In Service to Children and Youth: Foreword to the Special Issue

Abstract

In Service to Children and Youth:Foreword to the Special Issue Irvin D. Reid I am pleased to introduce this special issue of the Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, which brings together research and reflections on urban children's health, development, and education presented at Wayne State University's first national biennial conference on children, "Promoting the Well-Being of Children and Youth in Urban America." The conference, held on our campus in April 2004, brought together researchers, policy makers, representatives of funding organizations, and providers of direct services to children in urban environments. Together they explored issues affecting children's well-being, especially in metropolitan Detroit, and began to set an agenda for examining the needs of children in our cities and identifying critical areas for research and study. Among the topics discussed were prevention and risk reduction, violence/abuse and trauma, literacy and school readiness, obesity and health, and intergenerational involvement in children's development. The public perception is largely that universities are places to which people—primarily young people—go to receive an education. And Wayne State University takes pride in serving a diverse cross section of the Detroit metropolitan area's substantial population with undergraduate, graduate, certificate, and professional degrees. More and more, however, universities are equally known by the information and expertise that flow outward from the campus into the community through cultural enrichment, through partnerships with local governments and businesses, and through research that has immediate application to the needs of people in their everyday lives. [End Page 171] Thus our reason for existing is more than education, and more than research, although both are of great significance to who we are and what we accomplish for those who depend on us. A great university also has a service mission, a vocation to reach beyond our campus in ways that improve the general quality of life. This is especially true for urban universities, because without exception our cities need the expertise, energy, and guidance we can provide. At Wayne State University, engagement with the Detroit metropolitan area is fundamental to our mission; we regard this active involvement as simple good citizenship, and we welcome the opportunity to contribute as we can. A large, vigorous urban institution like Wayne State University contributes to its home city simply by its presence—through jobs, research dollars, the economic impact of its employees and students, and by educating a skilled workforce. Although honorable and noteworthy, these factors only partly fulfill a great university's responsibility to be an important, and indeed irreplaceable, part of its surroundings. Higher education is most effective and influential when it is intimately involved with the society it serves. We are not only in the city; we are a part of it. We seek to advance it economically and culturally for the benefit of its citizens, and we make its issues and problems our own. The university participates in the life of the city as a powerful and intelligent force for renewal and resolution. Public universities exist to serve everyone, but the urban public university, because of its location and social milieu, has a special responsibility to the underserved and neglected. This often means persons of low income, and it almost always means minorities. At Wayne State University we have a number of programs to help the fairly large at-risk population of students from our neighboring urban area, and we try always to enhance their effect on academic success and personal growth. We are primarily an educational institution whose intrinsic connection to this geographic area far transcends the classroom. We feel, and are moved by, a profound responsibility to use our expertise to serve vulnerable populations beyond our campus. Of all persons the urban university must serve, the most in need of our attention, and often the hardest to reach effectively, are children. But the importance of children to the future of the cities in which they live is almost beyond expression. What we are able to do—or not do—for them determines what the future of those cities will be. If we fail the children of our cities, our cities ultimately will fail, and urban universities will not be exempt from the consequences...