Community College Research Research Articles

It’s Symbiotic: Exploring the Facilitators and Outcomes of a Successful Community-University Research Partnership

This study examines a community–university partnership formed as part of a funded research project. Using case study methodologies, the authors explored the characteristics and facilitators of a community–university partnership from the perspective of community partners. Partners participated in semi-structured interviews about their perceptions of the nature of the partnership, and historical documents and partnership archives were analyzed. Results indicate that the success of the partnership has been most facilitated by the creation of shared space, and by the strategic alignment of goals and roles within that space. These findings provide guidance to scholars and community research teams in developing community–university partnerships. Future research should test the utility of the constructs presented here for improving partnerships across other types of organizations and communities and utilize cross-case comparisons to account for the central role of context.

Negotiating tensions in a community engaged and intersectionality-informed political science course

ABSTRACTThere is growing pressure on Canadian universities to demonstrate their applicability and relevance in contemporary society. Community engaged learning opportunities can respond to this pressure, and can provide important benefits for both students and community partners with whom students work. In this paper, I draw on my experiences of teaching an undergraduate and graduate community engaged political science course over the last four years, to reflect on three particular tensions I have negotiated in the course’s design and delivery, including: (a) teaching about socially engaged research and/or teaching about theories of citizen participation; (b) balancing student learning and community benefit; and (c) negotiating the rigidity of academic institutions. I explore these tensions while thinking about my concurrent commitment to an intersectional political science pedagogy [Rasmussen, Amy Cabrera. 2014. “Reflection: Toward an Intersectional Political Science Pedagogy.” Journal of Political Science Education 10: 102–116], and by drawing on Bivens, Haffenden and Hall’s [2015. “Knowledge, Higher Education, and the Institutionalization of Community-University Research Partnerships.” In Strengthening Community University Research Partnerships: Global Perspectives, edited by Budd Hall, Rajesh Tandon, and Crystal Tremblay, 5–30. Victoria: University of Victoria] proposed framework for institutionalizing community-university partnerships in post-secondary institutions, and feedback from students and partners. Ultimately, I suggest that community-engaged courses, despite the noted tensions, offer important and un-realized potential to political science curricula.

Hall, B.; Tandon, R. i Tremblay, C. (Eds.), (2015). Strengthening Community University Research Partnerships: Global Perspectives Victoria, BC: University of Victoria. 306 pp.

Hall, B.; Tandon, R. i Tremblay, C. (Eds.), (2015). Strengthening Community University Research Partnerships: Global Perspectives Victoria, BC: University of Victoria. 306 pp.

Hall, B.; Tandon, R. i Tremblay, C. (Eds.), (2015). Strengthening Community University Research Partnerships: Global Perspectives Victoria, BC: University of Victoria. 306 pp.

Hall, B.; Tandon, R. i Tremblay, C. (Eds.), (2015). Strengthening Community University Research Partnerships: Global Perspectives Victoria, BC: University of Victoria. 306 pp.

De “myth” ifying Mental Health – Findings from a Community University Research Alliance (CURA)

Many myths exist regarding mental illness and those with mental health issues. Under the auspices of a Community-University Research Alliance on Housing and Mental Health, a partnership between academics, community health and social service agencies and representatives of consumer-survivor groups, fourteen consumer-survivor and eight family member focus groups were held throughout Southwestern Ontario. Individual interviews were also conducted with 150 male and 150 female community-based mental health system consumer-survivors living in a variety of housing environments in London, Ontario. The findings dispute beliefs around four myths: that people with mental health problems are a homogenous population, which was highlighted by significant differences between men and women in frequency and length of psychiatric hospitalizations, primary diagnosis, problem severity, psychoactive drug use and sexual abuse, are unemployed because they are uneducated, are violent and dangerous and thus spend extended periods of time incarcerated and are unsupported by their families which then leads to housing problems. Challenging these and other equally erroneous myths is essential in responding to the oppression faced by mental-health consumer-survivors and in developing a national strategy for mental health.

