The Role of the University in the Social Fabric

The Role of the University in the ocial abric

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Mount Aloysius College Thirteenth President

Thomas P. Foley

Inauguration Symposium September 15, 2011

This is the very first inaugural symposium to be held here in

Alumni Hall. And how appropriate it is that this symposium on The Role of the University in the Social Fabric concerns community service—and all the promise that those two words, community and service, imply.

These are key themes at Mount Aloysius and should be at every institution of higher education in America. At Mount Aloysius we embrace the idea that the formation of personal values is a key part of any education.

President Thomas P. Foley

Š Mount Aloysius College, 2012

Table of Contents Panelists’ Biographies

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President Foley’s Opening Remarks

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Proceedings of the Symposium

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Dr. Maryanne Stevens, RSM The Essential Connection Between Dignity and Service

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Dr. Char Gray To Whom Much is Given: Higher Education’s Stewardship with Community

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Dr. Ira Harkavy Urban University-School-Community Partnerships: Penn and West Philadelphia as a Democratic Experiment in Progress

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President Foley’s Closing Remarks

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Panelists’ Biographies Helen Marie Burns, RSM, PhD

Helen Marie Burns, RSM, PhD, is Vice President of Mission Integration at Mount Aloysius College. Dr. Burns has experience in secondary education in Michigan and Iowa, and in higher education in Michigan and Pennsylvania. She served twenty-three years in administrative roles within the Sisters of Mercy of the Union and the Institute of the Sisters of Mercy. Dr. Burns has held national leadership roles within the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, and has served on the Boards of several education, health care, church, and justice organizations. She has lectured extensively nationally and internationally. Dr. Burns holds a Masters in English from the University of Wisconsin and a doctorate in Religion and Religious Thought in the United States from the University of Iowa. She is also the recipient of an honorary degree from the University of Detroit Mercy. The topics of her published works include leadership, religious life, and the tradition of the Sisters of Mercy.

Ira Harkavy, PhD

Ira Harkavy, PhD, is Associate Vice President and Director of the Barbara and Edward Netter Center for Community Partnerships, University of Pennsylvania. A historian with extensive experience building university-community-school partnerships, Harkavy teaches in the departments of history, urban studies, Africana studies, and city and regional planning.

As Director of the Netter Center since 1992, Harkavy has helped develop service-learning courses, as well as participatory action research projects that involve creating university-assisted community schools in Penn’s local community of West Philadelphia. Harkavy has written and lectured widely on the history and current practice of urban university-community-school partnerships and strategies for integrating the university missions of teaching, research, and service. Harkavy is a member of the National Science Foundation’s Advisory Committee of the Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR); the International Consortium on Higher Education, Civic Responsibility and Democracy (US chair); the Coalition for Community Schools (chair); and Philadelphia Higher Education Network for Neighborhood Development (cochair). His recent publications include: Dewey’s Dream: Universities and Democracies in an Age of Education Reform (2007). i

Maryanne Stevens, RSM, PhD

Maryanne Stevens, RSM, PhD, became President of the College of Saint Mary in Omaha, Nebraska in 1996. Under her leadership, the college has developed several innovative programs including Mothers Living and Learning, a residence hall allowing single mothers of college age to live with their children on campus; the Marie Curie science or math scholarships for low income women; and a unique doctoral program for educators in the health professions. Formerly, Stevens taught graduate and undergraduate classes in ethics and moral theology at Creighton University. Dr. Stevens has made numerous presentations to local and national professional groups on women’s issues, the value of gender- specific education, and the value of meaningful work. She currently serves on the Nebraska Educational Finance Authority and the Nebraska Independent College Foundation. Stevens has served on the board of directors of the Women’s Fund of Omaha, and as chair of its Research Committee, which produced several studies, including Women and Leadership in Omaha and Intimate Partner Violence in Omaha. Dr. Stevens has a Bachelor’s degree in Math and Sociology from Misericordia University in Dallas, Pennsylvania, a Master’s degree in Theology from St. Louis University, and a PhD in Religion and Education from Boston College.

Char Gray, PhD

Char Gray, PhD, is the Executive Director for PA Campus Compact, an affiliate of the national Campus Compact, with a membership of sixty-seven colleges and universities. Campus Compact supports campus-based civic and community engagement, service-learning, and community service in higher education. In her role as Executive Director, Dr. Gray provides support, training, and resources to member institutions to assist students and faculty in identifying ways to partner with their communities to enhance the quality of life. Dr. Gray previously served as Director of the Landis Community Outreach Center at Lafayette College, which works to strengthen links with the community through the development of volunteer programs, and by offering resources and support for service-learning projects. While at Vanderbilt University, Dr. Gray conducted research on the impact of servicelearning on social, personal, civic and learning outcomes; and from 1993-2000 she co-authored Research At a Glance, the annotated bibliography of service-learning research published by Campus Compact. Dr. Gray holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Tennessee, a Master of Divinity degree from Southwestern Seminary and a PhD from Vanderbilt University in Education and Human Development.

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From left: Dr. Char Gray, Dr. Ira Harkavy, Maryanne Stevens, RSM, PhD and Helen Marie Burns, RSM, PhD.

Proceedings of a Symposium conducted during the Inauguration of Thomas P. Foley as Thirteenth President of Mount Aloysius College September 15, 2011

Opening Remarks: President Tom Foley

Good afternoon and welcome to one hundred and ten year old Alumni Hall. That’s right, one hundred and ten years old. That is original stained glass you see in the windows. Those are the original balustrades up above. It is the original flooring—all of it refurbished just in the past year. This hall has been home to dance troupes from New York City, scores of sopranos and concert violinists, hundreds of dances and proms, a couple dozen volleyball and basketball teams, and even a few badminton players.

We found some shuttlecocks up in the balustrades. We think that Sr. Benedict Joseph, sitting right over there, who has spent 56 years of her life here as a student, Professor of Chemistry, and Dean of Women, hit them there.

“We embrace the ideas that the formation of personal values is a key part of any education.”

Thomas P. Foley

“In this fast paced world, our job is to ‘future proof’ our graduates.”

Thomas P. Foley

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But as far as I know, this is the very first inaugural symposium to be held here in Alumni Hall. And how appropriate it is that this symposium on The Role of the University in the Social Fabric concerns community service— and all the promise that those two words, community and service, imply. These are key themes at Mount Aloysius and should be at every institution of higher education in America. At Mount Aloysius we embrace the idea that the formation of personal values is a key part of any education.

Our college web site is filled with examples in practice of the core values of the Sisters of Mercy—mercy and justice, service and hospitality. Every student, every team, every club performs community service while here.

It is written into their charters and, as the students can tell you, into their class assignments. And we hope that most of them will make community service the habit of a lifetime when they leave here.

We work to ensure that our students are “job ready,” “community ready” and “technology ready”—our “Mount Aloysius Compact.” That means that we produce graduates who are 21st century capable, who are tech fluent, and who absolutely “get it” about the importance of lifelong learning. We understand that in this fast-paced world, part of our job, to borrow a phrase from my colleague St. Xavier’s President Christine Wiseman, is to

The Role of the University in the Social Fabric

“future proof” our graduates.

We also work hard not to lose sight of those qualities that have distinguished our graduates in the workplace and in the community for a century: their qualities of empathy and compassion, their habits of civic engagement and civil discourse, and their capacity for genuine human interaction. Whether at the hospital, in the classroom, or on the shop floor, we want our Mount Aloysius graduates to use their heads and their hearts as they move through life—in effect, to synthesize faith with learning, to develop competence with compassion, and to put talents and gifts at the service of others, as it says in our mission statement. It is absolutely appropriate that our very first inaugural seminar concerns the University's Role in the Social Fabric because it is part of the DNA of this institution, right back to its founding 158 years ago. So, welcome to this important conversation on this seminal issue.

I have one more role to fill here today and that is to introduce our distinguished panel. First, Sr. Maryanne Stevens. She has been the President of the College of St. Mary in Omaha for seventeen years. The College is a leader in community service with service programs that outreach to single mothers, to recent immigrants, to lowincome science and math students, among many other innovative programs. With a doctorate in Religion and Education, her primary research area focuses on ethics and moral theology; and we felt that that background and her practice in the field, in the heartland of America, made her perfect for this panel. And we thank her for coming all the way from Nebraska today.

