March 10, 2005
Council looks at UW ties with community
Editor’s Note: This is one of a series of columns by chairs of the Faculty Senate’s councils and committees. Sarena Seifer is chair of the Faculty Council on University Relations.
The Faculty Council on University Relations (FCUR) is responsible for “all matters of policy relating to University relations, including community affairs; government relations at the local, state, and federal levels; public service; University communications; and alumni relations.” For the past two years, we have been paying particular attention to community-University relationships and how these can be strengthened and supported at all levels.
The current controversy over the UW’s proposal to build a regional bio-containment laboratory has focused attention on the complex and ever-evolving relationships between the UW and neighborhoods and communities in Seattle, Washington State and the Northwest region. The UW’s mission statement says that “As an integral part of a large and diverse community, the University seeks broad representation of and encourages sustained participation in that community by its students, its faculty, and its staff.”
In the case of the regional lab, the UW failed its mission on at least two counts: by neither engaging its own University community nor the broader community in a dialogue about the need and value of such a lab from the moment the request for proposals was announced. For its part, the council has been helping to stimulate constructive dialogue and action around authentic, relationship-centered community-university partnerships in a number of ways.
About a year ago, we co-hosted Ira Harkavy’s visit to campus as a Walker-Ames Lecturer. Harkavy, associate vice president and founding director of the Center for Community Partnerships at the University of Pennsylvania, is an historian with extensive experience building university-community-school partnerships. In addition to delivering a major speech on “University-Community Partnerships and the Development of Democratic, Good Societies,” he met with many different groups of administrators, faculty, students and community partners to explore how to elevate support for community engagement and community-engaged scholarship across the UW.
His passion and vision helped to inspire the FCUR to learn more about the ways in which UW is engaged with communities and how they could be supported and strengthened. We have since consulted with units on campus that serve as resources for faculty, staff and student engagement with communities, including the Office of Community Partnerships, the Carlson Leadership and Public Service Center, and the Office of Regional Affairs. We have striven to widely publicize the Outstanding Public Service Award, which recognizes the contribution of faculty and staff to improving the quality of life locally, nationally or internationally through public service.
The nature and extent of community engagement across the UW — from community service to service learning to community-based research to K-12 education to technical assistance — is impressive. In some cases, these efforts are explicitly supported, and in other cases they are a struggle. Insufficient funding, skepticism of its academic value, assumptions about community needs and capacities, and antiquated promotion and tenure systems are among the challenges of fully realizing our potential as an engaged institution. The FCUR would like to help highlight these issues and address these challenges, and we welcome your comments and suggestions on how we might proceed.
