CHAPTER THREE: A MODEL OF CIVIC ENGAGEMENT BASED ON COMMUINTY ORGANISING PRACTICES

As explained in the previous chapter, my community organising background significantly influenced my work at Occidental, where I worked from 2001 to 2011. During these ten years I created a model of civic engagement based on four specific community organising practices. This chapter gives a detailed description of these four organising practices and of the model in general, including its successes and limitations. The process in the creation of the model of civic engagement at Occidental College detailed in this section is also the foundation for my research question in terms of replicating such process at NUIM.

Geographic and Institutional Context

The model of civic engagement I created at Occidental took place through my work as Director of the Center for Community Based Learning (CCBL). This Center was created in the summer of 2001, and as its first Director I was able to shape its vision as well as its programme development and implementation. The main charge for CCBL was to create and institutionalize curriculum based community engagement. The College had always engaged with community in a variety of ways. However, until the creation of the CCBL there was no centralized initiative to institutionalize curriculum-connected engagement with the community.

Occidental is a private, residential, liberal arts college in Northeast Los Angeles, surrounded by a mix of low- and middle-income communities. The majority of the families living in the low-income communities are recent immigrants primarily from Latin America, with significant numbers from the Philippines as well. These communities include Eagle Rock, Highland Park, Glassell Park, Cypress Park, Lincoln Heights, and El Sereno. Shortly after the CCBL was created, a group of faculty along with then Occidental President Ted Mitchell selected me for the job of Director because they were interested in connecting curriculum to community service and social responsibility. They saw my background as a former IAF community organiser in congruence with this vision and instrumental in its adoption by the college at large.

Introducing the Model

The community organising practices utilized in the creation of this model differ from other practices utilized in social reform movements such as massive mobilization, public rallies, picketing, confrontation and opposition of those in power. Nor is it the aim of using these organising practices to address social issues or to advocate for others unable to advocate for themselves. The main purpose of these practices is to build a model that addresses the interests of key individuals from all stakeholder groups affected by the model, and who are interested in creating long-term and sustainable cultural, social, political and economic change. The

stakeholders in the creation of this model include Occidental’s academics, administrators, and students, as well as representatives from partnering community organisations and public schools.

The purpose of this model is to create reciprocal, long-term college-community partnerships, and to develop a collective of leadership and expertise involved in creating, implementing and assessing the model. This is meant to encourage deep ownership and long- term sustainability of the model. While the model does not aim at confronting those in power, it does stress the importance of openly acknowledging power dynamics on and off campus that can facilitate or block institutional and community change. Before elaborating on the model, I will discuss the context within which it was created, especially in response to my early understanding of some challenges in the field of civic engagement.

Concerns in Academic Civic Engagement Addressed by this Model

Through a number of interactions with colleagues who have worked in the field of academic civic engagement since the 1980s such as Harry Boyte, Amy Driscoll, Dick Cone, Ira Harkavy, Barbara Holland, Nadine Cruz, Kevin Kecskes, and Edward Zlotkowski. I became aware of a number of concerns as far as limitations in this field. An overarching topic in the debate centres on the extent to which civic engagement has transformed academic institutions, students, faculty and community partners, or whether academic culture has co-opted civic engagement. Other concerns include overemphasizing community service and volunteerism either through curricular or co-curricular civic engagement, which often lack critical reflection

and political education and action. The following section gives a further definition of co- curricular and curricular community engagement, as well as its flaws and benefits.

Co-curricular, Volunteer Community Service

Most US colleges and universities offer a myriad of opportunities for students to get involved in community service, and students are volunteering in large numbers everywhere. Further, national organisations such as the Corporation for National and Community Service offer grants and other resources to support the engagement of university with off-campus communities (http://www.nationalservice.gov/). This organisation is a federal agency that engages more than five million Americans in service, and which leads President Obama's national call to service initiative, United We Serve

(http://www.nationalservice.gov/about/overview/index.asp).

Opinions on what this category of engagement accomplishes for students, universities and society varies. Alexander Astin has long been documenting the benefits of volunteering by college students in the US. In How Service Learning Affects Students Astin et, al. (2000), conclude that volunteering significantly benefits students in academic performance, in instilling interest, knowledge and experience in areas such as activism and racial understanding, leadership skills and choice of a service career. Paul Loeb recognizes these and many other benefits of student volunteerism, but adds: "Mere volunteerism doesn’t automatically lead to speaking out on public choices; no matter how related the activity is to students’ areas of concern" (2001, p. 10).

Although co-curricular engagement can be beneficial to students and the community, it comes with its share of challenges. Maurrasse (2001) Jacoby (2003) and Raskoff and Sundeen (in Smith, autumn 1999, p. 169) discuss some of those challenges which apply to both co- curricular and curricular engagement. These challenges include transportation to and from organisations where students engage in community service, inadequate supervision for students from community staff and often from university staff, and lack of accountability from the university to the community. The authors also refer to the limited political and community transformation from this type of engagement, which Enos and Morton (in Jacoby 2003) categorize as “low-risk lower benefit” (p. 33).