“We also work hard not to lose sight of those qualities that have distinguished our graduates in the workplace and in the community for a century: their qualities of empathy and compassion, their habits of civic engagement and civil discourse, and their capacity for genuine human interaction.”

Thomas P. Foley

Dr. Char Gray is the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Campus Compact, the premier inter-college community service organization in the country. She has worked as a single-campus community service director at Lafayette College in our state, and she did her doctoral work on the impact of service-learning on social, personal, civic, and learning outcomes. Dr. Gray is the co-author of an invaluable document in her field called, At a Glance— an annotated bibliography of service-learning research.

We felt that her role with Campus Compact and her expertise on the ground with service-learning made her a fine addition to this panel.

Our third panelist is Dr. Ira Harkavy. He is a historian who has worked at the University of Pennsylvania for almost thirty years, and now serves as

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its Vice President. He is both Penn’s and Pennsylvania’s guru on community service and civic engagement. Dr. Harkavy has been a founder, co-founder, or founding board member of just about every significant development in the field, in this state and many nationally. He pioneered Penn’s WPIC program, which stands for the West Philadelphia Improvement Corps, a national model for civic engage-ment by urban-based institutions of higher education. He served as a founding board member of PennSERVE, with Gov. Robert P. Casey and future U.S. Senator Harris Wofford—I was a very junior partner in that enterprise. He helped to bring to fruition the national Americorps program under President Clinton. Ira’s most recent publication is his book, Dewey’s Dream: Universities and Democracies in an Age of Education Reform. It is a great personal and professional pleasure to welcome my friend of many years, Ira Harkavy, to the stage.

Finally, let me introduce the co-chair of our Inaugural Symposia Committee and our moderator today, Sr. Helen Marie Burns. Sr. Helen Marie is the author of several tomes on the foundress and on the history of the Sisters of Mercy. She is a former senior administrator within the Sisters of Mercy nationally and regionally. So, if Ira is a community service guru, then Sr. Helen Marie is a Mercy guru. She has designed dozens of programs and curricula built around service, education, religion and justice; and she has taught in both secondary and higher education in three states—so far.

Most importantly for us, Sr. Helen Marie Burns is the Vice President for Mission Integration at Mount Aloysius College. She ensures that our mission focus as an institution of higher education is both Catholic and Mercy. While overseeing all of our community service and religious programming, Sr. Helen Marie also serves as a mentor to individual members of our staff and faculty, to an always long line of students, and especially to the President. Sr. Helen Marie holds a doctorate from the University of Iowa and an honorary doctorate from our sister school, the University of Detroit-Mercy. We are

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The Role of the University in the Social Fabric

delighted to have people of this caliber join us today, and we look forward to this conversation.

Moderator: Dr. Helen Marie Burns, RSM

Thank you, Dr. Foley—it is my pleasure to serve as moderator for this distinguished panel of persons whose lives are a contribution to the role of the college/university in the social fabric. That role is essential to all campuses, but especially to those colleges/universities which stand within a religious tradition and, in our case, the tradition of Roman Catholicism.

As one Catholic theologian has observed: “The Christian character of an institution is not measured by religious practices, but rather by service to a more human configuration of society…and by service to the configuration of a People of God as leaven for the kingdom of God in society.”

Within the tradition of the Sisters of Mercy, this concern for “a more human configuration of society” has held a central place. Service within this tradition is not only transactional (a response to this person and to this particular need); but has always striven to be transformational (a reflective response shaped by questions stemming from qualities of mercy, hospitality, and justice: how does it feel to stand where this suffering person stands? How can I welcome this stranger and create a place of safety and comfort? What are the causes of this particular suffering? What systems need to change to prevent future suffering?). Since colleges and universities are places of thought and research, places of innovation and exploration, the transformational hope of service found within the Catholic and Mercy tradition seems quite compatible with the stories our panelists will share. We look forward to hearing the insights of these education leaders whose careers have been dedicated to deepening the role of the university in the social fabric.

“The Christian character of an institution is not measured by religious practices, but rather by service to a more human configuration of society…”

Jon Sobrino, SJ

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Let’s move to their insights.

Dr. Maryanne Stevens, RSM President, College of St. Mary

The Essential Connection Between Dignity and Service

Above all the education of youth from every social background has to be undertaken, so that there can be produced not only men and women of refined talents, but those great-souled persons who are so desperately required by our times.

(Guadium et Spes, 31)

“Educators in these contexts are called to encourage student participation in strengthening the social fabric so that it will hold in care even the weakest among us.”

Dr. Maryanne Stevens, RSM

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The above quote written in 1962 and emanating from the Vatican is part of a longer passage exhorting the Church to ensure that all understand their responsibilities to the common good. Ensuring the strength of that which we have in common, the very fabric of society, is the best guarantee of individual human rights. This then became the impetus for the Catholic Church worldwide to involve itself in a new way in violations of human dignity plaguing societies around the world. Modern means of communication assisted with promulgating a plethora of documents from the Vatican and from national bishops’ conferences around the world. These became part and parcel of the education of laity and clergy alike.

Service-learning in Catholic universities is rooted in this fundamental understanding. Educators in these contexts are called to encourage student participation in strengthening the social fabric so that it will hold in care even the weakest among us. Catholic social teaching emanates from four basic principles:

s Every human person has dignity. This dignity comes from God and cannot be removed by any human person or instrument. This is tough because we tend to believe that people can lose their dignity when they thwart us whether in large or even small ways. However, while the church recognizes evil as a reality, it holds that even figures like Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network or Timothy McVeigh who was responsible for the 1995 Oklahoma City tragedy, have dignity and, while it is

The Role of the University in the Social Fabric

necessary to protect the public from their actions, they still have the dignity of a child of God, just as you and I do. s One’s dignity can only be realized in community.

Our very basic needs: food, water, clothing, shelter in addition to the need for companionship and meaningful work can only be gained through participation in a web of relationships. Take for example, food. We see starvation in war torn countries because the web of relationships from farmer to market to individual is torn so often during times of conflict.

s The community is obligated to organize itself for the common good. The church believes that there are not just civil and political rights, such as the rights protected in the U.S., e.g. the right to free speech, to a lawyer, and to vote, but there are also human and economic rights, such as the right to life, food, clothing, shelter, rest, medical care, education, and employment. This means that if people are hungry or don’t have medical care, their basic rights have been violated. The community, then, must organize itself so that these basic human and economic rights are protected.

s All members of society have a special obligation to the poor and vulnerable. Drawing on the Scripture, the church teaches that those who struggle to participate in the web of relationships that society has set up to meet human needs are to receive the greatest response from the community. In the Old Testament, because all systems were organized around land rights, it was responses to the widow, the orphan, and the stranger, none of whom who had rights to the land, who were singled out by the prophets as those by whom the justice of the society was to be measured.

At Mount Aloysius, these understandings are further augmented by the legacy of the Sisters of Mercy who began and remain deeply committed to the college. The Sisters of Mercy were founded by a late eighteenth century Irishwoman, Catherine McAuley, whose passion for the poor emanated from the role modeling of her father’s charity work and an encounter with a young servant girl who had been taken advantage of by a “gentleman” of means. McAuley wished to protect such women. Upon receiving a major inheritance, she founded the first House of Mercy in a fashionable section of Dublin so that young women coming from the rural areas to work in the homes of the gentry could live safely. As these women came

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“In Catherine’s view, the overriding purpose of every educational endeavor which seeks to be faithful to the revelation of God is consolation, yes consolation.”

Dr. Maryanne Stevens, RSM

together, they began to go out and do works of charity. As those interested in her cause grew, she founded a religious order and began to open schools across Ireland. Dr. Mary Sullivan, RSM, the contemporary biographer of Catherine McAuley, notes in a 2006 article:

In Catherine’s view, the overriding purpose of every educational endeavor which seeks to be faithful to the revelation of God is consolation, yes consolation. The primary purpose of all teaching that is born of God, the Supreme Educator, is to console, to comfort. Thus, for Catherine, the purpose of all Mercy education is not primarily to develop students’ intellectual skills, or to teach them information and formulas—however necessary and valuable such learning may be in their lives—but to comfort, encourage and console them in the most thorough and lasting way possible.

