‘Universities and communities in a new socio-economic era’ –

would that work?

Juliet Millican The Community

University Partnership Programme

The University of Brighton

Cupp at The University of Brighton• Established in 2003, five years after the UNESCO

commitment to: basing long-term (HE)orientations on societal aims and needs, including respect for cultures and environmental protection

• Works through mutually beneficial partnerships aimed at tackling marginalisation and disadvantage

• Includes research partnerships, student engagement and staff volunteering

• http://www.brighton.ac.uk/cupp/materials-and-resources/cupp-film.html

The dream of a Socially Committed University

• ‘The past decade provides evidence that higher education and research contribute to the eradication of poverty, to sustainable development and to progress towards reaching the internationally agreed upon development goals, which include the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Education for All (EFA). The global education agenda should reflect these realities’. (UNESCO 1999)

• ‘What has become clear is that none of these major issues in the

global agenda will be resolved without the participation of universities, since they are the environments that foster not only knowledge, thought and research but also proposals for social action’ (Ramon de la Fuente, president of the International Association of Universities. 2010).

The End of the ‘New Millennium’s first decade’

• All is not rosy in the new spring garden.• Unprecedented expansion of higher

education and unemployment, of graduates, globally.

• Retrenchment of Public Services• Privatisation of state institutions and rise of

the ‘Private University’• Community organisations (many of our key

partners) fighting for survival

Conflict on the Community front• Within the UK a vision of a ‘big society’ where

individuals and groups play a greater role in managing and delivering the services a community needs

• Retrenchment of resources and economic hardship, services driven by local rather than ideological agendas, NIMBYism, disconnected communities, increasing intolerance of minorities

• A community approach in an environment where communities are increasingly disconnected.

Competition and Consumerism

• The rise of the student as a customer • Students want a flexible learning

environment. (eg 24/7 access to services)• Assessment driven culture (tell me what I

need to do to get a first?)• Employability and quality of service are key

concerns post Browne review.

Connecting Communities and Universities – The Challenges

• Partners have less time to invest in project governance and developing mutual activities with limited funding

• Students are focussed on immediate concerns rather than a bigger picture

• Staff are overstretched with concerns about quality and research outputs

• We are loosing a culture of deliberation at a time when we probably need it most.

Working through Communities of Practice

CoPs aspire being giving equal status to different people’s knowledge bases, as a model they value different types of knowledge

What matters is what individuals bring to bear on the issue and practice with which the specific CoP is concerned

Our data indicated a huge potential for structural conflicts in CUPs around use of language, expectations of research, availability ofresources, timetables, deadlines and notions of power (Mayer 2000).

A CoP can offer the space to address deeper conflicts of inequalityand power in addition to issue-focussed disagreements.

Universities may be in the position to research an argument and provide data to settle a dispute, and there is evidence of this in theliterature on science shops