Combining feminist intersectional and community-engaged research commitments: Adaptations for scoping reviews and secondary analyses of national data sets

As Hankivsky & Cormier (2011) and Denis (2008) note, the theoretical evolution of intersectionality has outpaced its methodological development. While past work has contributed to our understanding of how to apply intersectionality in research (CRIAW-ICREF & DAWN-RAFH 2014; Morris & Bunjan 2007; Simpson 2009), gaps persist. Drawing on a four-year community-university research collaboration called ‘Changing public services: Women and intersectional analysis’, we explore the incorporation of feminist intersectional and community-engaged research commitments into secondary data analyses, specifically a scoping review and secondary analyses of two Statistics Canada data sets. We discuss our application of these commitments across all stages of designing and undertaking these analyses, in particular drawing into focus the importance of dialogue and deliberation throughout our process. Our application of feminist intersectional and community-engaged commitments – including prioritising community benefit and practising self-reflexivity – revealed gaps and silences in the data, in turn improving our understanding of differences in people’s experiences, our critiques of policies and our identification of new research questions. The lessons learned, we conclude, are valuable for scholars, whether or not community engagement is central to their scholarly commitment.
 Keywordsfeminist intersectionality, community-engaged research, scoping review, logistic regression, community-university partnerships, Canadian public services

Serving the People in Long Beach, California: Advancing Justice for Southeast Asian Youth through Community University Research Partnerships

Khmer Girl’s in Action is a nonprofit that successfully utilizes community-based participatory research (CBPR) with university partners to create social change for youth in Long Beach, CA. Based on semi-structured interviews and content analysis of news articles, I explore the impact and sustainability of this research work and the research partnerships. Findings highlight impacts such as youth empowerment, heightened awareness around community needs, policy change, and CBPR curriculum improvements in the field as impacts. Sustainability requires integrating research into program funding, utilizing a tailored training curriculum, building on community members prior relationships, and selecting partners that share common goals, levels of commitment, and flexibility. As funders demand more data to justify community needs, understanding more examples of such work in the Asian American community will be useful for informing future partnerships.

Studying the Human Health and Ecological Impacts of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Disaster (Part 2): Introduction to This Special Issue of New Solutions.

This introduction to the special issue continues an examination of the Gulf Coast Health Alliance: Health Risks Related to the Macondo Spill (GC-HARMS) project that began in New Solutions 28:3. GC-HARMS was part of a National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences-funded Gulf-wide consortium that created regional community-university research partnerships addressing health impacts from the oil spill exposures. Findings from this program enhanced regional preparedness and reinforced existing disaster-response networks. This special issue of New Solutions includes an article exploring the outcomes and implications of using a community-based participatory research-citizen science approach in implementing the project's exposure assessment/population health study and another article that describes analytic processes used to characterize toxicity of petrogenic Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons which provided data used to develop the project's risk message. Finally, this issue includes three Movement Voices interviews from individuals and nonprofits that served as GC-HARMS community hubs during the project.

California Gold Country’s Digital Heritage: Innovations in Community Engaged Research and Training

This article presents the results of the Historic Coulterville Digital Preservation Project, an important digital humanities research collaboration which started in the Fall 2015 between the University of California Merced Resource Center for Community Engaged Scholarship, the John Muir Geotourism Center, the Northern Mariposa County History Center, and faculty and graduate students of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Graduate Program at UC Merced. Dictated by the needs and goals of the community members of the gold rush town of Coulterville, in the Sierra Foothills of California, who are invested in the preservation of their cultural heritage, the project focused on digital historic preservation in four areas of focus: i) the archives and photographs at the Northern Mariposa County History Center, ii) the Coulterville cemeteries, iii) oral histories of Coulterville, and iv) the digital documentation of Coulterville Main Street Historic District. Combined, these four areas of focus presented a breadth of subject matter through which to test various digital preservation methods in a real-world scenario as well as provided both the students and the community members the opportunity to study subjects in greater depth that were of mutual interest. The project provides an example of the potential for community-university research collaborations to benefit local communities while also providing training and networking opportunities for students, and new scholarship case studies for the scholars.

Studying the Human Health and Ecological Impacts of the Deep Water Horizon Oil Spill Disaster: Introduction to This Special Issue of New Solutions.

Gulf Coast Health Alliance: Health Risks Related to the Macondo Spill (GC-HARMS) began in 2011 as a component project of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences' (NIEHS) Deep Water Horizon (DWH) Research Consortia program. This Gulf-wide consortium created regional community-university research partnerships focused on addressing health impacts resulting from oil spill exposures. Findings from this trans-National Institutes of Health program have helped enhance and refine community disaster preparedness and reinforced local-regional disaster response networks. Focal points of individual projects included the following: effects of multiple stressors on individuals and vulnerable populations, exposure to contaminants associated with crude oil, and mental health impacts. This introduction to New Solutions Special Issue on the GC-HARMS response to the DWH disaster presents an overview of the project's internal structure and relationship to the comprehensive NIEHS consortia response and lists articles and interviews featured currently with brief mention of additional articles slated for the next issue.