So, how are the basic principles of Catholic social teaching and Catherine McAuley’s consolation to be understood in this context? The Community Service Act of 1990 authorizing federal dollars to support it, defined service-learning as

“...a method under which students or participants learn and develop through active participation in thoughtfully organized service...helps foster civic responsibility...that is integrated into, and enhances the academic curriculum of the students...and provides structured time for the students...to reflect on the service experience.”

For the most part we think of service-learning and rightfully so, as service out in the community—that is, beyond the university classroom. And, this is very important because through these experiences students are often exposed to the poor and vulnerable, and to the systems that must be enhanced if the human dignity of these people is to be appropriately regarded, not just by individuals, but by society.

I will leave it to our other two panelists today to expound on the service-learning that goes on outside the campus walls. I would rather address myself to faculty and staff and ask how they might consider the principals of Catholic social teaching and the consolation of Catherine McAuley in their work. Let me do this by the use of two true stories from my context at the College of Saint Mary in 16

The Role of the University in the Social Fabric

Omaha. I have taken the liberty of changing the names of those involved.

The first is the story of Juana Smith. Juana came to CSM as a transfer student from the local community college. She had taken all her sciences and entered into the two year R.N. curriculum. The policies of the nursing department provide for two failures with re-takes; if you have a third failure, you cannot re-take a course for a passing grade. Juana had had one failure in the beginning course but then had retaken it and received a passing grade. She took the final course, named “Complex” because the curriculum calls for the integration of all the complexity of the human system and the responses nurses are to have in their skill set. Juana failed it once, then failed it the second time. She came to my office to talk to me after the nursing policy committee had told her she was out of the program.

So, she had significant loans from her studies, and she had significant credits earned, but nothing to show for it. I asked her how I could help her, and she described her passion for becoming a nurse. She wanted another chance at “Complex.” After reviewing her transcripts, I found that she had transferred mediocre but passing grades in her sciences, but, believing in her passion, I told her that she would have to re-take all of her sciences at CSM and get at least B’s and then I would let her re-enter the nursing program. I didn’t think she would do it. It would mean Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Micro Biology, and Anatomy and Physiology, not to mention Pathophysiology and Pharmacy. I told her I would offer them to her free of charge but that the only way she could pass the nursing courses was if she had a strong background in science. The nursing faculty said she would either have to test out of the first nursing courses or re-take them before she could take “Complex” again.

Three years later, Juana crossed the stage and received her nursing diploma and subsequently went on for her B.S.N and M.S.N. This is a story of providing an option to a student when she believed all options were closed. It didn’t necessitate lowering standards, all it meant was believing in someone’s passion, more time for her, and the willingness to offer free re-takes of the classes.

The second story is the story of Precious Jacoby.

Precious grew up in inner-city Baltimore, attended Catholic 17

schools and, although poor, had the benefit of an excellent education. Having birthed a daughter while a high school senior, she came to CSM because we have a residence hall for single mothers and their children. Precious was homesick and lacked confidence in herself and, after the first semester, returned home. After wandering for another year, she returned determined to continue her education in an environment that welcomed her daughter as well. She threw herself into campus life, signed up for every club, and even joined the swim team, concerned but unwilling to be intimidated by the fact that she had never learned to swim!

It is the swim coach to whom Precious attributes her growth in confidence. He didn’t say, “You can’t be on the team, you don’t even know how to swim.” Rather he joked about needing to get wet himself on the first day of practice.

Precious not only learned to swim, she participated in winning relays at the nationals the second year on the team.

She’s an outstanding student and a role model on the campus.

“What I am advocating for is what I believe is foundational to the service-learning we advocate for students, considering ‘the other side of the situation.’”

Dr. Maryanne Stevens, RSM

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What is involved here, I believe, is what John Haughey, S.J. in his book, Where is Knowing Going; The Horizons of the Knowing Subject, terms hospitality. His book suggests how Catholic universities might maintain their roots in the Catholic intellectual tradition. He argues that “what is involved is the manner of thinking and acting at all levels, the atmosphere of collegial life, the tenor of the campus, the mutual relations, the willingness to listen to and experience the “other side” of situations.” This is hard work, to tear away from our computer monitors and our tasks and to learn “from the other side of the situation.” I daresay it is not easy for a swim, coach to accept a student who can’t swim and it isn’t always easy for faculty to offer students another chance. Remember though, Juana had to re-take the classes and Precious had to learn how to swim!

In my stories, I am not advocating that every swim coach allow a student who has never learned to swim onto the team, nor am I arguing for faculty members or administrators to let every distraught student back into a curriculum at which they have previously failed. What I am advocating for is what I believe is foundational to the service-learning we advocate for students, considering “the other side of the situation.” We want students to recognize that not every person can pull themselves up by their boot straps; we want students to recognize that their voice can

The Role of the University in the Social Fabric

matter in the public square, that they can make a difference.

This is what service-learning, the tradition of Catholic social teaching and Catherine McAuley’s consolation are about.

We want our students to advocate for systems to strengthen the social fabric for the odd, the different, the strange, that is, the widow, the orphan, and the stranger of today who cannot exercise the rights properly belonging to them.

But in order for that to be real for students, we must model it. Education is not about depositing information or collecting data and cataloguing it; education is about asking people to consider information and ideas and then reconsider one’s own ideas as a result of the conversation.

This kind of conversation undermines the power of those who would like to separate us, those who fit in or fit the criterion from those who don’t.

We, as faculty and staff, are not all that different from our students. We participate and learn with them in service projects encouraged to further good work by the discovery of the plight of those who need our help for better food, water, economic security, or relief from mental and physical sickness. We begin to realize that the quality of our social fabric depends on the provision of assistance to these, the poor and the vulnerable. Quite simply, we are all in this together. History teaches us that society is deprived and can even become depraved if we do not extend a hand and build systems to support human dignity for all.

“We want our students to advocate for systems to strengthen the social fabric for the odd, the different, the strange, that is, the widow, the orphan, and the stranger of today who cannot exercise the rights properly belonging to them.”

“History teaches us that society is deprived and can even become depraved if we do not extend a hand and build systems to support human dignity for all.”

Dr. Maryanne Stevens, RSM

In turn, the common good of our institutions, small complex little societies of their own, with hierarchies of power and the same mandates from Catholic social teaching and Catherine McAuley, necessitate that we reach out even to those who might be failures at a skill or a discipline, and figure out how to provide options, if not systems, that will uphold their dignity. This will tax our human resources departments to figure out the most appropriate way not only to hire someone but also to let someone go; this will tax our faculties to provide options to students who are failing or at the very least to ensure that they leave the institution with their dignity intact; this will tax our financial aid staff to understand the frustration of a student unable to pay a tuition bill; this will tax administrators to listen and to encourage a culture across the institution that listens to every voice, not ignoring or skimming over our differences, but rather

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“I believe maximum learning from ‘servicelearning’ will only occur if the environment of the university...is one which upholds the dignity and provides consolation to all...”

Dr. Maryanne Stevens, RSM

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believing that we can learn from them.

I believe maximum learning from “service-learning” today will only occur if the environment of the university to which the student returns after having been out participating in “thoughtfully organized service” is one which upholds the dignity and provides consolation to all those within.

The Role of the University in the Social Fabric

Dr. Char Gray Executive Director, Pennsylvania Campus Compact

To Whom Much is Given: Higher Education’s Stewardship with Community

Introduction: It is a privilege to be here at this occasion for the Inauguration of Tom Foley as President of Mount Aloysius College, and I am honored to share this panel with colleagues who both think and act to deepen civic and community engagement in higher education.

To be engaged in this work, an institution practices prepositions such as in, for, among, within, between, and with. Though certainly not down, over, instead of, beneath, or against.

As I understand it, stewardship is a critical value where responsible planning and management of resources occurs among people (students, community partners, and faculty), programs (curricular and co-curricular) and place (the community of Cresson, for example and beyond). In its Middle English etymology, stewardship denotes both position—to be assigned a responsibility, and an act of caring for and improving with time.

Perhaps Martin Luther King’s description best captures the essence of the role of the university in the social fabric: The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically, intelligence plus character, that’s the goal of education…Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others?

Certainly, as I read the mission statement of Mount Aloysius College, I find alignment with this aspiration.

