Partnerships that Work: The Stories and Lessons from Campus/Community Collaborations

This book describes the $1.5 million three-year project conducted by the New York and the Pennsylvania Campus Compacts, funded by Learn and Serve America—Higher Education, entitled “Building on Our Strengths.” Through subgrants to 16 projects, over 70 campuses and their community partners received grants to establish and expand service-learning via networks among regional partners or within academic disciplines.

Valuable lessons about campus/community partnerships, the development of loosely-coupled networks, and the many variations of community-based education, civic engagement and service-learning emerged across a range of institutional types. The lessons learned should be useful to institutional leaders and policy-makers as well as to faculty and staff involved in the public mission of higher education.