Thus, even when recognizing the many benefits that volunteering provides for students doing community service, and even for some of the community organisations receiving the service, this model of civic engagement usually is not aimed at addressing long-term sustainable societal change. In addition, this type of engagement is not practised through a process of reciprocity with the community organisation or schools where students perform the service.

Service Learning

According to Cress and Donahue (2011), Service Learning3 is a "Unique pedagogical approach to teaching and learning that strategically combines academic concepts, community service, and active reflection" (p. 6). They describe the purpose of Service Learning as the "understanding of academic discipline knowledge while building skill sets for applying this knowledge to real-life community challenges" (p. 6).

There is a variety of other terms used in reference to this pedagogy throughout the US, as well as a variety of ways to define it. Introduction to Service-Learning Toolkit, (Campus

Compact 2003, pp. 7-10) offers more than a dozen definitions. Seth Pollack (in Stanton, et, al. 1999, pp. 12-31) talks about the confusion on the meaning and practice of Service Learning and relates this to the specific philosophies about education and service that practitioners bring to the field and to the various types of academic institution and their mission in society.

Zlotkowski (in McIlrath and Mac Labhrainn, 2007) differentiates Service Learning from volunteering models, in that the former "...does not regard community engagement as a form of personal generosity. Instead, it seeks to develop in students an ethos of civic and social

responsibility – an understanding of the engaged role individuals must play if communities and democracies are to flourish" (In McIlrath and Mac Labhrainn 2007, p. 43). In addition,

Zlotkowski claims that Service Learning "challenges students to move beyond a merely sentimental and/or noblesse oblige approach to social and civic engagement" (In McIlrath and Mac Labhrainn 2007, p. 44). It does so, he adds, by its insistence to first address public problems as essential to education in a democracy and second, by requiring doing so with the collaboration of all relevant stakeholders. However, Zlotkowski warns us that unless the learning process is

3 _{Service Learning is spelled in various ways, including service learning, service-learning, and Service-Learning. I}

structured to draw directly from real world experiences, the academic and the civic educational goals will not be achieved. Nor, he continues, can these goals be achieved if all key stakeholders in Service Learning including academics, students, academic institutions and community

organisation, are not involved in the process.

Others address the limitations of Service Learning in terms of its potential to contribute to community. Ira Harkavy (1996) argues that service learning can be an effective way to

enhance the education of college students but not as effective in the improvement of community: I believe that service learning, as currently defined and practiced, is not an effective vehicle for improving our schools and communities. It may even enable universities to evade their responsibility to their local environments, providing half-hearted, isolated gestures, not serious, sustained engagement. (Harkavy 1996, p. 2)

Harkavy offers the term “strategic academically-based community service,” which, he asserts: has as its primary goal contributing to the well being of the people in the community both in the here and now and in the future" (1996, p. 2). While Harkavy addresses some of the current concerns about the failure of universities to address community’s interests and concerns in these partnerships, reciprocity in the partnerships would have to include, as Zlotkowski, (in McIlrath and Mac Labhrainn, 2007), Jacoby (2003), and Maurrasse (2001) argue, the interests of all relevant players. Thus, arguing for the interests of any one of them alone, as Harkavy’s statement focuses in the well-being of the people in the community, would fail to create reciprocity and mutuality for the rest of the stakeholders.

Yet there is good reason for Harkavy’s concern about universities ignoring the community’s interests. A concern shared by many in the field of civic engagement is that universities by virtue of their superior condition in comparison with community organisations can in fact choose to avoid their responsibility with their surrounding communities. Marullo, Moayedi, and Cooke (2009) address the imbalance of power between universities and community organisations, as a fundamental factor in the difficulties of creating mutually beneficial partnerships. They state that "the greatest challenge faced by service-learning practitioners would be to recognize and overcome the power imbalance that exists between university and community partners so there could be in fact a true partnership among service- learning collaborators" (Marullo et al 2009, p. 61).

This is, indeed a great challenge, as very few practitioners of Service Learning, in my experience, openly address the role that power plays in academic-community partnerships. As demonstrated thus far in the content of this chapter, a lot is involved in creating the right conditions for service learning courses to succeed in educating students academically and civically, in a way that takes students beyond their charitable motivations, or “merely sentimental and/or noblesse oblige” as Zlotkowski calls it. As will be apparent in the next section, we aimed at addressing this question from the beginning of the creation of the model of civic engagement at Occidental.

Description of the Civic Engagement Model at Occidental

The model of civic engagement created at the Center for Community Based Learning at Occidental has attempted to address many of the themes discussed here in connection to

engaging with community apparent both in the US and in Ireland. This model has also advocated for higher education to play a role in the creation of the social sphere where key leaders from the college and the community come together to create cultural change within and across partnering institutions. This approach is meant to create a self-sustaining model which becomes embedded within the institutions, and which can outlive senior level administrators such as presidents and vice-presidents, as well as staff in charge of civic engagement. The ultimate goal is to create a critical mass of civically engaged individuals within the college and within its partnering organisations, to engage with each other in creating change and increasing justice and equity. The four practices used in the process of the creation of the model at Occidental are founded in democratic values and practices mentioned. This is relevant to this thesis because my research interest is underpinned by my long-time commitment to enhance democracy. Below I list the four practices utilized in the development of this model, as well as their purpose.

