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Higher education's response in the early days of the pandemic would seem to confirm that universities, particularly research universities, are a preeminent institution in societies throughout the world. Authors from around the world told a story of local partnerships and the benefits that accrue to both the community and university, including significant learning and a better quality of life for all. A new kind of university is needed whose primary mission would be advancing democracy democratically on campus, in its local community, and across the wider society. The core characteristics of this new democratic civic university include a democratic purpose; an inclusive, diverse, equitable campus; a democratic process with community partners; and an antiracism and justice-seeking focus. A global movement that helps develop democratic civic universities is essential if society is to replace the prepandemic university that failed to sufficiently address and effectively combat the frightening problems facing the world.

In the rapidly accelerating global era in which we now live, human beings must solve a vast array of unprecedently complex problems. Given their proclaimed dedication to critical intelligence, and their unique constellation of formidable resources to develop it, institutions of higher education have a unique responsibility to help solve these problems. It seems self-evident to these authors that given the current state of the world, colleges and universities are not contributing as they could and should. They further submit that working to solve universal problems, such as poverty, inadequate schooling, inequality, and intolerance as these problems are manifested locally is a powerful (perhaps the best) means to advance higher education's (particularly the university's) mission of advancing knowledge for the improvement of human welfare. Stated even more strongly, democratic engagement with its local schools and communities may not only be the best means, but also the best indicator of a higher education institution's contribution to the public good locally, nationally, and globally. Given the position outlined, the authors will try in this article to do three things to give credence to this argument: (1) Discuss the central role of higher education institutions in contributing to the public good, as well as the obstacles that have prevented them from effectively fulfilling that role; (2) Explain and illustrate (using the case they know best--the University of Pennsylvania) that by working to solve global problems manifested locally higher education institutions can increase their contributions to the public good; and (3) Describe and propose a strategy (again using examples from their own work) for how local engagement can be part of a process of global engagement and change.

This essay builds on and extends earlier research and writing that the authors have done, trying to understand how a commitment to local engagement, which is the term commonly used at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), becomes embedded in the core work of the institution. Their inquiries have been guided by social psychologist Kurt Lewin's dictum: If one wants to truly understand something, try to change it. The work undertaken by the Netter Center for Community Partnerships, with which the authors are both involved (one as founding director and the other as a long-standing member of the Netter Center's faculty advisory board), has constituted an ongoing participatory action research project whose primary interconnected goals are to help produce substantive change for the better and, through that process, advance knowledge and learning. A central theme of this essay is that institutionalization occurs when organizational structures are established to support local engagement, and when a critical mass of colleagues embrace the value of this work. Resources also need to be secured and strategically deployed to ensure the development and growth of an effective organization and programs. The authors have found that for a higher education institution to genuinely (as opposed to putatively) embrace its civic mission, faculty members must come to see the work as central. At a research university like Penn, this means conceptualizing the work of engagement as a powerful strategy for developing new knowledge through research and teaching. Given Penn's founding purpose of serving society and promoting citizenship, it also involves working to connect local engagement efforts to the goal of improving the community and to a larger, democratic purpose. The authors believe that these approaches, which entail both structural and ideological change, enable civic engagement to put down roots in the groves of academe. (Contains 1 figure and 1 endnote.)

Improving communication between people in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and the public is critical to the future of STEM. Partnerships between institutions of higher education with K-12 schools are identified as one effective strategy to support community engagement. We have employed a service-learning model to develop a chemistry course (Chemistry 010) that engages undergraduate students in developing and teaching chemistry experiments for a secondary school audience. This service-learning course design provided us with the consistency and flexibility to sustain substantive learning experiences for both the undergraduates and secondary students. In addition to describing the model of this course in detail, we evaluate this course's impact on undergraduate scientific communication skills. Analysis of reflections written by the undergraduates reveals that Chemistry 010 is an effective course structure for them to explore and assess their competencies to teach and communicate scientific concepts. The course's influence on the secondary students, teacher partners, and university instructors will be the focus of future studies to ensure the mutual benefit of all involved parties.

The founding of the Australian system of higher education closely parallels the creation of public postsecondary education in the United States during the nineteenth century. Their subsequent histories reflect a growing recognition of postsecondary education's capacity to shape the economic prospects not only of individuals, but of entire nations. Less recognized are the ways individual institutions (which collectively constitute these systems) affect their local communities. In this article, we briefly outline the economic impact of postsecondary education in Australia and the United States and then describe how a research university in each country, the University of Pennsylvania in West Philadelphia and the University of Queensland, has served as a key anchor institution for its local area. A variety of factors are explored, including local context, funding sources, university leadership, and institutional mission.

