PREFACE

It has been an honor and privilege to be asked to carry out this important study, to be trusted by the university administrators and the participants to listen, hear, and document the perspectives of community leaders who have partnered with university faculty, staff, students, and programs during the past several decades. This is a critical time for this study, not just for the University of Arizona but for many universities that are grappling with how best to balance their obligations to their academic communities with their obligations to the communities in which they are physically located. While land acknowledgments are attempts to recognize and honor the original stewards of a place and their enduring ties to it, and labor acknowledgments remind us of the unpaid labor and forced servitude that enabled new groups to settle there, studies such as this call attention to the people and organizations upon whom the university’s current operations depend. They remind us of our responsibilities to the communities within which we live and work.

In 2020 and 2021, at the time the data for this study were being gathered, at least five initiatives to increase and recognize campus-community engagement were underway at UArizona.1 These initiatives follow decades of interactions between university and community collaborators. As efforts such as these go forward, it is imperative that they are shaped by lessons learned from both long-time and more recent collaborators. Good intentions are necessary but not sufficient for successful relationships. Budget cuts and reallocations, financial rewards for classes teaching large numbers of students, and structural conditions such as the growing proportion of faculty in temporary positions—which in 20202021 climbed above 50% (University of Arizona 2021)—all challenge the translation of rhetoric into practice.

Fortunately, dedicated community leaders, along with their university partners, have developed—and are willing to share—approaches and models that work, as well as those that have not lived up to expectations. We are grateful for the time and energy of the 60 people who participated in interviews for this study.

We express special thanks to Interim Associate Vice Provost Maribel Alvarez (then Associate Dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences), who requested this study and secured funding (twice!) to see it through. Thanks also to Jennifer Fields, Director of the University of Arizona Office of Societal Impact, for her enthusiasm and support for the study. We are indebted to Isabella Moreno and M. Bailey Stephenson who helped identify and review relevant literature, designed the interview protocols and developed questions, and participated in the initial round of interviews just prior to and during the early months of the global COVID-19 pandemic.

We are especially grateful to the 60 individuals who participated in interviews for this study, along with the numerous others who shared their ideas and insights and guided us to the study participants. Despite the disruptions of their lives and organizations during the pandemic, they took time to reflect upon and help us understand their experiences and perspectives. It goes without saying that this study would not exist without them.

1 In October 2019, the University of Arizona adopted UArizona as its new nickname. The report authors refer to it in this way. Many of the study participants use prior nicknames such as UA and UofA to refer to the institution.