Models of Community University Engagement that Benefit the Community

There is a great deal of literature that has shown benefits to students of community engagement, but few studies have looked at the benefits to the community, (Chapdelaine and Chapman, 1999, Hyde and Meyer, 2004, Strand, 2000, Hayes, 2006). We will discuss the preliminary results of a SSHRC funded project exploring the benefits to the community of engagement with universities and colleges. As part of a much larger project, we will look, specifically, at how a nationwide community organization, Vibrant Communities, is helped in its work to reduce poverty. The first step in this project was to identify models of community university engagement. These models vary from a model where universities and a poverty roundtable from Vibrant Communities have a loose affiliation and come together to work on specific projects to a model where there is a memorandum of understanding and on-going work initiated by the community organization. An on line survey was conducted of all members of Vibrant Communities across the country asking them, among other things, to describe any community university engagement activities that they engage in, how these relationships came about and how this engagement translated their goals of poverty reduction into action. The results of this survey and the models that have been generated will be discussed in the presentation. Secondly we will present some of the successful community university engagement projects that have occurred to date in the context of the model that they represent. These include a project to analyze the stereotypes that people have of individuals living in poverty and a community service learning project where students mentor high school students. We will share these examples as demonstrations of good practices of community-engaged scholarship