The mission of Mount Aloysius College is to respond to individual and community needs with quality programs of education in the tradition of the Religious Sisters of Mercy. Each student is provided the opportunity to acquire knowledge and to develop values, attitudes, and competencies necessary for life-long learning within

“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically, intelligence plus character, that’s the goal of education…

Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others?”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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an environment that reflects a liberal arts orientation and a Catholic, Judeo-Christian heritage.

What is PA Campus Compact?

PA Campus Compact is a network of 67 colleges and universities that are committed to civic engagement. Our mission is to enhance the capacity of campuses and communities to educate students for civic engagement—to advance a healthy, just and, democratic society. We do this by leveraging resources, providing educational and professional development opportunities, individual coaching, and leading in emerging civic engagement trends.

For example, Mount Aloysius participated in a Learn and Serve grant that connected it to two other regional institutions for faculty service-learning development and PACC was the grantor for the Corporation for National and Community Service.

You might be asking yourself, what do PACC institutions look like? Here are a few snapshots from our annual PACC survey. Of our 67 member institutions: s 65% are private, liberal arts institutions; s 43% are faith-based institutions; s An average of 51% of students is involved in civic engagement on PACC campuses; and s Students at PACC institutions contributed over two million hours of service (co-curricular/curricular service).

PA Campus Compact envisions colleges and universities as vital agents and architects of a diverse democracy. We are guided by the core values of stewardship, collaboration, equity, transformation, leadership and of course, service. Our strategic initiatives for the next few years focus on building the capacity of our member campuses. PACC’s Board challenges us to lead in emerging civic engagement trends that address our constituencies of students, community, and faculty by: s Expanding opportunities among students for enhancing the pipeline for college access and success; s Leveraging resources for community and economic development through civic engagement; and s Promoting and deepening engaged scholarship of faculty.

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Let me explain briefly these three leading edges. We envision that there are several steps for institutions to take in

The Role of the University in the Social Fabric

enhancing access and success for their students. In order for students to graduate from high school, as well as enter and complete college, early research indicates that civic engagement is a promising practice. PACC currently has two grant programs that encourage students to partner with K-12 schools to create the pipeline for youth to succeed in high school. By mentioning and tutoring youth, college students begin to see how their own college experience has value and are, themselves, motivated to learn.

We understand that institutions of higher education may play at least three vital roles in community/economic development. First they provide skills, knowledge, and values for their students. Second, they train for professional practice. Third, they help students develop critical thinking skills to address difficult and complex issues.

So, what is the context for your community here within Cambria County? At first blush, there are several statistics which give some indication of community needs. Forty-five percent of children are on free/reduced lunch and about 9.5% of the population live below poverty level. Also, there are several correctional facilities, federal and county, within the area. So, the question is what do you as a college see, hear, and experience as you live and serve with, among, and for the community?

If a college wants to truly institutionalize its practice of civic and community engagement, then it must consider how faculty are rewarded. So for PACC, we’re focused on deepening the scholarship of engagement in the areas of teaching, research, and/or service. Additionally, we encourage institutions to engage faculty in academically relevant work that simultaneously meets campus mission/goals and community needs.

Barbara Holland has identified some core features of engaged scholarship. Engaged scholarship: s is collaborative and participatory; s draws on many sources of distributed knowledge and is based on partnerships; s is shaped by multiple perspectives and expectations; and s deals with difficult, evolving questions.

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Engaged scholarship has a long-term view in terms of both effort and impact. Thus, it requires diverse strategies that may cross disciplinary lines.

The Imperatives of Civic Mission Aligned with your mission and a liberal arts tradition, powerful indicators of robust commitment to civic and community engagement emerge from three kinds of competencies: civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions.

“Civic skills fall under two categories, the intellectual and the participatory. ” Dr. Char Gray

“Civic dispositions involve tolerance and respect, appreciation of difference, rejection of violence, concern with social justice and a sense of self-efficacy.”

“Service-learning is a prime tool for civic engagement which leads to civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions...[it] allows students to test and apply academic learning to practical community-based problems.”

Dr. Char Gray

First, civic knowledge examines both the social, historical, and political networks, events, processes, and documents that shape government and governing.

Second, civic skills fall under two categories, the intellectual and the participatory. Thus, the intellectual civic skills are critical thinking, understanding, interpreting and critiquing ideas, expressing one’s opinion, and active listening. Participatory civic skills include engaging in dialogue, communicating through public speaking or writing, organizing and managing groups, and taking part in community mapping.

Finally, civic dispositions involve tolerance and respect, appreciation of difference, rejection of violence, concern with social justice and a sense of self-efficacy.

Service-learning is a prime tool for civic engagement which leads to civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions. It is a pedagogical strategy whereby service and learning share equal priority so that each component mutually enhances the other. Also, it allows students to test and apply academic learning to practical community-based problems. So, for institutions who value real-life learning and the development of critical thinking, service-learning supplies these kinds of learning opportunities.

Three guiding principles of service-learning are reflection, engagement, and reciprocity. Reflection provides opportunities for students to link their service experience to course content and to reflect upon why the service is important. Engagement ensures that the service meets an identified community need. Reciprocity promises that the service is beneficial to the community site as well as to the student.

To further explain this continuum of learning, exploratory experiences occur when individuals are 24

The Role of the University in the Social Fabric

involved in open-ended real world activities and settings where they develop an awareness of, and personal questions about, the subject at hand. Additionally, in analytical experiences individuals are involved in settings that require the application of theory in real situations.

They are learning by a systematic analysis of the setting or by problem solving. A final approach is a generative experience which is characterized by taking part in the creation of products, processes, or relationships. I would like to illustrate with several examples of service-learning from Spanish, mathematics, and chemistry. The examples are exploratory, analytical, and generative.

In one case, Spanish majors are assigned to Spanishspeaking parents of local elementary school students to interpret school assignments that their children bring home, creating linguistic bridges between parents and their fully-English speaking children (exploratory). In another case, students in an organic chemistry class assess water quality levels from a creek for the local water board (analytical). As a final example, an applied statistics course works with a nonprofit organization to analyze survey data. This data analysis and subsequent interpretation is vital for the organization to prepare a grant application (generative).

The study entitled Where’s the Learning in ServiceLearning, found that service-learning enhanced academic learning and students’ ability to apply skills to the real world. Further, the experiences allowed them to demonstrate better understanding of complex, critical thinking, problem analysis, and cognitive development through learning outcomes.

Also, service-learning enhanced students’ career development, as well as their satisfaction with college and their likelihood of graduating. Within the personal outcomes, service-learning enhanced students’ sense of: s personal efficacy s personal identity s spiritual growth s moral development s interpersonal skills s leadership; and s communication skills.

Additionally, within the realm of social outcomes, service-learning reduced stereotypes, facilitated cultural

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“Service-learning offers high impact for communities by adding value to learning, connecting students to real-life problems, and cultivating civic imagination.”

Dr. Char Gray

and racial understanding, and also enhanced social responsibility, citizenship skills, and a commitment to service.

In summary, service-learning offers high impact for communities by adding value to learning, connecting students to real-life problems, and cultivating civic imagination. It builds bridges between campus and community.

The Impact of Civic Engagement in Pennsylvania From PACC’s Annual Campus Compact Survey, we know that there are multiple issues which our campuses address through their civic engagement activities. Each year on the survey, the following pressing issues share the spotlight. Of course, they may vary in priority depending on the needs in the individual community: s Hunger, Housing/Homelessness; s K-12 Education/Mentioning; s Poverty; s Senior/Elder Services; s Agriculture/Nutrition; and s Environment/Sustainability.

In light of the most recent report on the increase in poverty and our current economic climate, these are certainly relevant and compelling issues for institutions to consider.

What mechanisms do our campuses use for civic engagement besides the weekly community service or service-learning engagement? Ninety percent of our campuses utilize both one-day service projects and service trips. Sixty three percent of PACC’s campuses have incorporated civic engagement into their first-year experience service opportunities as well as their capstone course.

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Our survey sought to gain insight into what institutions are assessing, and whether assessment comes from a particular institutional unit or the institution as a whole. We found that less than one-third of PACC institutions comprehensively assessed community engagement, community perception, community impact, and student learning. This finding is contrasted by assessments conducted within institutional units (centers or specific colleges within a university) where 52% and 44%, respectively, assessed community engagement and student learning.

