How to Develop Campus-Community Partnerships

Developing campus-community partnerships, although often presented in the literature as formulaic and based on principles of good practice, is much more than craft. We do not dispute the importance of principles of good practice; they are necessary guideposts in the work of partnership development. We have found, however, that much in the partnering process closely resembles ministry and poetry and conveys the essence of the common commitment when campus and community come together. We try here to capture this essence by telling the story of a particular partnership. We explore a partnership between a church and a pubic research university and what it means to "meet the other morally" (Witherell & Noddings, 1991) in the context of developing campus-community partnerships. This is the craft, ministry, and poetry of partnership development. [authors]