1. Engaging in relational one-to-one meetings to learn about the history and culture of the college, as well as the interests and ideas of key players;

2. Identifying a collective of academics and community leaders to co-create and implement a model appropriate for the college and for the surrounding communities;

3. Developing effective strategies and ming based on analysis of power dynamics within the campus and in the external communities;

4. Engaging in critical reflection leading to new ideas, visions, and strategies.

These four practices become part of an ongoing cycle, the order of which is often altered based on what makes strategic sense at a particular moment. After having identified a group of leaders to vision, strategize and reflect with, for instance, there might be a need to continue doing one-to-one relational meetings to have better understanding of existing power dynamics in connection to future strategies and programme development. In addition, institutional power dynamics often shift dramatically when high-level administrators, especially university

presidents change. This type of institutional change requires analysis of power dynamics on an on-going basis. Similarly, on-going critical reflection is practiced before, during, and after most meetings and events, to capture the learning opportunities, to process the event together and to plan any possible next action steps. Figure 9 illustrates this cycle.

Figure 9. Community Organising practices to institutionalize academic-civic engagement

Following is a more detailed description of how these four community organising practices were operationalized.

1. Assessing Interest through one-to-one meetings

This first practice helped me learn about the history and culture of the college, as well as the interests and ideas of key players. Thus, I began my work at Occidental by getting to know high level administrators, key faculty members, students and community partners. I did this through a series of one-to-one meetings with people who were seen as key and respected leaders by the faculty and administrators who were part of the creation of the Center for Community Based Learning prior to my being hired. These meetings were relational, as opposed to one-sided interviews. Meetings like these have been the foundation and the ongoing glue for all long- lasting, deep organising that I have witnessed in my organising career. During these meetings, I asked people questions about the culture of the college, their thoughts, experiences, and feelings about Community Based Learning (CBL) and about engaging with the community. I did this to find out about the things that people really care about, or what in organising language is called self-interest. This could also be referred to as what motivates someone to do the work they do, whether related to social justice or not. When appropriate, I also shared the things I care about, and information about the purpose of my job and of the CCBL, but I tried not to define how the programme would work in detail. I wanted the details of the programme to emerge from

collective interest and feedback, rather than attempting to create a model for them.

1. Building a Leadership Team

This second practice helped me identify a collective of academics and community leaders who could join me in co-creating and implementing a model appropriate for the college and for the surrounding communities. I found these leaders through the relational one-to-one meetings described in the first practice, through which I learned about people’s self-interests. Through this process, I identified a group of faculty members first, then a group of community partners who became my co-thinking and co-visioning teams. My experience has taught me that successful community organising is based on deep, well-informed, collective ownership. My main role, therefore, was to find those whose interests and passions are related to creating change through their respective fields and occupations. Through this process of building ownership, in the spring of 2003 the CCBL was assigned a faculty committee connected to the

College’s faculty governance. This was very significant for the Center, as its work was now formally connected to the academic programme. This proved to be of great help in our efforts to shift the image of Community Based Learning from service and volunteerism to a civically engaged pedagogy. This was significant because Community Based Learning can often be viewed by faculty as “soft academics,” rather than as a legitimate and academically rigorous way of teaching.

Faculty ownership of the CCBL has proved to be essential on several occasions when the Center’s work was questioned by new college presidents or senior level administrators. For example, in 2010-11, due to a restructuring of all civic engagement efforts prompted by the interests from a new College president, members of the CCBL faculty committee were assigned to a newly formed Civic Engagement Task Force. This left CCBL without a direct connection to faculty governance. Those faculty members saw their role as crucial in ensuring that the work of CCBL continued regardless of the future configuration of civic engagement campus-wide. To ensure CCBL stayed a strong player in the new institutional power dynamics we decided to create a CCBL Advisory Board. This Board was started in the fall of 2010 with three faculty members, and we invited three community partners as members as well. In the spring of 2011 four more faculty members and one more community partner joined the Board. Although serving on the recently formed Advisory Board does not count for credit for tenure or promotion in terms of service to the college, those faculty members chose to play this leadership role anyway,

because of their ownership of CCBL’s work.

Similar to the way the faculty committee became my co-thinking and co-strategizing team, a small group of community partners became my co-thinking and co-strategizing community team through the Northeast Los Angeles Education Strategy Group (NESG, described later in this chapter). This too, was significant in that there was a strong community role in defining the work of CCBL in the community, from the beginning of the creation of the model. The first three community partners who joined CCBL’s Advisory Board in the fall of 2010 have had a long history of involvement as leaders of the Northeast Education Strategy