January 26, 2006 | Read Time: 1 minute
University-Community Partnerships: Universities in Civic Engagement
edited by Tracy M. Soska and Alice K. Johnson Butterfield
Universities should work more closely with community groups as a way to improve “town-gown” relations, write Tracy M. Soska and Alice K. Johnson Butterfield in their introduction to this collection of essays.
The book’s 12 articles are split into four categories: the history of university-community partnerships; reviews of the federal Community Outreach Partnership Center’s programs; analyses of what social workers can contribute; and new approaches to getting campuses involved in service to the neighborhoods that surround their grounds.
One article reviews differing approaches to community partnerships, drawing on examples from the University of Hawaii, where students and faculty members choose which projects they want to work on without much guidance from the institution, and the University of Maryland, where officials bring together people from different academic departments for one unified community-service effort.
David P. Moxley, a professor of social work at Wayne State University, in Detroit, closes the book with an essay summarizing why campus-community partnerships and “engaged research” enrich both university faculty members and residents of the surrounding neighborhoods.
“The purpose of many institutions of higher education is to engage in research and, in particular, research for the common good,” he reminds universities.
Publisher: Haworth Press, 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, N.Y. 13904-1580; (607) 722-5857 or (800) 429-6784; fax (800) 895-0582; orders@haworthpress.com; http://www.haworthpress.com; 262 pages; $34.95; ISBN 0-7890-2836-0.
