In his 2005 essay, “Local Knowledge
in the Age of Information” (in The Way of
Ignorance and Other Essays),
Wendell Berry discusses the tension between urban and rural elements of society
in the information age.
Noting that information is not knowledge and that some knowledge is
centered on the specific attributes of a particular place, he argues that,
“until the information is shaped into knowledge in some particular mind and
applied without harm to an actual place, we will not know whether or not it is
an asset or how valuable an asset it is.”
What is needed, he writes, is not simply one-way communication—from the
university outward—but a conversation
that goes back and forth between the center and the periphery. Such a conversation is, by definition,
dynamic: both parties stand to
gain from it. “There is always the
possibility,” Berry notes, “that a conversation, by bringing its participants
under one another’s influence, will change them, possibly for the better.”
For
Berry, the situation calls for a new vision to guide the traditional extension
mission of the land grant university:
. . . I am talking about the need for a two-way
communication, a conversation, between a land grant university and the region
for which it is responsible. The
idea of the extension service should be applied to the whole institution. Not just the agricultural extension
agents, but also the graduate teachers, doctors, lawyers, and other community
servants should be involved. They
should be carrying news from the university out into the region, of
course. But this would be
extension in two directions: They
would also be carrying back into the university news of what is happening that
works well, what is succeeding according to the best standards, what works
locally. And they should be
carrying back criticism also: what is not working, what the university is not
doing that it should do, what it is doing that it should do better.
The
extension mission dates back to the 1800s, when the national network of
Agricultural Extension Services was established to ensure that the United
States had the agricultural production power to sustain urban growth and
immigration during the Industrial Revolution. Then, the vision was of the agricultural researcher working
side-by-side with local farmers in their fields—a good match with the “conversation”
vision. However, over the years, a
variety of services—and other modes of delivery—have developed around the idea
of extending the university, gathered under titles like continuing education,
distance education, outreach, research and technology transfer, etc.
Today,
“engagement” may be the best term to describe the many ways our land grant
universities can best serve their communities. These include community-based research and research
transfer, offering formal education—from workplace training to undergraduate
and graduate degree programs—at times and places convenient to working adults, engaging
employers in organizational and technical improvement, partnering with
community high schools to improve the curriculum, and the broad set of
community-based services that have arisen out of the original agricultural
extension mission.
That
said, at many institutions the engagement function is often viewed as a one-way
“delivery system” rather than as a means of creating conversations between
campus and community. Moreover, engagement
programs are often viewed by academic units as cash cows rather than as part of
their central mission. Its
many activities—continuing education and distance education courses,
conferences, noncredit workshops, consulting services, etc.—produce new,
discretionary revenue for academic units, often through the use of adjunct
faculty whose experiences in this arena do little to inform research and
teaching within the participating academic unit.
The
problem is made more complex as we move into the global information society,
where it is increasingly difficult to define “community.” For today, let’s assume that “community”
means the citizens of the state in which the land grant university operates and
the organizations—governments, employers, civil society, etc.—through which these
communities function. Here,
the need to create and sustain conversations is, perhaps, more clear.
How
do we create sustained conversations between the university and the communities
it serves? Here are some thoughts:
·
Leadership The Engagement unit—Continuing
Education, Outreach, University Extension, etc.—is often the unit most directly
involved in linking the university with multiple communities. Engagement professionals need to see
themselves as ambassadors, looking out into the community to identify needs and
within the university to identify resources that meet those needs and then
managing the relationship to ensure that a true conversation is developing and
that the program evolves as the conversation reveals new opportunities. This is the ultimate role of Engagement
leaders.
·
Needs Assessment Engagement units have developed strong
marketing and market research units to determine the financial potential of
university programs. However, this
should be complemented by a needs assessment function that goes into the
community and ask the basic questions:
What are your problems?
What are your needs? What
can we do to help? This is
the beginning of the engagement conversation. A periodic needs assessment process—perhaps one that would
drive a rolling three-year plan—will help ensure that Engagement programs not
only have a market but that they are addressing vital community needs.
·
Governance Engagement professionals must be able
to match community need with academic readiness. This requires that the Engagement unit meet with
representatives of all academic units to discuss community needs and
opportunities and to ensure that the university is bringing the most appropriate
resources to the table. For many
years at Penn State, each new program idea was reviewed by a Coordinating
Council consisting of representatives from each of the University’s colleges. This approval process ensured that interdisciplinary
opportunities were addressed and that relevant faculty research was brought to
the table. This kind of review ensures
an internal “means assessment” conversation that is the counterpart to the
needs assessment.
·
Feedback For the conversation ideal to work, it
is important that faculty who participate in engagement programs provide
feedback to their colleagues on what they have learned by engaging with the
community and with working adult students. A formal feedback mechanism is essential, given the large
number of adjunct faculty who often teach in these programs but do not
participate in other aspects of the academic community. One thought: offer an annual competition for faculty to write brief
essays about their experiences with students and community organizations. Publish the best articles online and
give recognition to those who have worked to develop a true conversation with
students/clients.
·
Partnerships
Once the university has determined need, its responsibility is to provide the
best possible academic response.
In the past, response was limited by geography. However, online technology allows an
institution to reach out to other universities and partner with them to deliver
programs that best meet local needs.
The Great Plains IDEA project is a great example. At its best, such partnerships also
create new relationships among faculty at participating institutions, opening
new doors for collaborative research.
·
Learning
Design The “conversation” ideal also operates inside individual
courses. In today’s world,
education is not simply information transfer. It is about guiding students through the process of inquiry,
evaluation of information, and application of knowledge to solve problems. It requires conversations at many
levels. Several models for a conversational
learning environment are emerging, including the flipped classroom, in which
content normally delivered in a lecture is available out of class so that
classroom time can focus on discussion.
As
we—our institutions, our communities, ourselves as professionals—move further
into the global information society, it is important that we build new
structures to better serve the needs of our communities and, in the process, to
build new kinds of community within our work. In this effort, engagement professionals may well be on the
cutting edge of building productive new conversations between our universities
and the many communities we serve.
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