The Role of the University in the Social Fabric The previous data is supported by a follow-up question in 2009 which asked if PACC campuses assessed the community impact of civic engagement activities.

Only 37% of the campuses indicated that they assessed it, and this assessment was largely through feedback elicited to refine course design and improve student experiences. It was clear that there was no accepted meaning of “community impact.” At PACC, we recognize that this is a growing edge for our campuses, and we intend to provide assistance, guiding our members to conduct better assessment of community impact.

Less than 20% of PACC’s campuses indicated that they systematically collected and interpreted data on service learning. Nearly a third of campuses indicated inconsistent assessments.

How civic engagement is manifested in institutional strategic plans is an indicator of its alignment. We found that 94% of PACC’s campuses identify service to the community in their strategic plans. More than two-thirds indicated that education for global citizenship, student leadership development, and student civic engagement were emphasized.

The issue of institutional infrastructure is critical to understanding the relationships and resources within an institution. We have found in Pennsylvania that 45% of our campuses have a civic engagement office in Student Affairs, 24% percent report within Academic Affairs. The remaining number may be aligned with the president’s office, the chaplain, or career services. This speaks to the idiosyncratic nature of each institution as it finds the best way to operationalize civic engagement.

When examining the institutional supports for engaged faculty, our data reflects that over 80% of PACC institutions provide both faculty development workshops and materials for reflection and assessment. Additionally, more than two-thirds provide grants for service-learning course design, support to attend conferences, and curriculum models and syllabi.

Other data shows that the preceding finding roughly mirrors responses to other survey items asking whether an institution considered engaged scholarship activities in 27

hiring decisions (34%), and within the tenure and promotion process (43%).

“Until faculty are rewarded for their pursuit of an engaged scholarship approach to their teaching and research, participation by... faculty will likely remain marginal on most campuses.”

Dr. Char Gray

However, if 43% of campuses do consider engaged scholarship activities as part of the tenure and promotion process, these figures beg the question: how much weight do these activities carry if other survey data indicated that less than 10% of campuses reported that engaged scholarship was “highly valued” during these proceedings?

While a majority of campuses provides basic supports for faculty to develop and teach service-learning courses, there are far fewer campuses offering key incentives for faculty to purse engaged scholarship. Until faculty are rewarded for their pursuit of an engaged scholarship approach to their teaching and research, participation by tenured and tenure-track faculty will likely remain marginal on most campuses.

For presidential involvement in civic engagement, over 80% of PACC’s campuses indicate that their presidents publicly promote civic engagement and provide fiscal support, while 75% participate in campus activities and serve on community boards. PACC is deeply interested in cultivating the civic leadership among its member presidents to help them lead within their institutions, within their communities, and among their sector colleagues.

What does an engaged campus look like?

First, an engaged campus demonstrates civic leadership at all levels and articulates civic engagement in mission and strategic plans. Second, an engaged campus links learning and engagement by developing supporting policies and infrastructures. Third, an engaged campus involves communities in continuous, purposeful, and authentic partnerships. Finally, an engaged campus promotes inter-disciplinary work. These are the markers of an institution of higher education successfully engaged in the stewardship of the social fabric.

I leave you with a quote from Ernest Boyer, a leader in higher education. He believed that higher education should not only prepare students for productive careers, but should also “…enable them to live lives of dignity and purpose; not only to generate new knowledge, but to channel that knowledge to humane ends; not merely to 28

The Role of the University in the Social Fabric

study government, but to help shape a citizenry that can promote the public good.”

Ira Harkavy Director, Netter Center for Community Partnerships University of Pennsylvania

Local Problem-Solving and Urban UniversitySchool-Community Partnerships: Penn and West Philadelphia as a Democratic Experiment in Progress

Colleges and universities have a special responsibility for community problem-solving given their mission, location, resources, prestige, power, and influence.

Moreover, by engaging in problem-solving, place-based, community-focused education with their local communities, colleges and universities can effectively utilize their varied resources (particularly their human resources of students, faculty, and staff) and significantly contribute to both improving the quality of life in urban America and advancing the quality of research, teaching, and learning. At the same time, colleges and universities can undertake and help catalyze substantive partnerships with the multitude of institutions-schools, community organizations, faith-based institutions, local businesses, and families—necessary to holistically and ecologically advance an agenda for community development, educational improvement, and democratic engagement.

“Colleges and universities can... utilize their varied resources...to improv[e] the quality of life in urban America” Ira Harkavy

University-Assisted Community Schools as a Practical Strategy to Achieve a Democratic Devolution Revolution Since 1985, the University of Pennsylvania has engaged itself with its local public schools in a comprehensive school-community-university partnership that was initially known as the West Philadelphia Improvement Corps (WEPIC). In its over 25 years of operation, the project has evolved significantly, spawning a variety of related projects that engage Penn with public schools in West Philadelphia. From its inception, my colleagues and I designed Penn’s work with WEPIC to forge mutually beneficial and respectful university-school-community partnerships. In recent years, we have begun to conceptualize that work in much broader terms, namely 29

as part of an attempt to advance a “democratic devolution revolution.”1 It is from that vantage point that an overview of Penn’s work—and the work of many other higher educational institutions engaged with their local public schools—is best comprehended.

“The tendency of such systems to centralize must be countered by deliberate dispersion of initiative downward and outward through the system.”

John Gardner

For nearly a generation, John Gardner, arguably the leading spokesperson for the “New Democratic, Cosmopolitan Civic College and University” thought and wrote about organizational devolution and the university’s potential role. For him, the effective functioning of organizations required the planned and deliberate, rather than haphazard, devolution of functions:

We have in recent decades discovered some important characteristics of the large-scale organized systems-government, private sector, whatever-under which so much of contemporary life is organized. One such characteristic—perhaps the most important—is that the tendency of such systems to centralize must be countered by deliberate dispersion of initiative down ward and outward through the system. The corporations have been trying to deal with this reality for almost 25 years and government is now pursuing it... What it means for government is a substantially greater role for the states and cities. And none of them are entirely ready for that role...Local government must enter into collaborative relations with non-governmental elements. . .So how can colleges and universities be of help? 2

Gardner proposed a multi sided involvement in “contemporary life” for “higher eds,” including initiating community building, convening public discussions, educating public-spirited leaders, offering continuing civic and leadership seminars, and providing a wide range of technical assistance. An effective, compassionate, democratic devolution revolution requires much more than practicing new forms of interaction among Federal, state, and local governments and among agencies at each level of government; it requires, to use Gardner’s phrase, “the deliberate dispersion of initiative downward and outward through the system.” For Gardner, government integration by itself does not make meaningful change.

New forms of interaction and alignment among the public, for-profit, and nonprofit sectors are also mandatory.

Government must function as a collaborating partner, effectively facilitating cooperation among all sectors of 30

The Role of the University in the Social Fabric

society, including higher educational institutions, to support and strengthen individuals, families, and communities.3

To extend Gardner’s observations about universities and colleges, my colleagues and I have proposed a democratic devolution revolution.4 In our proposed “revolution,” government serves as a powerful catalyst and largely provides the funds needed to create stable, ongoing, effective partnerships. But government would function only as a second-tier deliverer of services, with higher eds, community-based organizations, unions, faith-based institutions, other voluntary associations, school children and their parents, and other community members functioning as the first-tier operational partners.

That is, various levels and departments of government would guarantee aid and significantly finance welfare services. Local personalized-care services, however, would actually be delivered by the third tier (private, nonprofit, voluntary associations) and fourth tier (personal-family, kin, neighbors, and friends) of society.

Government would not be primarily responsible for the delivery of services; it would instead have macro-fiscal responsibilities, including fully adequate provision of funds.

The strategy requires creatively and intelligently adapting the work and resources of a wide variety of local institutions (e.g., higher eds, hospitals, faith-based institutions) to the particular needs and resources of local communities. It assumes, however, that universities and colleges, which simultaneously constitute preeminent international, national, and local institutions, potentially represent by far the most powerful partners, “anchors,” and creative catalysts for change and improvement in the quality of life in American cities and communities.

