Swearer Center for Public Service
Principles and Practices for Collaboration
This work matters. Community engagement recognizes and deepens our understanding that Brown’s academic and research excellence is tied to the mutuality of benefit we achieve with the people and communities of Rhode Island.
President of Brown University
Guiding Principles
Community and campus partners will likely have both shared and distinct goals and interests. Ensure collaborations are not extractive but recognize contributions and build capacity in ways partners value. Be sure to consider priorities that communities have already identified and take action on those when possible; in one community leader’s words, communities are “over-surveyed and underserved.” Share power in planning from the beginning. Collaborative change doesn’t typically happen within a single academic term or grant period, so develop plans that align with the best timelines for the community goals; engage with others to support sustained impact and intentional hand-offs or sunsetting. Ensure you have consent and input from partners on all plans and throughout engagement, including on what stories will be shared and how they will be disseminated. Open and transparent communication and strategies that help equalize power are key to building reciprocal relationships.
Related Resources:
- The Spectrum of Community Engagement to Ownership, Rosa González, Facilitating Power (piloted with community groups in Providence and elsewhere)
- Community Engagement Assessment Tool, Nexus Community Engagement Institute
- Index of Community Engagement Techniques, Tamarack Institute
- Tools and Resources for Project-Based Community Advisory Boards: Community Voice and Power Sharing Guidebook, The Urban Institute
- Why Am I Always Being Researched?, Chicago Beyond
- “We Are About Life-Changing Research: Community Partner Perspectives on Community Engaged Collaborations,” Rebecca A. London and colleagues in Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement (2022)
Brown is a complex institution with a long history and thousands of affiliated individuals, but to many people outside the university, everyone is a representative of the institution as a whole. Beyond the broader trends in declining trust in institutions, it is important to understand that Brown University has benefited from, sometimes contributed to and sustained injustice, and even with the best of intentions, engaging with Brown does not guarantee significant positive changes in community circumstances. Especially if you aim to collaborate with communities that you do not already belong to or know well, learning about their cultures, histories and priorities is also a critical step.
Related Resources:
- If you will be engaging in Providence or Rhode Island, see this list of resources for learning about our local communities and context.
- Wherever you plan to engage, learn about Brown’s connections to the transatlantic slave trade and colonization – as well as its commitments to reparative action – by reading the University’s updated Slavery and Justice Report with Commentary on Context and Impact, recommendations of the Task Force on Anti-Black Racism, and recommendations of the Land Acknowledgement Working Group.
- Navigating the Power Dynamics Between Institutions and Their Communities, Byron P. White for the Kettering Foundation
Seek to build on community strengths and successes, with the university leveraging its assets in ways community members value. Truly collaborative engagement involves community- and campus-based partners working together to define issues and approaches to addressing them, recognizing that a diversity of perspectives increases insight, rigor, and team effectiveness. Build on strengths by recognizing everyone involved as leaders and experts, drawing on multiple sources of knowledge to generate new possibilities and assessing results and applying lessons learned.
Related Resources:
- Asset-Based Community Development Institute Toolkit, ABCD Institute, DePaul University
- Building on the Strengths of Communities, Angela Blanchard
- Confronting the Careless University, Bryon P. White in ejournal of Public Affairs 1(2)
- From Clients to Citizens: Asset-based Community Development as a Strategy for Community-Driven Development, by Alison Mathie and Gord Cunningham in Development in Practice (2003)
- Suspending Damage: A Letter to Communities, by Eve Tuck in Harvard Educational Review (2009)
Transformative work requires reflecting on our own individual and institutional positionality while also analyzing and addressing systemic barriers and biases. It takes intentional focus on injustice, with a combination of courage and humility, ongoing learning and action, insights from lived experience as well as theory.
Related Resources:
- Anti-Racist Community Engagement: Principles and Practices (book and digital companion), and Principles for Anti-Racist Community Engagement (statement)
- Effective Teaching Is Anti-Racist Teaching, Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning
- Equity and Inclusion Guiding Engagement Principles - recommendations by the Advisory Panel on Patient Engagement of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute
- Racial Equity Tools
- Racial Inequity and Community Engagement Knowledge Hub, Campus Compact
We can and should act in trustworthy ways - showing up consistently, with respect, humility, courage and accountability, continuing to learn and following through on our values and agreements. There is no simple formula or one-size-fits-all model for community engagement. It requires iteration in specific contexts – and tensions are virtually impossible to avoid (e.g., gaps between intentions and actual impact, power and resource differences while seeking to create equitable partnerships, histories that include harm as well as commitments to positive change). Planning for regular formal and informal assessment of partnerships and projects will help you to notice when changes need to be made.
Related Resources:
- Association of American Medical Colleges’ Principles of Trustworthiness and Self-Assessment
- Community Impact Statement, Susan Gust and Catherine Jordan, Campus Compact
- Democratically Engaged Assessment: Reimagining the Purposes and Practices of Assessment in Community Engagement, J. Bandy et al. for Imagining America (2018)
- The Challenges of Putting Community First: Reflections on a University Center’s Process, Christopher M. Wegemer et al. in Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning (2020)
- Developing Communication Repertoires to Address Conflict in Community Engagement Work, Emily M. Janke and Rebecca Dumlao in Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement (2019)
How the Guiding Principles Were Developed
The guiding principles were developed by the University’s Community Engagement Council with input from many other campus and local community collaborators, including members of several Community Advisory Boards. They were also informed by established principles in the field and the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification and align with the Swearer Center’s learning priorities and values. We welcome feedback at engage@brown.edu.
Additional Considerations and Resources
Review the engaged research and/or teaching pages for additional considerations and resources. Starting a new project? If so, review the strategies outlined in our recommended practices.