March (February 18-March 17, 2001)
Over the course of the past month, I have
turned my focus to looking at what the goals and outcomes of the methodology
(and pilot project) are primarily, especially in terms of what makes this
methodology unique. That is, I have identified the features of the methodology
that are most important to contributing to the field of service and higher
education's role in that field, and am determining ways to measure that
impact. I identified three major benefits and outcomes of the methodology
that I will focus all materials around, including assessment questions:
1. Contributing to and including higher
education in community coalition building
2. Expanded partnerships between a diversity
of community organizations and university members
3. Increased access to university resources
for community organizations and increased access to community resources
and knowledges for university sponsored work.
Based on clearly identifying these outcome goals as the foundations for the methodology, I have been able to rearticulate the distinguishing characteristics of the approaches I am working with, and to frame questions for assessment. I am considering these questions of assessment on two separate (though related) levels: in terms of the methodology as a method of building relationships that realize those objectives; in terms of the individual projects undertaken by this method in realizing those objectives.
It has become clear to me that the focus of my project is not assessment (as it is the focus of say the evaluative study projects that other fellows have undertaken), but I do very much need to build in assessment questions and strategies into the method itself. I realize now that an excellent strategy I should have thought of to begin with (but will definitely include in the methodology itself) would have been to have solicited as a service learning project an assessment of the product itself or at least of individual pilots in the project. I could have found a graduate student working in educational assessment or community based research assessment to conduct such a project and included it as an appendix as well as had it inform my own methodology.
Despite that missing component of the current rendition of the methodology, I am adapting materials from community-university partnership resources (such as Portland State's assessment strategies, resources from the Community Research Network, Comm-Org, and others) as methods of approaching these questions, and for the individuals participating in the pilot to consider.
Developing materials
As time draws near to have completed final product, I have turned a good deal of my attention to finalizing design and content questions as well as organizing and generating the materials to be included. In that regard, I have designed and created the cover page (which will also be the website "splash" page) for the product. The cover page required me to determine the major contents and organization for the rest of the product, which was useful.
I have been addressing questions of design and contents by carefully considering what the most important features of the method are (the three listed components above) as well as the various audiences that might utilize this resource. I have been considering the method from the following user perspectives:
In reviewing similar resources, I have gotten a good deal of understanding of what makes a product use-able and something someone might persistently draw on rather than just review and not return to. Organization and quick accessibilty, as well as built in flexibilty are important elements to consider. I am also considering ways to make this product (especially the web-based version) a tool that can be incorporated into related resource sites I am drawing on and from.
Research and Theory Development
As I review these other resources and have discussions, as well as garner feedback on my particular product, I am compiling those resources so that they become part of the method itself. Defining my three areas of focus in terms of outcomes very much contributed to my being able to think about what theoretical issues to front-load in the product, what articles and sites were most effective in contributing to those outcomes, and how to organize those resources to support the framework of the methodology. The theoretical support and development has now become an issue of desing and content in terms of how to construct the framework for the method within the product in order to emphasize, clarify, and promote this approach to this work.
Avenues for Sustainability and Dissemination
In terms of sustainability and dissemination, I have worked on several areas, both in terms of local pilot project, contributing to local program initiatives, networking nationally, and ensuring the product will be useful for CNS.
My "local" concern with the project includes redesigning the resources I have begun generating for local community organizations and instructors/researchers on community issues to support expanding possible partnerships as well as actually contributing the work on the issues themselves. Currently, I have resources that include readings, links, syllabi, and contact information for each issue represented in the initial workshops. The development of these resources are an important part of the methodology itself. Without the developed resources, the projects become isolated, individual curricular partnerships, but do not necessarily contribute to coalition building and historical understandings of the local issues or memory of what has been done to address them. In retrospect, I should have had the participants more actively involved in creating these issue resources. I attempted to impose as little as possible on the participants, and therefore, took on the responsibility of doing the resource pages/development. That's problematic for several reasons. First, it assumes that I myself have access to the issues or authority in terms of those issues that I don't necessarily have. Second, I realize how many issues and nuances on those issues I missed by simply identifying those issues based on my own immediate interests. Third, having the participants work on contributing to those resources would have invested them more in the resources themselves as well as given them the opportunity to reflect on the issues in a different fashion. I will include this observation/assessment in the methodology and indicate that ideally the participants themselves would create the resources and analyses of the issues. My role as facilitator should have been to collaborate with the whole group to create connections between the issues and apply a richer web of interconnections with and for them. I have begun the process of redesigning the local resources and have already asked several of the participants to undertake this with me.
Another way I have locally, institutionally, worked on promoting this product is in terms of the initiative underway at the University of Arizona to begin developing a campus-wide approach or at least conversation about service learning. The University of Arizona has not been a leader in service learning on the whole. Several departments have been active in isolation in working on very promising and interesting projects to promote community-based learning potentials, and Career Services has attempted to support those efforts in limited ways through a couple "mini-grants." One of those mini-grants has gone toward developing resources for faculty (which are fairly standard service learning web based resources, drawn from other institutions rather than drawing on and coordinating the efforts actually happening on campus). Another mini-grant went to the facilitation of a one-day "conference" on campus to discuss service learning. The grant paid for Edward Zlotkowski to come speak to faculty, administrators, and community organizers in a keynote. The rest of the conference was to be a series of focus panels resulting in a workshop style development of ideas for pursuing service learning.
