Community-University Partnerships as Vehicles of Radical Leadership, Service, and Activism

• In Event: Reimagining Family, School, and Community Partnerships as an Educational Change Strategy in the United States, Canada, and England

Abstract

Objectives and Perspective

Based on developing studies of a community empowerment agency and dynamics of urban development and education in the Hazelwood area of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, this paper suggests that partnerships between universities and communities are perfect vehicles for envisioning an engaged scholarship rooted in neighborhoods and communities. This engaged scholarship, one that incorporates notions of radicalism and activism in the spirit of service and leadership, is demonstrated through a partnership between a university in Pittsburgh and a neighboring community.

Theoretical Framework

The paper uses theoretical frameworks related to ecologies of place and organizational embeddedness (Smalls, 2009) to situate how one organization is able to serve as key broker and conduit to social and economic opportunities in ways that promote change for the neighborhood and beyond.

Methods and Findings

Drawing on program and fieldwork data, census, and related neighborhood studies and reports, the paper illustrates preliminarily how old and young community members of Hazelwood make sense of the networks, opportunities, and larger ecologies available to them in a resurging and revitalizing urban social and educational life.

Authors

• Rodney K. Hopson, George Mason University

• Peter Michael Miller, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Temple Sharese Lovelace, Duquesne University