Applied Research in The Context Of Community Partnerships

Abstract

Three University of Wisconsin-Parkside faculty and academic staff analyze their experiences in helping the campus become an engaged university, from the perspective of transition and symbolic interaction theories, which help explain problems encountered with engagement and suggest ways to circumvent them. Two applied research projects supported by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Outreach Partnership Center Program show the importance of bringing faculty, students, and community members together to work on projects that: 1) uncover different viewpoints of certain issues, 2) produce new knowledge by uncovering unknown information, 3) foster collaborative relationships, 4) identify common ground between community and university concerns, 5) provide learning opportunities for all involved.

Introduction

The issue of engagement has become an important one for higher education institutions. Constituencies demand greater accountability and demonstrated relevance to important community and global problems. For state institutions such as ours, this pressure comes most directly from our state legislature. For regional campuses like UW-Parkside, pressure also comes from surrounding local communities, for us Kenosha and Racine. In a climate of increased fiscal austerity, traditional campuses and faculties, not usually prone to systematic engagement with their surrounding communities, have felt compelled to begin such activities -- from a concern about fiscal stability and institutional survival (Kellogg Commission, 1999).

While campuses have faced these pressures, the service learning movement has also grown because active learning and the opportunity for students to develop citizenship are thought to enhance learning potential. The combination of these two movements has spurned the entrance of many new faces into the community arena. The benefits of engagement for those inside the ivy covered walls -- both students and faculty -- are many. But this merger is not without problems. A common arrangement is one where faculty and students work on significant problems identified by the community. Often, the work done by the faculty and students is applied research, although they may also teach or apply research findings in community outreach activities. Problems that can arise are these: the university may not know how to find out what "the community" thinks, may misunderstand what they say, may modify the work to fit curriculum requirements (losing its essence), or may not be able to deliver what was promised. Also, an inexperienced faculty and student body may offend members of the community, and the constraints imposed by the typical semester and disciplinary fragmentation within most institutions may make it difficult for the institution to respond adequately to entire problems as presented by the community.

There are many issues involved in helping higher education institutions become engaged. There is much "translation work" for practitioners to do. We use two examples of applied research in a 3-year HUD-funded community partnership project in low income neighborhoods to illustrate both the challenges and the promise of the engagement approach, drawing out implications for practice from three theories: 1) transition theory which helps us understand organizational change, 2) symbolic interaction theory which helps us understand how to create conditions that motivate people to change, and 3) participatory research theory which posits the importance of community involvement in the research process.

Our Work

Through the work of UW-Parkside’s Engaged University Council, established in 1999, the institution has in theory embraced the idea of engagement. However, the transition from theory to practice has presented a number of challenges to faculty, students, and community members. A main challenge has been to recognize transition as a process, one that often includes stops and starts and moments of inertia. All three groups have had to deal with each other in ways that allow everyone to take advantage of what each of the three has to bring to the engagement process and the partnerships that ensue.

The process involved is modeled well for us by transition theory (Bridges, 1991, and Bridges and Mitchell, 2000). This perspective argues that transition occurs every time a change is attempted. While the change itself is external (new policy, practice, or structure), transition is experienced as an internal phenomenon (a psychological reorientation that individuals and organizations must complete for the change to work). Transition, then, is the state experienced internally when dealing with change.

We think that transition is automatic, that it occurs simply because the change is happening. But this is not necessarily true. Just because our institution has declared itself engaged, does not mean that our faculty, staff, students, and community partners have made the transition. Letting go of the old ways of doing things is perhaps the most difficult part of this process. Symbolic interaction theory argues that we cling to the old, even when it becomes very uncomfortable, even destructive, because it is at least predictable, and we tend to become anxious when things are unpredictable (Stryker and Statham, 1985). For our engagement goals to be reached, all parties must learn to see themselves differently and then form new working relationships based on this new perspective. Again, symbolic theory helps us understand the importance of notions of self and identity in motivating the individual to maintain -- or change -- important relationships. Even when a change is showing signs that it may work, there is the issue of timing, for transition happens much more slowly than change. It takes longer because it requires that people/organizations undergo three separate processes, and all of them can be difficult. The stages posited by this theory are these:

Stage One: Letting Go. Letting go of the way things used to be is the first hurdle. People or organizations have to give up accomplishing tasks that made them successful in the past. It may look simple to have faculty work with community members to design projects, but in practice it means faculty have to give up their identity of being the only expert, recognizing community and students as bringing some level of expertise to a project. This is especially true in our age of knowledge explosion, when those outside of academia have access to so much information from a wide range of sources. The challenge is for students and community members to recognize their own expertise and not give into the old idea of faculty as the only source of knowledge. Faculty may be unaccustomed to thinking of themselves as learners as well as teachers. They may be uncomfortable that they cannot be more definite with students about what will happen throughout the semester; their efforts to prepare students are made more difficult by this uncertainty. Traditionally, faculty have taught the theory, expecting that the students will get to put theory into practice once in the workforce. Engagement gives faculty the opportunity to watch students practice the theory while they are learning it.

