A Collaborative Project Development Workshop

table of contents

(Locations of workshops to be announced. Please send suggestions and feedback to danika@u.arizona.edu)

In an effort to create meaningful connections between higher education and community activism, I am facilitating a series of workshops for university instructors and researchers to meet with community activists. At these workshops, everyone will have the opportunity to talk about the work they are doing, projects that need support, and sources of information and action that exist in the community, including the university. As the workshops continue, meaningful partnerships will be established between activists and educators that might include collaborative research projects, student placement opportunities, and community leaders contributing to course content in various ways.
 

*The first session will be held on November 29^th from 5-8pm. This session will be an opportunity to gather and share information. Those instructors and community members participating in the whole series of workshops, as well as additional invited activists from the community, will present brief overviews of the work they are doing and suggest ways that others might be involved or support that work. I will present some example resources that might connect educational activities with community work, as well as provide examples of ideas for some projects that might emerge as a result of these collaborative endeavors. We will generate a contact list and set goals and outcomes for the rest of the sessions of the workshop. Everyone will be invited to continue attending the workshops.
 

*The second session will be held on December 13, from 5-8pm. At this session, participants will spend the first hour identifying the collaborative projects they will be working on and provide brief synopses of what they expect to be doing and their goals in the projects. If anyone has been unable to identify a project, we will work as a group to make suggestions and establish preliminary contacts for pursuing those ideas. Additionally, we will determine if anyone needs further assistance in establishing contacts. We will work to identify local resources (technical, cultural, advisorial, etc) to facilitate specific projects.  The rest of the session will be devoted to discussing issues of university-community partnerships, including the role of the university researcher and issues of students working in the community. There are dangers to service learning and university research participation with the community, especially in terms of activist agendas, and we will discuss the limitations and possible implications of such work. At the end of the session, I will ask everyone to think about the guidelines they will implement for participating in this collaboration, and will provide resources and models for your consideration. I would like to develop a "Best Practices" guideline for my final methodology and would ask you all to provide input in this area.

*The third session will be held on *February 7, from 5-7pm. This session will consider questions of outcomes and assessment. Participants will talk about expectations and how the projects will be measured according to those expectations. Instructors may think in terms of specific course goals and additional ways to facilitate student involvement with the community. Community activists may think in terms of educating students on community issues and getting support for activist projects. The goal of the session will be to foster a clear sense of what participants expect from these collaborations and if those expectations can be achieved.
 

*The fourth session will be held on February 28, from 5-7pm. This session will be an opportunity for everyone to talk about how the work is going and to generate additional ideas for future collaboration, or to revise the process by which this initial collaboration was undertaken.
 

*The fifth session will be held on April 18, from 5-7pm. This session will generate ideas of sustaining the collaborations that have been initiated by this process. Is it possible for us to consider structures that might facilitate this work? We will also focus on assessing the process in terms of expectations and outcomes. We will uncover any unexpected limitations, negative implications, or other obstacles to this process.
 

*The final session will be held on May 9, from 5-7pm. At this session, I will provide an overview of this particular process with the various collaborative projects, discuss options for sustaining the process, and present a draft of the final write up of the general methodology that I will have been writing throughout the process. I will welcome your feedback and look to you for ideas on future directions.