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309 When University and Community Partner: Community Engagement and Transformative Systems-Level Change Judy Primavera and Andrew Martinez This chapter is the story of a university-community partnership that illustrates the potential that community engagement has to produce systems-level transformational change in the institutional culture of both partners. The partnership is between Fairfield University and Action for Bridgeport Community Development’s Early Learning–Head Start Program. Its official name is the Adrienne Kirby Family Literacy Project. From its inception, the Kirby Literacy Project’s goals focused on improving low-income preschoolers’ school readiness and language skills, increasing low-income parents’ effective involvement in their child’s education, enhancing university students’ academic experience with community-based educational opportunities, and strengthening university students’ commitment to future community service. The work on the Kirby Literacy Project began in 1992. Although its size and specific activities have changed and downsized since its peak years of funding and national recognition in the late 1990s to early 2000s, the underlying spirit of work being done today remains the same. Annual evaluations repeatedly confirm that project goals are being met. Over time, however, what also became clear was that slowly but surely the partnership between Fairfield University and Action for Bridgeport Community Development (ABCD) was having a positive effect on the underlying culture of both institutions. What follows is a documentation of the systems-level change that occurred and the authors’ musings about the lessons learned along the way of this 20-year journey. Community Engagement, Community Psychology, and the Kirby Literacy Project Historically, the academy’s attempts at community engagement have taken many forms spawned by an array of varied motivations, some for better and some for worse. At its worst, J U D Y P R I M A V E R A A N D A N D R E W M A R T I N E Z 310 academy dwellers leave their ivory tower only if there is something to be gained or when propelled by professional arrogance. Indeed, these types of community engagement might best be described as “raping the community” for its data, as a public relations showcase to highlight what the campus is doing “for” the community, or as an academic expert’s paternalistic , professionally precious attempt “to help” the less knowledgeable and less fortunate solve some pressing social problem (Heller, Price, Reinharz, Riger, & Wandersman, 1984; Rappaport, 1981; Saltmarsh, Hartley, & Clayton, 2009; Sarason, Levin, Goldenberg, Cherlin, & Bennett, 1966). At its best, community engagement embraces Dewey’s (1967; 1997) notion of democratic experienced-based education, Sarason’s (1974) vision of a shared psychological sense of community, and Boyer’s (1991; 1996) challenge for a new scholarship of engagement. This thing we call community engagement is truly a horse of many colors with a rich history that can be traced back to many different yet overlapping scholarly traditions, including participatory action research, feminist research, service learning, scholarship of engagement, etc. Truth be told, to a naïve reader it can indeed seem like definitional anarchy (Sandmann, 2004). However, to the authors of this chapter, the vision, the goals, the methods , and the phenomena of interest characteristic of the entity now being called community engagement are all consistent with the processes of research and action known as the field of community psychology. One of the most distinctive values espoused by community psychology is collaboration where the community psychologist and the community citizen are viewed as equals, each having knowledge, resources, and a meaningful role in decision making (Dalton, Elias, & Wandersman, 2007; Kelly, 1971; 1986; 1990, 2002; Prilleltensky, 2001). The Kirby Family Literacy Project was developed and implemented under this conceptual umbrella (Primavera, 2004). It was then and still is today an example of doing good community psychology where scholarship and action are integrated; where the relationship between the academy and a community partner is based on reciprocity and mutual respect; and where university and community stakeholders are viewed as competent and equal participants in planning and decision making. The Partnership: Fairfield University and Action for Bridgeport Community Development Like any example of community engagement, important to this story is its social-ecological context (Kelly, 1970). Fairfield University is located in an upper-income, somewhat bucolic suburban setting. As a Jesuit university, it has a history of commitment of service to others accomplished through a wide range of local, national, and international outreach programs. Its undergraduate enrollment is approximately 3,500 students, predominantly white and from the mid-to-upper income bracket...

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