Students must let go of the idea of themselves as passive learners, recognizing a larger responsibility for their learning. Students often complain about boring lectures and difficult tests, so the assumption is that they would respond positively to the idea of community engagement. However, we find that students are reluctant to go into the community, especially parts of the community with which they are not familiar. Students become anxious when faculty can’t tell them exactly what will happen during the course of the semester because responding to community needs requires flexibility on the part of all involved. Because of past habits, it can be easier and more comfortable to be passive than active. Yet, once students understand the process, which usually requires more than one experience, they recognize that they have learned more deeply through community engagement.

Community members also have to let go of the idea that the university can address community issues by itself, recognizing that faculty and students are theoretical not necessarily practical experts. The community has often felt used as a research laboratory by the university, so past relationship issues may have to be dealt with and a sense of trust re-established. It is especially difficult to do all of this within the confines of a semester, a confine that the community member may see as unnecessary and artificial. But the community members’ knowledge about the real issues facing the community can be invaluable to the university. If, and only if, a trusting relationship has been built with the community will this knowledge be shared.

Stage Two: Shifting into Neutral. Even after letting go of old ways, it is difficult to start anew. The second difficult phase of transition, called the Neutral Zone, is an in-between state that is full of uncertainty and confusion, taking a lot of energy. The Neutral Zone is uncomfortable, so people/organizations work hard to get out of it by either rushing ahead too soon into a new situation or retreating to the past. The Neutral Zone is where the creativity and energy occur. Since the roles aren’t set yet, the future can be shaped in this in-between stage where real transformation takes place.

UW-Parkside is in the Neutral Zone right now. Faculty, students, and community members have begun to lose their hesitancy about being involved in the engagement process, but the roles and responsibilities are not yet clearly defined, something which must be determined with each new partnership. Goals can be reassessed, and we can learn from the previous Letting Go stage in the Neutral Zone. This requires some honest reflection and communication among all involved to resolve left over issues that may have impeded progress in previous attempts at engagement. At UW-Parkside, faculty and students are involved in a conversation about what has and hasn’t worked in previous attempts at community engagement. This same conversation must also be had with the community, for our engagement will not be truly effective without community input into the process. Many creative ideas have been generated in this state, such as designating in the course schedule which classes will involve community-based learning. Some faculty have also worked on the same community issue over a number of semesters. The Neutral Zone is the stage where faculty development must be a priority; we are planning to involve faculty in a systematic process for assessing their teaching, to help them assess the impact of engagement (Goswami and Stillman, 1987).

Stage Three: Forging New Beginnings. Once the contours of where we want to go become clear, after we have conquered the fear of Letting Go and the confusion of the Neutral Zone, we must be willing to strike out in a new direction. It can be especially difficult to motivate people to try new structures and processes in organizations with a history of mistakes. Organizational incentives, while important all along, become especially important in this stage, as the followers watch to see what happens to the early innovators. Institutional rewards help to ease the difficult identity transformation going on internally among individuals, since their sense of self, competence, and value are on the line. Symbolic interaction theory argues that such rewards help to confirm a new, alternative sense of self. We have yet to experience this stage on our campus, although basic contours of the future are emerging.

The Community Based Research Projects

Some of our most promising work has been applied research that has been driven by community need. However, community members have not been as involved as we would like, as stipulated in the participatory research model (Bentz and Shapiro, 1998). Our ideal process would bring faculty, students, and community members together to design research that could function to: 1) uncover different viewpoints of certain issues, 2) produce new knowledge by uncovering unknown information, 3) foster collaborative relationships, 4) identify common ground between community and university concerns, 5) provide learning opportunities for all involved. Even so, the two research projects we describe below have accomplished much of this:

The Brownfield project in Kenosha involved several types of research, done by students in several cooperating courses. In Spring 1999, we focused on two pieces of abandoned industrial property in a neighborhood in Kenosha, one already acquired by the city and a larger property that the city was in the process of acquiring. There were many uncertainties about both pieces of property. What exactly was the extent of contamination (both had been foundries)? What would be found when the buildings were torn down? What possible uses would both pieces of property have, given levels of contamination? Would the residents experience any harmful impacts of the contamination on these properties? Two classes began to answer some of these questions. A sociology class (Environment and Society) divided into several teams. A team of science majors gathered data from a state Department of Natural Resources field office about the public reports that had been filed about contamination problems on both sites. The students gathered and analyzed relevant data that was very helpful for the city government in warning about the extent of the problems on the site. These students were helped by faculty consultants in the Biology and Chemistry Departments. Another team, with the help of another science major and the faculty consultants, translated this information into accessible fliers for the neighborhood residents. They also researched possible approaches to involving residents in the entire process and prepared materials to be used by the residents in this effort. This information has been very useful for a group of block captains in the neighborhood, both in giving them information to pass along to their neighbors (most of it very reassuring), and to think about how to organize additional educational efforts. A second class, Environmental Economics, did several economic development plans for both properties. They also gathered data from the tax assessors office and plotted a regression equation showing the impact on property values of living next to a green space, as opposed to living next to a brownfield. This work has also been helpful to both city officials considering options for these properties, as well as for the residents who want to have some say in what will happen in their neighborhood. The regression equation has helped both groups think about the options in terms of returns to investment.

