Community-Campus Partnerships and Student Learning: Using Lessons Learned to Chart a Path for the Future

Abstract

Institutions of higher learning are being called upon more than ever to establish and nurture sustainable partnerships with local communities. In particular, the language of Jesuit mission and identity lends itself to community engagement work and developing the civic skills of our students. These efforts can provide transformative experiences for campus communities, fundamentally altering and perforating the boundaries between campus and community. Yet partnerships present significant challenges. Mission differences, variations in institutional capacity, and divergent cultures can all potentially stand in the way of long-lasting partnerships, particularly when many actors are involved. After trial and error, reviewing best practices in campus-community partnerships, and relying on the rich heritage of Jesuit educational pedagogy and practice, educators at Loyola University Maryland developed a set of take-away principles. These lessons learned now serve as a guide for conversations about entering into both transactional and transformational partnerships on campus. The principles act as a type of roadmap for future engagement with the local community in order to provide high-quality civic learning opportunities for students.