Community Engagement Through Partnerships - A Primer

As more and more institutions look outside the campus walls for opportunities to serve their surrounding communities, a need has grown for guidance in developing true partnerships. There is no template that can be applied to campus-community partnerships. Each situation will be different and require different strategies, but a look at some basic tenets of community engagement seen through the prism of a new campus-community partnership being developed in Worcester, Massachusetts may provide guidance to individuals and institutions seeking to engage the campus with the community. Common threads throughout the discussion are open and honest communication among the partners and a recognition that resources and knowledge reside on and off the campus.