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Pilot Project Profile - Lynchburg CollegeLead Contacts | Issue Focus | Pilot Project Plan | Timeline | Progress Reports Lead Contacts
Issue Focus
Progress Reports
Pilot Project Plan1. Background
The Center for Community Development and Social Justice (the CCDSJ) at Lynchburg College was founded in 1998 by a sociology professor (now retired), Dr. Tom Seaman, an advocate and a practitioner of applied research. Early external funding for the CCDSJ was secured through HUD’s Office of University Partnerships to develop a Community Outreach Partnership Center (COPC), which was initially focused on projects in three inner city neighborhoods within the City of Lynchburg. While maintaining many of the early partnerships that were formed, the CCDSJ gradually expanded its focus to involve more students in the work of the Center. Grants from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation supported the creation of a summer social entrepreneurship internship program, and a three-year, $118,000 “New Directions” grant (2003-06) from the Jessie Ball duPont Fund provided significant funding for the implementation of a community-based research initiative, as well as support to institutionalize social entrepreneurship coursework during the academic year. Grant support and access to a national network from the Bonner Foundation facilitated the creation of a Bonner Leaders Program and the development of a Minor in Civic Engagement, both of which integrate social entrepreneurship and community-based research (CBR), and grant funds from Princeton University’s Community-Based Learning Initiative have made it possible to further institutionalize CBR and fund individual CBR projects. During the last five years, the CCDSJ has brokered more than forty CBR projects, and in recent years has been integrating an increasing emphasis in a few courses on public policy knowledge and impact.
The collaborative and democratic principles of CBR, as opposed to the inherent nature of traditional academic research, have led to higher quality community-campus partnerships and, we also believe, to increased student learning, enhanced programming in the nonprofit/civic sector to varying degrees, and opportunities for personal and professional development for a majority of participants.
Earlier this week (on October 29), we held a Community Partners Workshop and luncheon in the CCDSJ’s Bonner Room. The Bonner program and our current CBR efforts were featured, and the possibility of a PolicyOptions.org grant initiative was introduced. Many ideas were generated by community partners for CBR/public policy projects during this event and also during several recent meetings with individual partners, including the Virginia Organizing Project (non-partisan), and the Sexual Assault Response Program in central Virginia. In recent months, VOP has held several community forums on the issue of healthcare and compiled the stories, concerns, and policy ideas of concerned citizens. Also during the past year, the City of Lynchburg has worked with community leaders, neighborhood residents, and external consultants to hold a series of Dialogues on Race and Racism. Initially spurred by local events, including a controversial police shooting of an African-American man in his home resulting in the man’s death, city officials and concerned citizens agreed the Dialogues were needed and could become a catalyst for improved race relations, understanding, and trust-building in the greater Lynchburg area. The Dialogues involved hundreds of people in discussion circles over several months, and produced a long list of topics for further exploration and action.
A PolicyOptions.org initiative at LC could conceivably piggyback on the Race and Racism Dialogues and the Healthcare Forums alone, and would have a wealth of focused, community-generated topics to offer to students and faculty. (While we don’t propose to limit our project in this way, we offer these topics as likely starting points for us that can serve to connect our initiative with immediate community concerns. We would like to see if we can effectively apply the PolicyOptions project to support efforts that are intended to be ongoing but may be currently lacking structure for their next, action-oriented steps.)
The PolicyOptions project may also be timely for us regionally in terms of higher education efforts. Two weeks ago on October 15, the College sent two LC representatives (Dr. G. Santos, a sociology professor engaged in multiple CBR projects, and L. Whitaker, CCDSJ) to a one-day conference, “Strengthening Community and Civic Engagement on Virginia Campuses”, which brought together faculty, staff, and administrators from higher education institutions in Virginia to discuss the development of a statewide community-based learning/civic engagement education network. Ever since the dissolution of Virginia Campus Compact some years ago, these efforts have bubbled up periodically. And though a formalized coalition with dues and so forth has not re-emerged, relationships have formed and strengthened as many of the same institutions and individuals have participated in meetings and conference calls over time, especially during the last five years. At the close of this recent gathering at the Hotel Roanoke, several people agreed to work together to help take the lead in their regions of the state. LC agreed to be an informal “hub” of sorts for the region of central Virginia. If this latest effort at statewide support and networking results in anything solid (and perhaps even if it doesn’t), LC’s role may eventually be a helpful outlet for helping others to “plug in” to a regional PolicyOptions network.