Of course, for colleges and universities to fulfill their great potential and really contribute to a democratic devolution revolution, they will have to do things very differently than they do now. To begin with, changes in “doing” will require recognition by higher eds that, as they now function, they—particularly universities— constitute a major part of the problem, not a significant part of the solution. To become part of the solution, higher eds must devote themselves to the difficult task of becoming socially responsible, responsive, civic universities and colleges. To do so, they will have to

“Of course, for colleges and universities to fulfill their great potential and really contribute to a democratic devolution revolution, they will have to do things very differently than they do now.”

Ira Harkavy

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radically change their institutional cultures and structures, democratically realign and integrate themselves, and develop a comprehensive, realistic strategy.

The major component of the strategy now being developed and slowly implemented by Penn focuses on developing university-assisted community schools designed to help educate, engage, activate, and serve all members of the community in which the school is located.

The strategy assumes that community schools, like higher eds, can function as focal points to help create healthy urban environments, and that both universities and colleges function best in such environments. More specifically, the strategy assumes that, like higher eds, public schools can function as environment-changing institutions and can become the strategic centers of broadly based partnerships that genuinely engage a wide variety of community organizations and institutions. Since public schools “belong” to all members of the community, they should “serve” all members of the community. (No implication is intended that public schools are the only community places where learning and social organization take place; other “learning places” include libraries, museums, private schools, et cetera, and ideally, all of these places would collaborate.)

“Working to solve complex, real-world problems is the best way to advance knowledge and learning.”

Ira Harkavy

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More than any other institution, public schools are particularly well suited to function as neighborhood “hubs” or “centers” around which local partnerships can be generated and developed. When they play that innovative role, schools function as community institutions par excellence. They then provide a decentralized, democratic, community-based response to rapidly changing community problems. In the process, they help young people learn better, at increasingly higher levels, through action-oriented, collaborative, real-world problem solving.

For public schools to actually function as integrating community institutions, however, local, state, and national governmental and nongovernmental agencies must be effectively coordinated to help provide the myriad resources community schools need to play the greatly expanded roles I envision them playing in American society. How to conceive that organizational revolution, let alone implement it, poses extraordinarily complex intellectual and social challenges. But as the great American pragmatic philosopher John Dewey argued, working to solve complex, real-world problems is the best

The Role of the University in the Social Fabric

way to advance knowledge and learning, as well as the general capacity of individuals and institutions to do that work.

American colleges and universities should give the highest priority to solving the problems inherent in the cultural and organizational revolution sketched above. If higher eds were to do so, they would demonstrate in concrete practice their self-professed theoretical ability to simultaneously advance knowledge, learning, and societal well being. They would then satisfy the critical performance test proposed in 1994 by the president of the State University of New York at Buffalo, William R. Greiner, namely that “the great universities of the twentyfirst century will be judged by their ability to help solve our most urgent social problems.”4 Since 1985, to increase Penn’s ability to help solve America’s most urgent social problems, my colleagues and I have worked to develop and implement the idea of university-assisted community schools. We emphasize university-assisted because community schools require far more resources than traditional schools and because we have become convinced that, in relative terms, colleges and universities constitute the strategic sources of broadly based, comprehensive, sustained support for community schools.

The idea my colleagues and I have been developing at Penn since 1985 essentially extends and updates John Dewey’s theory that the neighborhood school can function as the core neighborhood institution—the neighborhood institution that provides comprehensive services, galvanizes other community institutions and groups, and helps solve the myriad problems communities confront in a rapidly changing world.

Dewey recognized that if the neighborhood school were to function as a genuine community center, it would require additional human resources and support. But to our knowledge, he never identified colleges and universities as the (or even a) key source of broadlybased, sustained, comprehensive support for community schools.

It is critical to emphasize, however, that the university-assisted community schools now being developed have a very long way to go before they can effectively mobilize the powerful, untapped resources of

“The great universities of the twenty-first century will be judged by their ability to help solve our most urgent problems.”

President William R. Greiner SUNY Buffalo

“The idea my colleagues and I have been developing at Penn since 1985 essentially extends and updates John Dewey’s theory that the neighborhood school can function as the core neighborhood institution.”

Ira Harkavy

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their communities, and thereby enable individuals and families to function as community problem-solvers, as well as deliverers and recipients of caring, compassionate local services.

Academically-Based Community Service, the Netter Center, and Penn’s Development of University-Assisted Community Schools in West Philadelphia I believe that, as is true of all American universities, Penn’s highest, most basic, and most enduring responsibility is to help America realize in concrete practice the egalitarian promise of the Declaration of Independence: America will become an optimally democratic society, the path-breaking democratic society in an increasingly interdependent world, the exemplary democratic model for the improvement of the human condition. Once that proposition is granted, the problem then becomes how can Penn best fulfill its democratic responsibility? I believe it can best do so by effectively integrating and radically improving the entire West Philadelphia schooling system, beginning with Penn but including all schools within West Philadelphia, the university’s local geographic community.

Admittedly, the history of Penn’s work with West Philadelphia public schools has been a process of painful organizational learning and conflict; I cannot overemphasize that we have made many mistakes and our understanding and activities have continually changed over time. Moreover, Penn is only now beginning to tap its extraordinary resources in ways that could mutually benefit both Penn and its neighbors and result in truly radical school, community, and university change.

Significantly, we have come to see our work as a concrete example of Dewey’s general theory of learning by means of action-oriented, collaborative, real-world problem solving. Conceptualizing our work in terms of schools as the strategic components of complex urban ecological systems represented a major advance for our work.

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When my colleagues and I first began work on university-community relationships in 1985, we did not envision schools or universities as highly strategic components of urban ecological systems. What immediately concerned us was that West Philadelphia was rapidly and visibly deteriorating, with devastating consequences for Penn. Given that “present situation” (as Dewey would have phrased it), what should the university do? Committed to undergraduate teaching, my colleague, the distinguished American historian Lee Benson,

The Role of the University in the Social Fabric

and I (also a trained historian) designed an Honors Seminar aimed at stimulating undergraduates to think critically about what Penn could and should do to remedy its “environmental situation.” For a variety of reasons, the president of the university, Sheldon Hackney, himself a former professor of history, agreed to join us in hosting that seminar in the spring semester of 1985. The seminar’s title suggests its general concerns: “Urban UniversityCommunity Relationships: Penn-West Philadelphia, Past, Present, and Future as a Case Study.”

When the seminar began, we didn’t know anything about Dewey’s community school ideas. We literally knew nothing about the history of community school experiments and had not given any thought to Penn working with public schools in West Philadelphia. For present purposes, there is no need to recite the process of trial, error, and failure that led us—and our students—to see that Penn’s best strategy to remedy its rapidly deteriorating environmental situation was to use its enormous internal and external resources to help radically improve both West Philadelphia public schools and the neighborhoods in which they are located. Most unwittingly, during the course of the seminar’s work, we reinvented the community school idea!

Put another way, during the seminar we developed a strategy based on this proposition: colleges and universities can best improve their local environment if they mobilize and integrate their resources, particularly the “human capital” embodied in their students, to help develop and maintain community schools that function as focal points for creating healthy urban environments.

As noted above, by their very nature, community schools engage in far more activities and serve far wider constituencies than do traditional neighborhood schools.

To do all that successfully, however, a community school serving a specific neighborhood requires far more resources (broadly conceived) than does a traditional school serving the same neighborhood.

Once that problem was recognized, the servicelearning that students had been performing in West Philadelphia schools helped us to see that the solution was to actively mobilize the great resource of higher eds like Penn to assist the transformation of traditional neighborhood schools into innovative community

“Colleges and universities can best improve their local environment if they mobilize and integrate their resources, particularly the “human capital” embodied in their students.”

Ira Harkavy

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“The program... provided both Penn students and teachers, and students in West Philadelphia schools, “with a real motive behind and a real outcome ahead,” to quote John Dewey...”

schools. And once that was seen, the concept of universityassisted community schools followed logically. From then on, the seminar concentrated on helping to develop and implement that concept in real-world practice. In effect, the highly complex problem that the seminar concentrated on solving became the problem of effectively mobilizing and integrating Penn’s resources to help transform the traditional public schools of West Philadelphia into innovative community schools.