The Think&EatGreen@School Small Grants Initiative: How the Distribution of Resources Supported the Project’s Community of Learners and Contributed to Community Engaged Scholarship

This paper describes how a Small Grants initiative evolved to support the aims of a large, multi-sector community-university research project. It explores how the giving of small amounts of project funding to community groups enabled a deepening of community engaged scholarship across a large community-university research alliance. We present the Think&EatGreen@School Small Grants initiative as a case study on how the distribution of small amounts of funding can encourage the role of community voices in research, create opportunities for resource and knowledge sharing, generate rich information and valuable data, support and contribute to networks of support and resource sharing, and articulate the interests of a broad diversity of stakeholders.

Doing Indigenous Community-University Research Partnerships: A Cautionary Tale

With the intention of generating critical discussion, in this paper the authors examine the complexities of doing decolonizing research within colonial institutions. Drawing on their experiences as co-investigators on a large scale partnership grant involving Indigenous and non-Indigenous partners doing community-based research in Indigenous communities, they tell a cautionary tale about confronting and working through the challenges. Specifically addressing communication, decision-making, internalized colonialism and research relationships, the authors conclude that while these kinds of partnership grants involve struggle, in the end the effort is necessary.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL HERITAGE AS A CATALYST FOR PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT, RURAL REJUVENATION, AND RETHINKING OUR SHARED PAST: PERSPECTIVES FROM A QUARTER CENTURY OF COMMUNITY ARCHAEOLOGY IN NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR

A pesquisa arqueológica na província mais oriental do Canadá se beneficiou de uma longa e expansível história de parcerias com as comunidades. Tal deve-se, em parte, ao mandato excepcional da Memorial University, assim como ao engajamento forte do departamento de arqueologia em trabalhar com indivíduos e organizações locais durante escavações. A partir de três casos de estudos da província de Terra Nova e Labrador, este artigo revela as motivações, as experiências, os desafios, como os resultados que podem surgir das parcerias comunidade-universidade, e atesta do potencial da arqueologia em contribuir localmente de forma vantajosamente.

Participatory Research for Scientific, Educational, and Community Benefits: A Case Study from Brooklyn Community Gardens

Supporting community food production is a key strategy for all the community-based partners in Food Dignity, a community-university research partnership dedicated to supporting and learning from food justice organizations. Participatory action research (PAR) may develop knowledge and skills for sustainable agriculture, thus building gardeners’ capacities to refine, implement, and share locally appropriate, sustainable food production practices. However, little research has explored the possibilities and challenges of PAR with urban gardeners. In the context of Food Dignity, I examine those possibilities in a case study of a PAR project on cover crops with gar­deners in Brooklyn, New York, USA. I address two questions: (1) How can PAR be designed in an urban community gardening context to achieve positive outcomes for science, education, and communities? and (2) What are the challenges, and how might facilitators address them? Several practices contributed to positive outcomes in our project. First, engaging gardeners in cover crop monitoring strengthened their knowledge of ecological processes (e.g., nitrogen fixation) and adaptive management skills (e.g., systematic observation). Second, facilitating oppor­tunities for participants to share their knowledge (e.g., field days) supported leadership development. Third, sustained, in-person support enabled gar­deners to implement cover cropping practices with benefits for crop production and environmental quality. Key challenges included addressing community-defined priorities within the constraints of a dissertation project and providing sufficient one-on-one research and education support with limited funding for community-based partners. Despite its challenges, PAR in urban gardening contexts may develop knowledge and skills that support improved stewardship practices and com­munity capacities. Implications for inspiring and sustaining more community-university research partnerships include strengthening institutional support for PAR at colleges and universities, funding community researcher/educator positions, and providing professional development for community and academic PAR partners.

A success/failure paradox: reflection on a university-community engagement in Australia

ABSTRACTThere has been an increasing interest within the academic literature on the role played by Higher Education Institutions in the social and economic development of their communities. The Australia Government has recently released its National Science and Innovation Agenda (NISA) which is designed to incentivise university-community research partnerships. In this article, the identified lack of Australian university-community engagement will be problematised through the experience of academics who undertook such an engagement in a regional university setting. A completed research project is used as a lens through which institutional factors impacting on collaborative projects between universities and their communities are identified. The difficulties of university-community engagement are unpacked and problematised so that the various forces contributing to the shortage of university-community partnerships can be better identified and understood. The unitary manner in which university-community research is to be reported under NISA is highlighted as a key barrier to regional research partnerships.