The Urban Nutrition Initiative (UNI) is a University of Pennsylvania/West Philadelphia schools academically-based community service program that integrates academics, research, and service through service-learning and participatory action research. UNI is based academically within Penn's Department of Anthropology and administratively within the Center for Community Partnerships. University and school student learning is based upon problem-solving, with theory and methods utilized from across the disciplines. As active learners, students generate knowledge through engagement with the community, which can then be applied as appropriate to other situations. UNI focuses on nutrition-related diseases, including obesity, that constitute an epidemic in the United States, especially among disadvantaged minorities, and contribute to prevalent health disparities. Student research has demonstrated UNI has positive impacts on schoolchildren's diets and Penn students' educational experiences. (Contains 1 table, 1 figure, and 1 note.)

This paper outlines a neo-Deweyan strategy to transform American public schools into genuine community schools that function as central agencies for the development of a democratic welfare society. John Dewey's thesis was that a well-functioning school system constitutes the necessary, though not sufficient, condition for a well-functioning society. The first part and second parts examine how Dewey's work was influenced by Francis Bacon's idea of progress and Benjamin Franklin's thoughts on the reformation of higher education. The third part discusses Dewey's philosophy of education and his approach to reforming the American public school system. Part 4 explains the concept and development of cosmopolitan community schools and sketches a project designed to help the John C. Turner Middle School in West Philadelphia transform itself from a bureaucratic innercity school into a radically innovative, effective community school. The process for changing Turner Middle School into a university-assisted, cosmopolitan community school is described in the next part, with emphasis on the formation of the West Philadelphia Improvement Corps (WEPIC) in 1985 and the evolution of the community school's organizational structure. The final section outlines the relationship among universities, cosmopolitan local communities, and a democratic welfare society. The basic proposition is "schooling for service and by service," in which universities help transform their local public schools into cosmopolitan community schools that function as multipurpose community centers. (Contains 50 references.) (LMI)

This article explores the university-assisted community school approach as it has been developed at the University of Pennsylvania with its school and community partners in West Philadelphia since 1985, as well as adapted nationally. The approach is grounded in John Dewey's theory that the neighborhood school can function as the core neighborhood institution that provides comprehensive services, galvanizes other community institutions and groups, and helps solve the myriad problems schools and community confront in a rapidly changing world. Building on Dewey's ideas, the authors argue that all colleges and universities should make solving the problem of the American schooling system a very high institutional priority; their contributions to its solution should count heavily both in assessing their institutional performance (by themselves and others) and be a critical factor when responding to their requests for renewed or increased resources and financial support. Providing concrete examples from over 20 years of work in West Philadelphia, as well as from initiatives across the country, this article explores the potential of developing university-assisted community schools as an effective approach for school reform, pre-Kindergarten through higher education.

Urban colleges and universities not only have a responsibility to engage in activities designed to improve the educational attainment of local urban youth, but also have extensive financial, human, intellectual, and organizational resources that may be directed productively toward this purpose. This article describes the multipronged approach that the University of Pennsylvania is using to improve college opportunities for students attending Philadelphia high schools. We conclude by offering lessons that other institutions may draw from this example.

More than one-half of all institutions of higher education are located within or just outside urban areas. These colleges and university can offer rich resources to provide stability to a city and to improve the quality of life and learning in their communities and schools. The authors describe the university-assisted community schools model that they have developed at the University of Pennsylvania. This model, which connects the university deeply with its West Philadelphia community, is now expanding to more and more urban universities throughout the United States.

Democratic partnerships of universities, schools, and an array of neighborhood and community organizations are the most promising means of improving the lives of our nation's young people. Over the past two decades, many colleges and universities have been experiencing a renaissance in engagement activities. Universities, once ivory towers, have increasingly come to recognize that their destinies are inextricably linked with their communities. Authentic democratic partnerships have three characteristics: they are devised to achieve democratic purposes, the collective work is advanced through inclusive and democratic processes, and the product these partnerships produce benefits all participants and results in a strengthening of the democratic practices within the community. (Contains 13 notes.)

