CUE East and the University of East Anglia: a story of change Julie Worrall, CUE East Project Director, tells the story so far…
A STORY OF CHANGE
Making a head start Perceived as élite institutions with their own grand narrative, universities often appear to be inward-looking organisations that do not engage with their local communities. In April 2005, UEA was represented at the inaugural meeting of the Association of Universities East of England (AUEE) Community Engagement SubGroup and in 2005/6 the University conducted its first annual Community Engagement Survey which still continues today. The aim was to map public and community engagement activity at UEA itself (e.g. 661 students gave 25,579 hours of their time to 144 local charities and 22,725 people attended free public lectures, debates and museum education visits) and to contribute to the emerging network of communityuniversity partnerships across the UK. In late 2006 a reception was held at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts with UEA, civic and charitable representatives, to celebrate university-community engagement in its different forms. The AUEE Group and the first UEA annual survey identified a number of key factors that influenced the role of higher education in society. For example, by the time the opportunity to apply for Beacon for Public Engagement status came along in December 2006, it was widely acknowledged that some universities, including those like UEA who describe themselves as “research intensive”, did not openly recognise the contribution that some of their staff and students made to society.