2. Student Engagement
The college’s current, campus-wide “Year of the Citizen” theme for 2008-09 is helping to emphasize citizenship through participation in the democratic process and community efforts in general. While most faculty have already selected service-learning and CBR projects for this academic year, PolicyOptions.org projects will be fully integrated into GS 220 (Exploring Social Entrepreneurship) this Spring (where experimentation with policy briefs has occurred for the last two years) and can also be woven into Bonner student projects. Recruiting for student positions supported by this grant would begin immediately (see Timeline and Budget), including a summer internship position at the CCDSJ devoted to the project, and the possibility of a graduate assistantship.
Additionally, students enrolled in the Civic Engagement Minor also take GS 307 (Introduction to Civic Participation and Community-Based Research) offered each Fall, and PolicyOptions.org projects will be a natural fit as they learn about the principles of CBR and effective community partnerships, and investigate possible topics for their capstone projects.
3. Faculty Engagement
Last week we compiled a list of faculty members to contact regarding the PolicyOptions project if this proposal is awarded. Several are current CBR faculty, some have been involved in service-learning and/or Year of the Citizen activities, some are new faculty who have expressed an interest in community engagement, and several have been recommended as editors. Faculty stipends are provided for in the budget within the categories of “Editor Stipend” and “Faculty Course Development”. An orientation to the project (and to CBR and principles of community engagement for those unfamiliar with these) will be provided to faculty. We also propose allotting a modest portion of grant funds to help support travel costs for faculty members and/or community partners to attend grantee meetings.
Academic rigor and editorial input will ultimately be very important to the project, especially relative to posting useful material for an external audience. We also recognize the importance of setting a tone for innovation, experimentation, and collaborative empowerment.
4. Deliberative Democracy Forum
Several City of Lynchburg officials deeply engaged in and committed to the Race and Racism Dialogues, and our regional Virginia Organizing Project partner, Barry Butler, who coordinated the Community Healthcare Forums, will be invited to collaborate during the planning phase of some form of LC-sponsored forum(s) to take the discussions ideally to a “next level” of participatory action. These new discussions could be opened up by sharing the PolicyOptions research created as a result of this grant project. Scheduling of the event(s) would be done with this in mind.
LC political science professor, Dr. T. Meinke, will be invited to assist us in understanding the theory and practical approaches related to deliberative democracy as we plan our forum(s). Do we hope to have a product as a goal, such as a policy proposal on healthcare, with dissenting assertions documented? Should we start with a student forum first, if for no other reason than it will help prepare them to facilitate a similar, larger forum for the public? We might also contact Abby Kiesa, Heather Cronk, and others who visited LC earlier this academic year and informed our students and faculty about civic engagement principles and facts, as part of our Year of the Citizen initiative on campus. They and others we’ve met at Bonner gatherings (especially during the 2008 SLI) and elsewhere (David Engle, for example, who facilitates community discussions using “Open Space” techniques), are potential informal consultants who are likely to have some very good advice and input for us on this initiative, deliberative democracy, facilitating dialogue, creation of related web-based resources, and public policy impact. (Stan Dotson in North Carolina, and others familiar with the Ford Foundation “Difficult Dialogues” grant program, might also be very good resources for us.)
5. Editorial/Advisory Board
An Editorial/Advisory Board for the project would be comprised of a smaller group representative of the CCDSJ, faculty, students, and community partners previously described. In addition, the faculty members in charge of Undergraduate Student-Faculty Research, the Student Scholar Showcase, and the College’s IRB will be invited to participate. In terms of process for this workgroup, we will look, in part, to the experiences of others for guidance. Dr. Polloway, Vice President for Community Advancement and Dean of Graduate Studies, and others will be a resource for us, having served as editor for an academic journal for many years. Involving graduate students in the PolicyOptions project will be an important consideration as well. Dr. Nancy Stutts in Richmond (creator of connectrichmond.org) may also be an excellent resource for us. We also anticipate to simply learn as we go, and hope to integrate the shared lessons of other grantees. A culture of openness and adventurism in the Board will be especially helpful as we undertake this novel initiative.
Student, faculty, and community advisors and editors will need to create workable processes to do fact-checking, examine citations, check links, and make requests for additional information. Training, including train-the-trainer sessions, will need to be conducted regularly (perhaps at the start of each semester and summer session) covering the research and web processes. Reflections, comments, and ideas meetings will also be held regularly, especially for ongoing assessment of the effectiveness of new processes and procedures. These will be organized by the project coordinator and lead students, in consultation with the advisory/editorial board members.
Timeline
Fall 2008
Spring 2009
Summer 2009
Fall 2009
Spring 2010
Summer 2010
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