Aligning Equity, Engagement, and Social Innovation in Anchor Initiatives

Esteban Del Rio,John Loggins

doi:10.18060/22377

Abstract

Drawing on cultural studies and the practice of engaged learning and scholarship, this paper proposes a cultural approach to institutional transformation, which we argue necessarily follows anchor partnerships. The authors advance a model of cohesion and alignment among equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), community engagement, and social entrepreneurship commitments at colleges and universities. This centers on the notion of “joining” as an epistemology and a methodology in community and campus-based work to achieve the anchor mission. In addition to advancing a theoretical model, the authors draw upon theory in practice at the University of San Diego, where the Center for Inclusion and Diversity, Mulvaney Center for Community, Awareness, and Social Action, and the Changemaker HUB aligned their efforts to approach student learning, community empowerment, and economic development through a cohesive lens.

Highlights

Colleges and universities excel at getting the separations right
We suggest that a target in undertaking a cultural approach to institutional transformation in anchor discussions has to do with a term we use in our work: joining
Any university entity can take up the cohesion model, yet it is best undertaken with community partners in the room, resulting from the practice of joining

Summary

Introduction

Colleges and universities excel at getting the separations right. Academic Affairs is not the same, nor does it feel the same, as Student Affairs. Community-centered ideas and languages emerge and gain momentum, potentially outpacing our compartmentalized campus cultures For this reason, anchor commitments may suffer the fate befallen many existing higher education diversity and inclusion initiatives: words outpacing action and symbols replacing embodiment and transformation. We offer a set of ideas—an approach, a practice, and a model—that strengthen the anchor mission by articulating connections between equity work, contemporary social movements, community engagement, and social entrepreneurship These areas represent the nexus of some of the most urgent challenges of our time. We focus on building a community of practice around the concept of “joining.” We proceed to offer a cohesion model to explore how to enact and embody change These ideas create an agenda for radically realizing the anchor mission through deep, transformative confrontation with habits and assumptions that limit the collective impact that universities and communities can achieve together. We confront the challenges and opportunities, perhaps in some contexts obscured by institutional inertia, through a cultural approach, a community of practice, and a working model of cohesion

A Cultural Approach to Institutional Transformation

Conclusion