As an indicator of some of the problems of the University of Arizona's approach to developing community-based learning, many of the people I have identified on campus as doing highly innovative work in this area were not invited to be presenters or were not consulted in the design of the conference (that would include me, despite many efforts to be in contact with the coordinator of the conference). The conference, although intended to be a community-university dialogue, only attracted one community member. The community organizations were invited by a letter, rather than by a more personalized approach--something that would have been addressed if more members of the university who currently work closely with those organizations had been solicited to actively work with coordinating this conference. The conference ultimately was geared toward fairly traditional understandings of service learning (something that almost always happens when the community being served isn't collaborating on those understandings) and was directed at "faculty" and administrators. Most of the work in these partnerships are developed not by traditional "faculty", but by graduate students, student organizations, and other groups in the university as well as community. I was able to offer my advice in that regard, but what was clear to me from the conference is that there is much I would be able to offer the university as it attempts to pursue the important work of community based learning.
In order to further my work in terms of both the local issue resources and in terms of contributing directly to the University of Arizona's efforts, I have set up meetings to discuss possibilities and will submit a proposal for consideration to Career Services. In addition, I have applied for summer funding from the University in order to work directly on those local resources and to tailor a version of my final product for the University.
Another way I have worked to get a broader element of feedback and dissemination of the product I am working on this month was by directly contacting Randy Stoecker, the moderator of Comm-Org (an online conference on Community-Based Research-- http://comm-org.utoledo.edu/). I outlined my project for Randy and gave him the web address. He responded with an entirely supportive email, offered me several additional resources to check out, and added the project website to the Comm-Org resources.
I also emailed Amy Cohen at CNS' Learn and Serve after our conference call conversation and requested that she send me the resources that she referred to during that call. I am waiting on her response.
A final related professional opportunity I pursued was to apply for a position at Portland State University's Community-Based Learning Program. I see this as an opportunity, not only as a possible position for me, but to share my work with the program because the principles of their program are aligned in many ways with the methodology of this project. Whether or not I actually am considered for this position, it was useful to look at my methodology in relation to a large program at an urban institution and in the application materials to articulate my methodology for that program's consideration. If I were to be successful in interviewing with the program, it would offer me the opportunity to learn more about how such a coordinated center for community-based learning enacts the principles of my methodology and to perhaps contribute some of my resources to that program through such a discussion. Of course, if I were to ultimately be selected and take that Director position, my fellowship project for CNS would have had everything to do with that success, and I would be putting that product into practice at a Learn and Serve grant funded site.
TO DO
The assessment piece I suggested I would add--having a service learning project on the project--was one of the suggestions made to me in Oakland by a fellow fellow, for example. That suggestion enabled me to think through an important component of this process and I appreciate having had that opportunity for feedback. My plan to approach the local resource pages a bit differently came directly out of my participating in a large conference on "collective action" this past month. As I listened to community members and academics alike talk about issues in terms of theory and practice and recognized ways to draw connections, I realized how much richer those resources would be if those working on the issues were to have participated in the development of resources and I could facilitate the more general task of weaving those issues together through resources and connections based on design and reviewing the materials each group had generated. I am reminded from these examples of not only the necessity, but the joy of collaborating with a variety of colleagues on the work I find so important and challenging.
In reviewing other programs in other communities and at other institutions, and in talking with community members (community in its most broad sense, including university instructors, students, community organizers, neighbors, etc) about issues in doing this work, I have also become highly attuned to the differences in communities. Tucson for example is different from San Diego--it is somewhat more geographically isolated, politically conservative (with implications for policy and the way the university is funded and run), has a fairly tight and identifiable group of community activists identifying common issues and working in solidarity, and the university is politically positioned such that certain types of community-based centers are not likely to exist on its campus in certain ways. In reflecting on the crucial uniqueness of communities, I have been considering this current methodology's generalizability, and what I realized that what is most important about this method's approach is precicely that it adapts itself directly to the uniqueness of the community in which it is enacted. By emphasizing bringing all parties to a common table, by placing the significance of the methodology on enacting partnerships within a broader workshop setting where all the work is shared and workshopped (rather than partnerships being conducted in relative isolation), and by emphasizing the recorded history and resource construction around the partnerships, the method is by definition responsive to the community in which it occurs. This responsiveness then makes the methodology highly portable for a diversity of settings, especially as I think through the various audiences and variations available within the method. That all, of course, makes me pleased with my own work.
I also must take a moment on what this opportunity--the fellowship with CNS--has meant for me professionally. Because I have been spending sustained amounts of time gathering and analyzing program resources, I was led to the position announcement for a director of Portland State University's program in Community-Based Learning. It was research on program approaches and then analysis of what components of my method are currently being practiced and to what success that led me to investigate the position further (I have often drawn on PSU's online resources for articles, assessment instruments, and model projects as I have developed this methodology product). That analysis led me to realize that the work I am doing and the way I am doing it is institutionally valued and that I can approach that work from a different professional angle than I may have considered before undertaking the actual process of developing a resource publication for CNS. In terms of my own understandings of options available to me with my work, that has been invaluable. Beyond just job possibilities, this experience has also contributed to the articulation of my dissertation proposal and, as I have mentioned before, enabled me to visualize and initiate a proposal for a center in community-university relationships. Additionally, it has enabled me to offer concrete proposals to my institution, participate in national conversations, and to grow individually in my own theory and practice in this work.
I couldn't ask for much more than that, could I?
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