Several classes have also done research on a project attempting to mediate employer/employee relations for residents of low income neighborhoods. This project began in Fall 1998, when a Sociology Social Psychology class did surveys of employers of low wage workers and residents of two low income neighborhoods (Lincoln Neighborhood in Kenosha and West Sixth Street Neighborhood in Racine) about problems with workers and with work, respectively. These surveys revealed some interesting differences in perspectives. The employers complained a good deal about lack of work ethic and the difficulty they had finding reliable workers. The neighborhood residents acknowledged problems in these areas, but focused more on the complications in their lives that lay behind these issues -- problems with child care, transportation, health, etc. These findings were presented at both Job Centers, to those who work with employers and set policy within the Centers. These presentations were especially effective because of the participation of local residents, who could amplify and clarify issues. Later classes, one on Leadership in Fall 1999, and a Women and Work class in Spring 2000, gathered additional information about workers’ issues, programs companies are adopting around the country, and barriers to implementing such programs. We also facilitated an exchange of viewpoints between local residents and managers of the Job Centers. This information is now being used to create forums for employers, along with several collaborators, to address how to work effectively with today’s workers. A fourth class, Urban Economic Problems, in Fall 1999, explored and reported problems with unemployment rates in both neighborhoods and in both cities and central cities overall.

Conclusions

Symbolic Interaction Theory has as its basic premise the notion that social life and order are created and maintained out of the daily interactions we all have. We have the power to create, change, enlarge, destroy our social fabric; while it does influence us, we also have the capacity to influence it. A major tenet underlying all of this is the power of subjective understandings. Symbolic Interactionists are fond of saying, "If a thing is perceived as real, it is real in its consequences," (Stryker and Statham, 1985). Students and faculty have the opportunity to make a difference in the community, to change the current order of things. Inevitably, these projects touch off some new way of seeing things; the meeting of the minds can be explosive in this way. When groups of people begin to talk with each other, in ways they usually do not, new insights emerge, and these insights can lead to new ways of doing things and changes in social arrangements.

The impact on the sense of self of those involved can also be quite dramatic. Other studies suggest that community members begin to think of themselves as more powerful or skilled than they had previously realized (Parker-Gwin, 1998). Students are buoyed by the notion that their actions matter. Faculty also have a sense of self as effective that is affirmed by these projects. We are beginning to do research on the implications of participating in these projects for our own students and faculty. We firmly believe that engagement will make teachers better teachers, students better learners, and communities healthier places to work and live.

References

Bentz, Valerie Malhotra and Jeremy J. Shapiro. (1998). Mindful Inquiry in Social Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Bridges, William. (1991). Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.

Bridges, William and Susan Mitchell. (2000). "Leading transition: A new model for change," Leader to Leader. Number 16, Spring, pp. 30-36.

Goswami, Dixie and Peter R. Stillman. (1987). Reclaiming the Classroom: Teacher Research as an Agency for Change. Upper Montclair, NJ: Boynton/Cook Publishers, Inc.

Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities. (1999). Returning to our Roots: The Engaged Institution. New York: National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges.

Park, Peter. (1993). Voices of Change: Participatory Research in the United States and Canada. Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey.

Parker-Gwin, Rachel. (1998). "Service learning as pedagogy and civic education: Comparing outcomes for three models," Teaching Sociology, 26:276-291.

Stryker, Sheldon and Anne Statham. (1985). "Symbolic interaction and role theory." In Handbook of Social Psychology, Third Edition, Gardner Lindzey and Elliot Aronsen (eds.), pp. 311-378. New York: Random House.

_______________________

Anne Statham (statham@uwp.edu); Roseann Mason (roseann.mason@uwp.edu); Esther Letven (letven@uwp.edu); University of Wisconsin-Parkside, Center for Community Partnerships; 900 Wood Rd., Kenosha WI 53141-2000.

Presented at the Midwest Research-to-Practice Conference on Adult, Continuing, and Community Education, University of Wisconsin, Madison, September 27-29, 2000.

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