walter
Curriculum change in higher education is an extremely complex process. Influences on the content of what is taught in higher education include new knowledge coming from the various academic disciplines, from the regulatory bodies of many of the professions, from national calls for action, from global challenges, from social movements of the day. This chapter argues that in the search for excellence, engagement and social responsibility that there is no contradiction between responding to local calls for action and global matters. Illustrations of curriculum change which attend to both the local and the global include classroom changes, single university changes, system-wide changes in Canada, Asia, Latin America and New Zealand. We call for more attention to community engaged learning and the creation of central offices for community university engagement.
Everything old is new again: The importance of engagement to University-based Adult Education in Canada
(2010) Hall, Budd L
What place does engagement hold in the history and future of university-based adult education in Canada? In this paper, Dr. Budd L. Hall traces the historical roots and contemporary revival of engagement within Canadian adult and continuing education. Beginning with the British extramural tradition and early extension movements at institutions such as the University of Alberta, St. Francis Xavier, McGill and Toronto, he situates adult education as deeply embedded in community life and democratic practice. He reflects on the professionalisation of adult education in the 1960s and 70s, alongside the growth of academic research and national scholarly networks. Hall then examines the emergence of community–university engagement as a renewed and institutionalised force, highlighting initiatives such as the SSHRC Community University Research Alliance, Service aux Collectivités in Québec, and newer community-based research structures across Canadian universities. Drawing on historical analysis, institutional developments and diverse scholarship, he argues that engagement is not a new add-on but a return to foundational commitments. The paper encourages adult educators to reclaim and strengthen their role within this growing movement toward democratic, community-engaged higher education.
Fathering in the shadows: Indigenous fathers and Canada's colonial legacies
(Sage, 2009-07) Ball, Jessica
A study of Canadian Indigenous fathers' involvement conceptualized a temporal horizon within which to situate challenges and opportunities for caring for children following decades of colonial interventions that have diminished men's roles. Through five community-university partnerships, conversational interviews were held with eighty First Nations and Métis fathers in British Columbia, Canada. Using a grounded theory approach, a conceptual model was constructed identifying six key ecological and psychological factors that combine to account for Indigenous men's experiences of fatherhood: personal wellness, learning fathering, socioeconomic inclusion, social support, legislative and policy support, and cultural continuity. Indigenous fathers' accounts bring into focus systemic barriers to positive fathers' involvement, including socioeconomic exclusion due to failures of the educational system, ongoing colonization through Canada's Indian Act, and mother-centrism in parenting programs and child welfare practices. Policy and program reforms are suggested to increase Indigenous fathers' positive and sustained engagement with their children.
Gauging the impact of community university engagement initiatives in India
(ASEAN Journal of Community Engagement, 2017-07-02) Singh, Wafa
Today, the world we live in is challenged with the co-existence of ‘prosperity and poverty’. In India, in particular, although we are witnessing staggering increase in various economic indicators, our Human Development Indicators (HDIs) remain unenviable. It is in this context that Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have assumed profound importance as having the potential to offer sustainable solutions to such societal challenges. As a result, the practice of Community University Engagement (CUE) has gained prominence, as a phenomenon seeking a two-way discourse between the communities and the universities, in an attempt to produce ‘socially relevant knowledge’ which is inclusive and sustainable. Considering the importance and value of such an initiative, an attempt was made to tap such engagement practices between the HEIs and communities in India. In addition to plain documentation of such engagement, another highly crucial parameter in this regard is the measurement of the impact of such initiatives, on all the stakeholders involved in the process. However, academic literature related to this is still limited. In an attempt to fill this gap, the study at hand involved impact assessment of CUE activities as an important component. Using qualitative tools of impact assessment, this paper documents the empirical evidence of the impacts on various stakeholders, arising out of CUE activities, undertaken at various universities in India. The results generated through primary data, show that although it appears to be the case of binary stakeholders (Community and University), CUE envisages engagement, integration and cross linking among a number of sub-stakeholders, getting impacted in a multitude of ways. Students get an opportunity of experiential learning; while teachers can take up socially relevant research, as part of the curriculum. Communities benefit by way of empowerment and sustainable livelihoods, while universities get a chance to project themselves as ‘socially engaged’ institutions. Indirect and subsidiary stakeholders like Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and Government, respectively also take away several benefits from the process. Therefore, in essence, the paper makes the case of CUE by demonstrating the positive and mutually beneficial experienced enjoyed by the stakeholders involved in the process.
