December (November 18-December 17, 2000)

Name _______Danika M. Brown________________________________
 
 

Period Covered by Invoice: from _11/18/00_____________ to ___12/17/00_____________

Day of Number of Hours Day of Number of Hours

Month Worked on Fellowship Month Worked on Fellowship
 

18	8	3
19		4	10
20	8	5	8
21	8	6	10
22	8	7	8
23		8	8
24	6	9
25	8	10	8
26		11	8
27	8	12	10
28	8	13	8
29	8	14	8
30	8	15	8
		16
1	8	17
2	4

Total of Hours Worked on Fellowship During Invoice Period __________184_________

Signature & Certification __________________________________________ _____________ (date)
 
 

This past month has been a highly productive and important part of the process for developing my methodology because I implemented the first two of the workshop sessions for the pilot of the project. In doing so, I was able to see what types of projects develop from this methodology, what assumptions I had which needed analysis, and how effective this approach is to developing service learning and community-academic collaborative projects.

Goals for November/December:

• Review and assess goals and objectives to ensure the project is on target
• Hold first workshops and revise as necessary
• Establish and facilitate requisite numbers of projects to pilot in spring
• Contribute to the development of the final product (begin designing site and generating text for methodology resource)

In order to meet the above goals for the month, I:

1. Compared my "desired results" for number of participants with current participation in the pilot project
2. Compared my expectations of how the methodology would work with results to this point
3. Held the initial workshop and revised the plan for the second
4. Distributed summaries and materials to participants
5. Held the second workshop
6. Contacted additional participants
7. Reflected on the revisions I made and critiqued those
8. Wrote a position statement that incorporates and articulates my approach to this methodology and community-academic partnerships in general
9. Put together the local pilot project web site, including additional resources and readings

Desired Results and Actual Results

In my Goals and Objectives worksheet, I indicated my measures of success for the pilot project would include four organizations and four to six instructors. I also indicated that by this point, I would have written and distributed a summary of the organizations and individuals participating that reflected their needs and goals for participation. Currently, I have around twenty-five people involved directly in the project. Those individuals break down the following ways: 11 Organizations; 10 Instructors; 3 Graduate Student Researchers; and 2 Administrative representatives working from programs that connect the university and community. These numbers exceed my initial expectations, although I will concentrate on actively developing and profiling about four partnerships for the final product. The collaborative opportunities and projects that are developing in the workshop reflect a good deal of diversity in what types of partnerships can happen through this methodology--from various approaches to service learning and curricula development to specific research projects conducted between academics and community organizations, and including a more informal level of networking and solidarity building.

To facilitate the connections, I disseminated a list of "biographies" identifying projects, interests, and contact information (http://www.u.arizona.edu/~danika/participants.htm). Additionally, I am developing a page of "local projects" and resources that develops each of the community projects in more detail (http://www.u.arizona.edu/~danika/localresources.html). The way these pages will work is that the link to a specific project will take the reader to a page describing the issue and current activities and listing contact information for community and university people working on the issue. In addition, I am developing lists of associated resources to pair with the project. So, for example, the first project listed is "Pan Left Productions." The page for Pan Left will have a brief description of the documentary video work they do and contact information. Then there are a list of readings on documentary work an instructor might include in a course that incorporated Pan Left as a partnership. Additionally, there are links to sample syllabi and assignment sheets for utilizing this type of curricula. As I build these pages, I am also asking for contributions to them, and will create a web form that allows people to contribute directly to the page.

The work that I am doing on this local site serves to build a local resource and a model for the larger methodology. It also allows me to further understand the methodology process. For example, it has been essential in the process to run these resources past the participants in order to make them aware that they are available, in order to have them contribute the necessary information, and to ensure that I am building useful resources. The participants have responded in a very positive fashion and have been utilizing the site for their projects.

Another goal for this time period was to begin writing up the methodology. I have been doing that work consistently throughout the process, but that has also occurred organically as I create the web and print-based resource for the participants. This has proven extremely useful for my visualizing the methodology as a whole and for generating materials to incorporate into my final write up. For example, for the second workshop (which I discuss a bit more below), the group determined that they would like to discuss "issues" in doing community-academic partnerships. For that workshop, I generated a document that serves as a sort of position paper and what I believe to be "best practices" guidelines and questions for doing this work (http://www.u.arizona.edu/~danika/issueframing.htm). Having written this out for use in the workshop, I now have a document to revise for an article and for developing the background materials for the final product.

Curriculum Development Workshop Component

I have now conducted two of the six workshop sessions. The first session was designed to introduce all the participants to each other and to the overriding concept of the project. I provided every participant with a workbook (or with the online version if they preferred). In the workbook, I included background on the project, a list of participants' contact information, worksheets, an evaluation form, and readings. The workbook is to be developed and built upon throughout the process. The worksheets were designed to encourage people not simply to come and meet other people working in the community, but to have to brainstorm ideas and generate a list of possible partners to contact (http://www.u.arizona.edu/~danika/ideaws.htm). The evaluation form is designed to get participants to provide me with feedback on the process so I can modify and understand the methodology better, but it is also designed to encourage participants to think about their own participation and what they are getting out of this kind of work. That is the approach I will take to further development of those forms as well. The readings in the packet are to give theoretical and informational materials within my own goals of having people approach this type of work from a particular framework and to think about the implications of what they are doing and ways to work in partnership with the community more effectively. The participants were very responsive to the workbook and I believe it is a necessary part of facilitating this work.

