Why don't we see if we couldn't focus (at least part of) the undergrad curriculum more on community based learning (service learning) and collaborative research projects with local governments, companies or non-profits. If we built up the Center for Urban Schools Partnerships (CUSP) as the core of such an effort and then used resources associated with that to really make it worthwhile for departments and programs to partner with it we could start making our location in Oakland a very visible asset rather than a liability that we subtly hide behind pictures of San Francisco and the Bay Bridge in our brochures. Packaged right, it would be VERY desirable to incoming students. People who speak to potential students at admissions events will tell you they always perk up when one talks about working with nonprofits and city government. It's a perfect vehicle for making education practical and "real" while at the same time maintaining its intellectual rigor.
One could imagine creating a framework that defined different kinds of community collaboration, some appropriate for beginning students, some appropriate for students just beginning their training in, say, research methods, and some appropriate for advanced students with specialized skills. Instructors could connect their courses with such a framework without having to re-invent things on their own. With enough such activity it would be cost-effective to have some staff to coordinate activity and to have space dedicated to the partnership center.
Getting this off the ground would not be as heavy lifting as one might think since so many pieces are already in place and we have some experience with past projects in this vein.
Eventually, graduate and professional students might be organized along the lines of what law schools and policy schools often call "clinics" -- mini-consultancies based at the school and supervised by professors or professors of practice (or clinical professors) and providing services to community members or community based organizations. The most obvious connections here would be PPOL and MBA and ED but one can imagine a role for arts graduate students as well.
An important part of such an initiative is to build enough of an infrastructure that the whole thing does not just depend on a few faculty members' dedication. The resource flows and the benefits to students have to be positive enough that it is a good idea apart from the fact that it is a worthy idea.
A "Request For Comments" blog on proposals related to undergraduate programs.
Some of this is happening already: for example, PPOL senior theses are written for local nonprofits and government agencies. Making and sustaining the connections to these organizations does take effort, and there would be a benefit to sharing these connections across the college.
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ReplyDeleteWhile I hate to add a staff member, adding a person to coordinate service learning or having a course release for a faculty member to do that job (which might make more sense and be less expensive) would make this more sustainable. Someone would be a contact person and have an incentive to keep reaching out to other groups.
ReplyDeleteI also think having some way to make these opportunities available to first year students would be valuable for recruiting. But I shy away from making it a requirement -- I like Wah's idea on study abroad and foreign language, which is if it is appealing enough, it doesn't need to be a requirement.