Global trends in support structures for community university research partnerships
(UNESCO Chair, 2014-09) Tremblay, Crystal; Hall, Budd L; Tandon, Rajesh
This report presents findings from a 2014 global survey on institutional structures behind Community University Research Partnerships (CURP), It was run under the UNESCO Chair in Community-Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education, with funding from IDRC. It draws on 336 responses from 53 countries, looking at how universities and civil society organisations set up and sustain partnership mechanisms, from centralised university centres to independent bodies like science shops. Institutionalisation looks patchy across the board. And there's a real gap between universities' talk of co-creating knowledge and what happens on the ground: community-originated research stays rare, and CSOs keep running into limited funding and little say in decisions. What respondents value most is trust and mutual respect, even as mismatched timelines and clashing institutional cultures keep getting in the way. Training and steady funding come up again and again in what people recommend going forward.
Guidelines for global review on training in community-based research (CBR)
(UNESCO Chair, 2014-04) UNESCO Chair
The UNESCO Chair in Community-based Research (CBR) and Social Responsibility in Higher Education is carrying out a global study on training practices for CBR in four thematic areas: asset-based development, indigenous research methodologies, participatory citizenship and water governance. Our overall goal is to increase access to high quality training in CBR within higher education institutions and civil society sectors with a particular focus on the Global South. A key part of this project consists of a global review of the following key elements: 1. relevant empirical and theoretical literature on training, teaching and learning CBR in global and local settings; 2. different pedagogies, strategies and materials for building CBR capacities (e.g., curricula, participatory video, photo voice, community theatre, community consultations, etc.) 3. best practices related to each thematic area and lessons learned in several pilot studies on training CBR; 4. current regional sources (e.g., CSOs, universities) for the training of new community-based researchers; 5. potential for collaboration amongst partners as a global CBR training network. This document presents a guide for conducting this global review on training, learning and teaching CBR. Section 1 introduces a literature review protocol for searching and extracting data from published studies and grey literature on training CBR. The following two sections describe some general guidelines to identify regional sources of CBR training and potential partners (Section 2) and to compile information and material currently used for training in community based research (Section 3).
Higher education, community engagement and the world we want: A policy brief to the world conference on higher education
(2009-06) Global Alliance on Community Engaged Research
At this critical time in human and sustainable development for the world, it is imperative that we harness the potential of community higher education partnerships to inform progress. There is a large aggregate trend to unite civil society and higher education institutions and networks in common efforts to co-create knowledge, mobilize it to inform practice and policy, and enhance the social, economic and environmental conditions of people, communities, nations and the world. However, these efforts are fragmented and face many unnecessary barriers. We therefore propose an Action Plan for University-Community Engagement for Societal Change and Development, one that unleashes the resources of higher education and government, in collaboration with civil society and its socio-economic development actors to create the sustainable world we want.
Higher education, community engagement, and the public good: Building the future of continuing education in Canada
(Canadian Journal of University Continuing Education, 2009) Hall, Budd L
This article is about the potential for university-community engagement to serve the public good by transforming the health and well-being of our communities. It documents contemporary expressions of and renewed calls for community university engagement. It includes a detailed treatment of community based research, discussed in the overall context of community-university engagement. The article also explores some other important and growing dimensions of community university engagement, including the development of structures for the support of community-based research and community-service learning. It concludes with an argument that university-community engagement, while not the only current trend in higher education that affects our work in continuing education, is nonetheless a very important new development in which continuing education has much to offer and much to gain.
Higher education, the politics of knowledge and the challenges of popular education and social movements
(1993) Hall, Budd L
Dr. Budd L. Hall reflects on the politics of knowledge in higher education, drawing on his own experiences across adult education, participatory research, and academic life. The paper departs from conventional academic arguments. It moves through personal narrative and engagement with other scholars to examine how universities continue to decide what counts as legitimate knowledge. Hall grounds these reflections in specific encounters from his career, particularly the 1991 Paulo Freire Birthday Conference in New York, where a question from a Latina community educator pushed him to rethink how universities relate to the communities they claim to serve. He traces participatory research back to challenges against positivist paradigms in adult education and international development research, noting that even as the field gains recognition inside universities, systems of tenure, promotion, and academic reward continue to favor individual scholarship over collaborative and community-rooted work. Eco-feminist, cultural-historical, and adult education voices, including Vandana Shiva, Mechtild Hart, and Edmund Sullivan, widen the critique further. Hall also points to community-based research centres, PRIA among them, and popular education networks across Latin America as spaces sustaining knowledge outside university walls, closing with a call to reinvent the academy in more democratic and non-extractive terms
Imagine/Learning: Thoughts from Two adult educators
(Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education, 2014) Hall, Budd L; Clover, Darlene E.
Does it matter where the academic home of the study of adult education is? In this paper we share our reflections on the implications of the institutional location of the discipline of adult education within universities in Canada and elsewhere. We speak of the historic tensions between the less structured and often transformational vision of adult education and the highly regulated learning contexts of schooling, and we suggest adult education theory and practice can be found in many other disciplinary clusters in all our universities. Wherever the formal study for adult education is located, its purpose is always to strengthen capacity for resistance and transformation.