The second session was to be very much a workshop format--I had envisioned people coming with their partnership ideas and getting together with those possible partners to work out actual project details. However, the consensus at the first session was that individuals would do that contact work on their own time and they preferred to devote the second workshop to talking about the "issues" that come up in community-academic partnerships. For example, one community member indicated that often when someone from the university came into the community, s/he would be treated as if they knew everything and that often altered the way relationships worked out or even how the work was conducted. In as much as those "issues" are of the utmost concern for me and are the very reason I am developing this methodology, I agreed to devote most of the second session to this type of discussion.

Because I wanted the discussion to be generated by the participants and to cover issues relevant to them, and because I wanted the participants to be responsible for generating their own guidelines for these partnerships (largely because I believe those guidelines are unique to individual projects and relationships according to goals, expertise, desired outcomes, etc.), I decided to provide the participants with my views as a paper for after the workshop, rather than to give them that information in the workshop. The discussion was extremely fruitful and many issues and assumptions were discussed. For example, one community leader talked about a recent project where instructors had assigned students to develop a project for and with the community organization about an issue. The community leader said that two groups of students worked directly with her and talked to her about what would be useful. They turned in very useful projects for the organization to use. However, five other groups of students never talked with her at all and turned in projects that were not relevant, expected, or useful. She did not know if the instructor was aware of that situation, and it was clear she had not worked directly with the instructors (there were actually three classes doing this particular project) thoughout the process. This example facilitated a lengthy discussion about what type of service learning work might be appropriate for various types of students and courses, and the discussion brought up the major point that instructors need to collaborate directly with the community organizations they are working with for effective partnerships--and that, of course, is the foundation for this entire methodology! I distributed the next worksheet which asks participants to reflect on their particular projects in terms of the issues we raised and to work though those issues in developing their work (http://www.u.arizona.edu/~danika/issuesws.htm).

At the second session, individuals gave updates on their partnership projects and contacts. While some of the participants had been in contact with potential partners, several of the instructors were still developing their ideas and had not really been actively in contact. From this situation, I realized that a better revision of the second workshop might have been to go with the original workshop session plan for half the session and only devote another half to the "issues" discussion. I will make that modification for the final methodology. The participants talked about ways to concretize their projects and verified the contacts they will be making. I have requested evaluations of the process and for every participant to send me a brief description of the projects they are working on. For one participant, I requested a formal proposal to serve as a model for others to utilize and for my final methodology. He wrote a thoughtful proposal that clearly demonstrates the effectiveness of articulating the goals of my methodology and how his course will be developed from those goals. His work and his participation at the second session also demonstrated to me that it is possible to "train" others to facilitate this process, making it clearly a portable methodology.

The third session will be designed around evaluation and assessment issues. I am currently developing those materials. I am pleased with the methodology thus far and am looking forward to being able to "profile" the local work that is being done to demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach.

Promotion and Support

In my ongoing effort to promote the methodology and set up an infrastructure for this project, I have done the following:

• Requested participants for my panel at the spring conference
• Submitted a proposal for the NCSC conference (attached)
• Signed on to facilitate a session on service learning for the Southwest Project in February
• Worked with Eric Switzer in order to be nominated for a Ford Foundation "Leadership for Change" grant in order to develop a center which implements this methodology on a larger sustained scale

• Complete the local resources and projects materials online
• Write up the initial materials for the final product
• Design the materials for the third assessment session
• Formalize assessment instruments for the pilot project in general
• Facilitate project partnerships for instructors and organizations that have less concrete plans at this point

Developing the local pilot project utilizing this methodology and revising the methodology according to my research and interactions with the participants carrying out this work has proven to be an extremely valuable process for me. I believe that I understand the constraints and assumptions that cause breakdowns in community-academic partnerships more clearly and have confirmed the necessity of the kind of facilitation that I have been working on here. Additionally, this process has been valuable for the local community. I have succeeded in bringing a significant number of people together for the first time and there is a genuine spirit of collaboration and networking going on. Even the people who are not directly participating in the process are benefitting from informal contacts, information and resources, and talking through their approaches to similar or related work in the field. Academics and community organizers alike have sat down with me and each other to discuss our approaches to this work, the inadequacies and implications of certain structures, and alternatives to those structures. I feel like I am facilitating, not only specific partnerships, but a certain level of awareness and collaboration in general that is important in many ways.

I have also realized through this process that this is, in fact, the work I want to be doing. The timing of this opportunity has been incredibly fortunate for me. I am in the final stages of my graduate work and will have to determine how I want to proceed professionally in the next year. I have been ambivalent about going into the professoriate, feeling like that decision might limit my work in certain ways to the academy. This opportunity has enabled me to investigate the ways I could work with my academic experience in the community in an alternative setting, in a center or program that facilitates the connection between interdisciplinary academic work and community organizing and needs. I have seen my abilities in this area and see my individual strengths with this work. For example, I see connections between community issues and course curricula and am able to articulate that for instructors and community members in a clear fashion. I have a good sense of vision in that regard and see things that instructors don't immediately think of. I am also good at talking to community members and assessing quickly ways that they can benefit from and talk to university contacts. Additionally, I am adept at creating resources to facilitate partnerships around issues. And, most importantly to me, I am able to do more than simply make partnerships happen, but I am able to bring a critical perspective to the process and to ask all participants to think about the ethical and structural implications of the work they are doing.

I enjoy the work I put into developing and implementing this methodology immensely. I feel very invested in the project and hope that my investment is reflected in a final product that is useful in diverse settings to achieve better relationships between community work and academics. I feel very positive about playing a role in thinking through the big issues of the role of the university in supporting and collaborating with their communities.