Over time, as students continually worked to develop and implement the concept of university-assisted community schools, the seminar evolved into an innovative service-learning program. Briefly, the program was based on collaborative, action-oriented community problem solving, which provided both Penn students and teachers, and students in West Philadelphia schools, “with a real motive behind and a real outcome ahead,” to quote John Dewey’sproposition about the conditions most likely to permit effective learning.5

“Put another way, [service-learning] projects create spaces Observing the work of our students and our partners in which school and in West Philadelphia community schools over a number of classroom democracy years led my colleagues and me to develop a key principle can grow and flourish.” that has guided our thinking and practice in a wide variety of ways and situations. That principle can be Ira Harkavy formulated as follows: at all levels (K to 16 and above), collaborative, community-based, action-oriented, servicelearning projects, which by their nature innovatively depart from customary, teacher-dominated school routines, allow and encourage both teachers and students to participate democratically in school and classroom governance and functioning. Put another way, such projects create spaces in which school and classroom democracy can grow and flourish.

In our judgment, that general principle can be instrumental in inspiring and developing effective programs for democratic citizenship in a wide variety of schools (at all levels) and communities. It warrants careful consideration, I believe, by everyone engaged in trying to solve the complex problems inherent in education for democratic citizenship.

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Over time, the seminar’s increasingly successful work stimulated an accelerating number of “academically-based community service” (ABCS) courses in a wide range of Penn schools and departments, developed and

The Role of the University in the Social Fabric

implemented under the auspices of the university’s Netter Center for Community Partnerships (For historical reasons that are unique to Penn, “academically-based community service” is the term the university uses for what elsewhere is called “service-learning”). ABCS courses focus on action-oriented, community problemsolving and the integration of research, teaching, learning, and service, as well as reflection on the service experience and its larger implications (e.g., why poverty, racism, and crime exist).

To date, approximately 160 such courses, working with schools and community organizations to solve strategic community problems, have been developed at Penn. Sixty-two courses, taught by 50 faculty members, across six schools and 23 departments, involving nearly 1,600 Penn undergraduate and graduate students, were offered during the 2010-2011 academic year. Over the past 20 years, an increasing number of faculty members, from a wide range of Penn schools and departments, have revised existing courses, or have created new courses, to offer innovative curricular opportunities for their students to become active learners, creative real-world problem solvers, and active producers (as opposed to passive consumers) of knowledge. That relatively rapid growth has resulted largely from the organizational innovation described below.

In July 1992, the president of the university, Sheldon Hackney, created the Center for Community Partnerships. (The Center was renamed the Barbara and Edward Netter Center for Community Partnerships in 2007 in recognition of the generous term and endowment support provided by Barbara and Edward Netter). To highlight the importance Hackney attached to the Center, he located it in the Office of the President and appointed me as its director, while I continued to serve as director of the Penn Program for Public Service, created in 1988 in the School of Arts and Sciences. Symbolically and practically, the Center’s creation constituted a major change in Penn’s relationship with West Philadelphia and the city as a whole. In principle, by creating the Center, the university formally committed itself as a corporate entity to finding ways to use its enormous resources (e.g., student and faculty “human capital”) to help improve the quality of life in its local community—not only in respect to public schools but also to economic and community development in general.

“Students...become active learners, creative real-world problem solvers, and active producers (as opposed to passive consumers) of knowledge.”

Ira Harkavy

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“Penn’s research and teaching should strongly focus on strategic universal problems-as these universal problems manifest themselves locally...”

Ira Harkavy

The Netter Center is based on the assumption that one highly effective and efficient way for Penn to simultaneously serve its enlightened institutional selfinterest and to carry out its academic mission of advancing universal knowledge and educating students is to function as a truly democratic, cosmopolitan, engaged, civic university.

It assumes that Penn’s research and teaching should strongly focus on strategic universal problems—such as schooling, healthcare, and economic development—as these universal problems manifest themselves locally in West Philadelphia and the rest of the city. By focusing on strategic universal problems and effectively integrating general theory and concrete practice, as Benjamin Franklin advocated in the eighteenth century, Penn would improve symbiotically both the quality of life in its ecological community and its academic research and teaching.

The Netter Center is also based on the proposition that when Penn is creatively conceived as a communityengaged civic university, it constitutes, in the best sense, both a universal and a local institution of higher education. As my colleagues and I optimistically envisioned it functioning, the Center for Community Partnerships would constitute a far-reaching innovation in university organization. To help overcome the remarkably competitive fragmentation that had developed after 1945, as Penn became a very large research university, the Center would identify, mobilize, and integrate Penn’s vast resources that could be used to help transform traditional West Philadelphia public schools into innovative community schools.

The emphasis on partnerships in the Center’s name was deliberate: it acknowledged that Penn could not try to go it alone in West Philadelphia as it had been long accustomed to doing. The creation of the Center was also significant internally. It meant that, at least in principle, the president of the university would have—and use—an organizational vehicle to strongly encourage all components of the university to seriously consider the roles they could appropriately play in Penn’s efforts to improve the quality of its off-campus environment.

Implementation of that strategy accelerated after

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The Role of the University in the Social Fabric

Judith Rodin became president in 1994. A native West Philadelphian and Penn graduate, Rodin was appointed in part because of her deeply felt commitment to improving Penn’s local environment and to transforming Penn into the leading urban American university.6 Amy Gutmann, Penn’s current president, is a distinguished political philosopher whose scholarly work has explored the role public schools and universities play in advancing democracy and democratic societies. In her inaugural address on October 15, 2004, President Gutmann unveiled a comprehensive “Penn Compact” designed to advance the university “From Excellence to Eminence.”Although the compact’s first two principles— increased access to a Penn education and the integration of knowledge—have significant implications for our discussion, the third principle is particularly relevant:

The third principle of the Penn Compact is to engage locally and globally. No one mistakes Penn for an ivory tower. And no one ever will. Through our collaborative engagement with communities all over the world, Penn is poised to advance the central values of democracy: life, liberty, opportunity, and mutual respect. Effective engagement begins right here at home.

We cherish our relationships with our neighbors, relationships that have strengthened Penn academically while increasing the vitality of West Philadelphia.7

Penn as an institution is now strongly oriented to advancing democratic, civic work.8 Penn, of course, cannot become an institution dedicated to preparing a moral, engaged democratic citizenry with a set of disconnected programs, no matter how extensive. It must become a central organizing principle of the institution, embedded in its DNA, so to speak—and that is a primary goal of Gutmann’s Penn Compact.

Even with partnerships dating back over 25 years with schools and communities in West Philadelphia, a developing and expanding critical mass of faculty and students involved in academically based community service teaching and learning (including the development of a Wharton-Netter Center Community Partnership created through a generous, anonymous gift), and visible and sustained support from the Netter Center from

“Franklin’s original vision for the university [was] to educate students with ‘an Inclination join’d with an Ability to serve Mankind, one’s Country, Friends and Family.’”

Ira Harkavy

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“Thinking, he wrote, begins in…a forked road situation, a situation which is ambiguous, which presents a dilemma, which poses alternatives.”

John Dewey

President Gutmann, Penn is still far from realizing the potential of university-assisted community schools in practice, as well as Franklin’s original vision for the university to educate students with “an Inclination join’d with an Ability to serve Mankind, one’s Country, Friends and Family.”9 A Core Netter Center Strategy: Focus on Significant, Community-Based, Real-World Problems To Dewey, knowledge and learning are most effective when human beings work collaboratively to solve specific, strategic, real-world problems. “Thinking,” he wrote, “begins in…a forked road situation, a situation which is ambiguous, which presents a dilemma, which poses alternatives.”10 A focus on universal problems (such as poverty, unequal healthcare, substandard housing, hunger, and inadequate, unequal education) as they are manifested locally is, in my judgment, the best way to apply Dewey’s brilliant proposition in practice. The below description of the development of the Sayre Health Center provides a concrete example of the application of that proposition at a university-assisted community school in West Philadelphia.

In the spring and summer of 2002, a group of undergraduates at Penn participating in an academicallybased community service seminar I offered decided to focus their research and service on one of the most important issues identified by members of the West Philadelphia community—the issue of health. The students’ work with the community ultimately led them to propose establishing a center focused on health promotion and disease prevention at a public school in West Philadelphia, the Sayre Middle School. A public school is in many respects the ideal location for health care programs, as well as other programs that serve the neighborhood—it is not only where children learn, but also where community residents gather and participate in a variety of activities.