Chinese EFL academics’ perceptions of research quality: a phenomenological study

This paper explores how Chinese academics, working in the field of English as Foreign Language Education in universities in China, conceptualise research quality. The paper uses a phenomenological approach and four qualitative methods (survey, interview, focus groups and document analysis) to investigate what a sample of these scholars perceive as high-quality research. We found that the participants viewed quality through various lenses and identified several different criteria. We categorised their elaboration of the criteria under three headings: methodology, contextualisation and impact. The participants nominated many general criteria that were similar to western standards of research quality, especially in relation to methodology; however, some contextual criteria were specific to the Chinese context. The paper indicates that there is much in the university research community that could be altered to enable people who are directly involved in research to disseminate their criteria for research quality, and potentially to affect and develop the quality of educational research in the Chinese context, and/or elsewhere.

Adaptation Decision Support: An Application of System Dynamics Modeling in Coastal Communities

This research develops and applies a system dynamics (SD) model for the strategic evaluation of environmental adaptation options for coastal communities. The article defines and estimates asset-based measures for community vulnerability, resilience, and adaptive capacity with respect to the environmental, economic, social, and cultural pillars of the coastal community under threat. The SD model simulates the annual multidimensional dynamic impacts of severe coastal storms and storm surges on the community pillars under alternative adaptation strategies. The calculation of the quantitative measures provides valuable information for decision makers for evaluating the alternative strategies. The adaptation strategies are designed model results illustrated for the specific context of the coastal community of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. The dynamic trend of the measures and model sensitivity analyses for Charlottetown—facing increased frequency of severe storms, storm surges, and sea-level rise—provide impetus for enhanced community strategic planning for the changing coastal environment. This research is presented as part of the International Community-University Research Alliance C-Change project “Managing Adaptation to Environmental Change in Coastal Communities: Canada and the Caribbean” sponsored by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the International Development Resource Centre.

Measuring Community and University Impacts of Critical Civic Geography: Insights from Chicago

Geographers have increasingly adopted community-based learning and research into their teaching and scholarly activities since Bunge and Harvey called for an applied public geography that is both useful and challenges societal inequalities. With few exceptions, however, there has been little discussion of methods for measuring this work. Many published assessments focus on the impacts of projects on students but overlook the impacts on community partners. Impacts on faculty and the larger university community are also often ignored. This article discusses literature on the evaluation of community–university research and service learning from a critical perspective. A discussion of service learning and community-based research (CBR) projects at two Chicago universities, DePaul and Chicago State, is presented. In both cases challenges were encountered to achieve full evaluation of projects, yet both included an evaluation of university and community partners that allowed for assessment of the projects’ value to all partners.

Supporting self-organised community research through informal learning

The processes by which community-members help to shape local agendas can vary from highly-formalised procedures to very informal learning and sharing activities that engage multiple stakeholders in conversations to construct a better understanding of issues and concerns of community members. Community partners sometimes want to work with universities to build university-community research partnerships to support these activities. This paper looks at two such cases and the framework of ideas that we have used to steer and theorise our participatory research approach. This approach uses informal learning combined with a belief in the value and potential of self-organising processes in community research. The result is a contribution to Community OR that develops long-term engagements rather than brief interventions and produces ongoing constructed conversations with community members to help articulate and share knowledge about social experiences and expectations. The paper emphasises the need for Community OR researchers to focus not only on the technologies they are producing but also on the processes they create to support the development of the communities they are working with. We present a framework that uses a combination of self-organisation and informal learning theories to support the analysis and development of this process approach.

Generating prosperity, creating crisis: impacts of resource development on diverse groups in northern communities

AbstractNorthern Canada illustrates the contradictory dynamics in resource development – at once generating prosperity and inclusion within some communities and for some people, and creating or perpetuating crisis in some communities and exclusion for some people. Existing literature related to resource extraction and development focuses on the impacts on the environment and government regulatory mechanisms. Few authors or policy makers pay attention to how multiple and diverse groups within communities are affected by resource development. Building from research in a community-university research alliance, the authors argue that these competing dynamics are initiated and sustained through resource development projects and have disproportionate effects on historically marginalized groups within northern communities. This article presents the results of a comprehensive scoping review of the literature related to the social and economic impacts of resource extraction in Northern Canada. Some of the impacts of resource extraction clearly generate prosperity, while others can move communities towards crises and some do both. Using intersectionality, we argue that policy makers, especially those responsible for community development and regulating resource development projects, require a multilayered analysis to understand and redress the unequal effects of resource development on northern communities.