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Pilot Project Profile - Macalester College
Lead Contacts | Issue Focus | Pilot Project Plan | Timeline | Progress Reports Lead Contacts
Issue Focus
Progress Reports
Pilot Project PlanBackgroundMacalester College’s PolicyOptions.org Initiative will expand and deepen two existing community-campus partnership efforts: (1) Macalester’s community-development partnerships along the University Avenue corridor in St. Paul, MN. (2) Macalester’s college access program for first-generation and low-income college students.
1. Community-Development and Light Rail Transit on the University Avenue Corridor in St. Paul, MN
This initiative will focus on the University Avenue corridor in St. Paul, MN, to engage local, state, and national public policy issues associated with public transportation, economic development, and support for small businesses and homeowners. University Avenue is a particularly relevant case study for understanding broader policy issues. In the next three years, this area of the city will be redeveloped through the creation of a light-rail public transportation system that connects downtown Minneapolis with downtown St. Paul. This project will receive state and national funding. The corridor is a primary resettlement area for immigrant and refugee families from Asia and Africa and is near the center of St. Paul’s historic black communities. University Avenue neighborhoods have some of the highest home foreclosure rates in the city and small businesses along the corridor are struggling with the recession.
University Avenue has emerged as a focus for Macalester College’s institutional and academic civic engagement. Two years ago Macalester College created a partnership with University Bank, a community-development institution that invests funds in small businesses and homeowners in economically challenged neighborhoods. One of the goals of the partnership is for Macalester faculty members, staff members, and students to research the social, economic, and policy developments that are affecting University Avenue communities, especially as light-rail transit is constructed along the corridor. To facilitate this research, Macalester focused its annual, weeklong urban seminar for faculty on the social dynamics and public policy decisions that are changing University Avenue. The Seminar expanded the number of faculty and staff interested in University Avenue and strengthened our network of community partners to include nonprofits, district councils, planning organizations, and businesses.
2. College Access
One key focus for Macalester College’s Civic Engagement Center is increasing access to post-secondary education, particularly for first-generation and low-income students. Macalester sustains tutoring and mentoring programs at area schools and after-school programs and introduces youth to college life through the Opportunities Abound (OA) program. For students who are considering Macalester, the Civic Engagement Center collaborates with the Multicultural Life Office, the Admissions Office, and the Academic Excellence Center to recruit, support, and provide opportunities for first-generation college students. Macalester collaborates with a network of community partners in education and access, including Breakthrough St. Paul and the AVID program at area schools. Several professors, including Ruthanne Kurth-Schai in Educational Studies and Paru Shah in Political Science are researching schools and social policy and have research and teaching interests in student success, school choice, and college access. Student Engagement
We will have two student interns/researchers who will work full time over the summer researching policy issues related to community development along the University Avenue corridor and will spend much of their time in the community, attending community meetings and helping to form connections among stakeholders in policy research from the nonprofit, for-profit and governmental sectors. The summer students will use their community-based research to create policy briefs and to connect local issues to state and national policy decisions around public transportation and community development.
We will also have one summer student worker research educational policies that affect college access. The student will work the 2009-2010 school year on college preparation and access issues for St. Paul, as part of his work-study award. The summer experience will allow him to create policy briefs on college access issues. These policy briefs will be developed during the academic year by this student as part of his work-study award and by another student worker that we will hire for the 2009-2010 to continue policy research. Faculty Engagement
Selected faculty members who participate in the Urban Faculty Seminar on University Avenue will advise the students and form a core group for guiding the projects and editing the policy briefs. We anticipate that the summer PolicyOptions.org initiative will lay a foundation for policy courses in Political Science and Geography that will explore housing, transportation, and community development.
The student working on college access will be supervised by Macalester staff and faculty advisors for the summer and will receive feedback from Macalester’s community partners in the college access area, including staff of the AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) program of the St. Paul Public Schools and Breakthrough St. Paul. This team will engage and edit the documents. One Macalester faculty member will be responsible for preparing the student to undertake the policy research and will be available to confer with the student as needed.
Each year Professor Ruthanne Kurth-Schai’s Educational Studies classes research educational policies and publish policy briefs on the web. We are requesting course-development funds to allow Ruthanne Kurth-Schai and the students in one of her Educational Studies courses to engage educational policy issues and to begin connecting that research to the PolicyOptions.org website. Paul Schadewald, Ruthanne Kurth-Schai and the community partners that students engage as part of their research will help shape the research and will edit the final reports. This class will be offered either fall semester 2009 or spring semester 2010. Deliberative Democracy Forum
One long-term goal of the University Avenue initiative is to create an on-going campus-community dialog concerning community development on the University Avenue corridor. Our goal is for the two student interns to work with Macalester’s community partners on the University Avenue corridor and University Bank’s community stakeholders to provide opportunities for dialog about policy issues. Many of the stakeholders on University Avenue utilize web-based technologies as part of their missions, so the PolicyOptions.org website provides a relevant venue for developing an engagement with public policy.
Editorial/Advisory BoardWe plan to draw 5 readers (2 Macalester faculty, 2 community stakeholders, and 1 Macalester staff member) to serve as an editorial board for the policy briefs. The Civic Engagement Center at Macalester College will coordinate the initiative.
Timeline
Spring 2009
Summer 2009
Fall 2009
Spring 2010
Summer 2010
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