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From their research, the students learned that community-oriented projects of this sort often founder because of their inability to secure stable resources. They postulated that a powerful way of accomplishing their goal would be to integrate issues of health into the curricula at schools at Penn and at the Sayre School itself.

They argued that the creation of a health promotion/ disease prevention center at the school could serve as a venue for learning for medical, dental, nursing, arts and

The Role of the University in the Social Fabric

sciences, social work, education, design, and business students. Their proposal proved to be so compelling that it led to the development of a school-based Community Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Center at Sayre Middle School. The Center was formally launched in January of 2003. It functions as the central component of a university-assisted community school designed both to advance student learning and democratic development and to help strengthen families and institutions within the community. Penn faculty and students in Medicine, Nursing, Dentistry, Social Policy and Practice, Arts and Sciences, and Design, as well as other schools to a lesser extent, now work at Sayre (which became a high school in 2007) through new and existing courses, internships, and research projects. Health promotion and service activities are also integrated into the Sayre students’ curriculum. In effect, Sayre students serve as agents of healthcare change in the Sayre neighborhood. (It is worth noting that one of the undergraduates who developed the Sayre project, Mei Elansary, received the 2003 Howard R. Swearer Humanitarian Award given by Campus Compact to students for outstanding public service.)

This example underscores how working to solve realworld problems can serve as the organizing principal for university-community partnerships. This approach, Problem Solving Learning (PSL), is conceptually close to Problem-Based Learning (PBL), which has been employed in professional schools for three decades, having originated at the medical school at Canada’s McMaster University. But Problem-Solving Learning is different in that the focus is on solving a pressing problem in the real world. It invites people with various kinds of knowledge and expertise (disciplinary and practical), faculty, students, and community members to work together on societally significant issues such as poverty, inadequate healthcare, substandard housing, and hunger as those issues are manifested locally.

Academically-based community service courses do more than provide hands-on experience for students and an opportunity for them to apply disciplinary knowledge (although they certainly provide that). These courses enable all of the partners—community members, faculty, staff, students and children—to actively participate in work to solve real-world problems with all their social, cultural, and political complexity. Problem-solving

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“And finally, the local community is a democratic real-world learning site in which community members, faculty members, and students can pragmatically determine whether the work is making a real difference.”

Ira Harkavy

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learning encourages participants to respond to problems democratically, since the ideas, insights, and knowledge of academics, students (at all levels of schooling), teachers, and community members are needed if genuine solutions are to be found and implemented.

Conclusion My colleagues and I have found many benefits to a local focus for college and university civic engagement programs. Ongoing, continuous interaction is more easily facilitated by working in an easily accessible local setting.

Relationships of trust, so essential for effective partnerships and effective learning, are also built through day-to-day work on problems and issues of mutual concern. In addition, the local community also provides a convenient setting in which a number of service-learning, communitybased research, and related courses in different disciplines can work together on a complex problem to produce substantive results. Work in a college’s or university’s local community, since it facilitates interaction across schools and disciplines, can create interdisciplinary learning opportunities. And finally, the local community is a democratic real-world learning site in which community members, faculty members, and students can pragmatically determine whether the work is making a real difference, whether both the neighborhood and the institution are better as a result of common efforts. In short, in my

The Role of the University in the Social Fabric

experience, democratic, problem-solving service-learning focused on specific, universal problems manifested in a university’s locality is a promising approach for advancing effective civic engagement, as well as the democratic purposes of America’s colleges and universities.

Notes

1. Discussion of the concept of a democratic devolution revolution is found in testimony

by Ira Harkavy before the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity of the Committee on Banking and Financial Services of the House of Representatives, 105 Cong. 1 sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1997).

2. John W. Gardner, “Remarks to the Campus Compact Strategic Planning Committee,” San Francisco, February 10, 1998.

3. Ibid.

4. William R. Greiner, “In the Total of All These Acts: How Can American Universities Address the Urban Agenda?” Universities and Community Schools 4, no. 1-2 (1994): 12.

5. John Dewey, The School and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991) 12.

6. Judith Rodin, The University and Urban Revival: Out of the Ivory Tower and Into the Streets (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007).

7. Amy Gutmann, inaugural address, as printed in the Almanac Supplement, October 19, 2004, retrieved from http://www.upenn.edu/almanac/volumes/v51/n08/inaug_ag_speech.html

8. Lee Benson, Ira Harkavy, John Puckett, Dewey’s Dream: Universities and Democracies in an Age of Education Reform (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2007); and Lee Benson, Ira Harkavy, John Puckett, “Democratic Transformation through UniversityAssisted Community Schools” in eds., John Saltmarsh and Matthew Hartley To Serve a Larger Purpose: Engagement for Democracy and the Transformation of Higher Education (Temple University Press: 2011): 49-81

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9. Benjamin Franklin, “Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsilvania [sic],” reprinted in John Hardin Best, ed., Benjamin Franklin on Education (New York: Teachers College Press, 1962), 150-151.

10. Dewey, How We Think (New York: 1910; reprint, Boston: D.C. Heath, 1990), 11.

Closing Remarks: President Tom Foley

Thank you Sr. Helen. Just a couple of very quick things...One, thanks to our terrific panelists. Dr. Stevens, you did a short course on Catholic and Mercy social teaching; I don’t know how you got all that in, but I got a lot out of it and appreciated it. You also gave real depth to the word hospitality, which is one of our core values. And, of course, those two very personal stories about your students Juana and Precious were poignant and perfect examples of mission accomplished. Thank you.

Ira, no surprise, you gave us a short course that went from John Dewey to John Gardner and with a lot of meat on it. Thank you for “talking” us down that road of the “democratic-devolution-revolution.” It is all the more meaningful because you have walked that walk for 40 years now, having started your career in community and school-based action programs.

Dr. Gray, thank you for your excellent examples of three different kinds of service-learning. They gave us a chalkboard understanding of the value and practice of service-learning.

Sr. Helen, as always you are very patient and very caring in the way that you put all of this together over many months. Thank you for moderating today’s panel and for your continued leadership in helping our College to fulfill its mission.

This will not be a “one-off” experience for Mount Aloysius College. I want you to notice, in your programs, the list of the seven different initiatives at this institution right now, this year—seven programs that have to do with

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The Role of the University in the Social Fabric

fulfilling and expanding our role in the social fabric and ensuring that our community puts into practice the themes of today’s conversation.

Those seven initiatives include: 1. Cultural Literacy Seminar: requires all freshman and transfer students to complete at least six hours of service in their first semester.

2. The Community Engagement and Social Entrepreneurship Center: the Center develops and coordinates the College’s community outreach programs as well as developing attitudes of social responsibility within professional career development and student business ventures.

3. Ecumenical Luncheon and Lecture: twice a year leaders from various Christian churches gather for a luncheon and lecture series that unites diverse traditions in input and discussion regarding Scriptural exegesis and ecumenical dialogue.

4. 5th Annual Moral Choices Lecture Series: an annual event that explores the critical concerns of our world through careful analysis of the moral implications of social, economic, and political choices for the larger society.

5. Service-Learning Exposition: an annual event that showcases service-learning courses at Mount Aloysius College and the many community partners involved in these projects.

6. Campus Ministry Service Trips: five or six service trips provide opportunities for students/ faculty/staff to address needs locally, nationally, and internationally.

7. Club and Athletic Service Activities: members of all clubs and athletic teams must sponsor at least one service activity during each academic year or athletic season.

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President Tom and Michele Foley

Inauguration of Thomas P. Foley Thirteenth President of Mount Aloysius College September 16, 2011

Mount Aloysius College traces its roots to Mount Aloysius Academy, opened in 1853 by Sisters of Mercy who emigrated from Dublin, Ireland. The College encourages students “to synthesize faith with learning, to develop competence with compassion, to put talents and gifts at the service of others and to assume leadership in the world community.�

Like President Foley, 70% of Mount Aloysius students represent the first generation in their families to attend college. Today at Mount Aloysius, students can choose from over 70 programs of study and develop their skills to a state of the art level.

The beautiful and historic campus is located on 193 acres in central Pennsylvania, at the summit of the Alleghenies in Cresson.

7373 Admiral Peary Highway Cresson, Pennsylvania 888-823-2220 www.mtaloy.edu