This article makes the following claims: (1) the goal for universities should be to contribute "significantly" to developing and sustaining democratic schools, communities, and societies; (2) by working to realize that goal, democratic-minded academics can powerfully help American higher education in particular, and American schooling in general, return to their core mission--effectively educating students to be democratic, creative, caring, constructive citizens of a democratic society. To support those claims, the author provides an historical and contemporary case to illustrate that a democratic mission is the core mission of American higher education. He also identifies Platonization, commodification, and, "disciplinary ethnocentrism, tribalism, guildism", as major obstacles that have helped prevent higher education from realizing its democratic mission. Drawing on two decades of experience he and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania have had developing university-community-school partnerships, he proposes a strategy that involves colleges and universities working to solve universal problems (e.g. poverty, inadequate schooling, substandard health care) that are manifested in their local communities. Highlighting the global reach of the university civic responsibility movement, he concludes by calling on democratic-minded academics to work to create university-assisted community schools as a powerful way to help develop democratic students (K-16) and to contribute to the development of democratic schools, universities and societies. (Contains 8 notes.)

Benjamin Franklin founded the University of Pennsylvania as a secular institution with the pragmatic aim of instilling in its students the inclination and ability to serve humankind in both the civic and mercantile realms. On this, the three hundredth anniversary of his birth (1706-2006), Franklin's ideal of a democratic, engaged university has finally begun to bear fruit. This article reflects on twenty years of experience and describes the University of Pennsylvania's progress toward and challenges to achieving Franklin's dream.

The partnerships described in this article represent the fruits of two decades of collaboration between the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), community organizations, and the public schools in Philadelphia (particularly schools in West Philadelphia, where Penn is located). Penn's Center for Community Partnerships (CCP) has worked with other neighborhood resources to create university-assisted community schools that are centers of education and engagement and that provide a range of additional services for students, their parents, and other community members. The specific partnerships described in this article--the school-based community health promotion and disease prevention program at Sayre Middle School and the literacy program at Drew Elementary School--offer insights into how the university and the community have worked together to create meaningful change. (Contains 1 figure and 5 notes.)

Community schools are environment-changing institutions that engage children, families, neighbors, and local organizations in active work to improve life and learning in the community. This article describes how community schools create conditions that enable students to learn and teachers to teach at high levels. The authors discuss keys to creating community schools, as well as challenges to the movement. (Contains 12 references.) (Author)

Significant, multisector community partnerships are a prerequisite for sustained, systemwide pre-Kindergarten through college-level educational reform. Like a few others, the University of Pennsylvania is developing higher education-assisted community schools designed to help educators educate, engage, activate, and serve all community members. (MLH)

Action research is an approach to knowledge generation that can strengthen communities and institutions and is ideally suited to the advancement of academically-based service learning. Presents the history and goals of this approach to service learning, defining current challenges, providing examples from three action research projects responding to these challenges, and identifying questions for research on this approach. (SM)

Raises concerns about effectiveness of service learning efforts to engage students in community problems as part of an integrated curriculum. Suggests the HIV epidemic as a situation requiring the diverse resources of modern colleges and universities and proposes partnerships with local communities to address the problem. Programs at the University of Alabama and Bryn Mawr College (Pennsylvania) are described. (DB)

Explores why universities are an appropriate and central partner in the effort to develop and sustain better schools and communities, and what can be done by government, foundations, and higher education to create and sustain comprehensive, strongly symbiotic, mutually beneficial school-community-university partnerships based on the American democratic ideal. (MSE)

Examines the theoretical bases of academic service learning, with particular attention to John Dewey's contributions. Conceptualizes the service learning movement as part of an ongoing, and still unsuccessful, effort to "de-Platonize" and democratize American higher education in articular and American schooling in general. (Author/MSE)

Proposes a new solution--creation of cosmopolitan civic universities to the Deweyan question of how to construct and maintain a radical new form of social organization (cosmopolitan neighborly communities based on enlightened, humanistic, universal values and relationships) in an age characterized by the information revolution and a global society. The historical context in which this solution is offered is examined. (MSE)

The growth of community service, particularly service learning, is not occurring as quickly or as seriously as it should. The comprehensive partnership between the University of Pennsylvania and the West Philadelphia public schools that involves parents, children, and community members in a variety of programs is a model of a service learning program. (JOW)

Strategic, academically based community service holds promise for creating the structural change needed to reduce deprivation and inhuman suffering found in urban areas. The early history of the modern urban university, particularly in the late 19th century, is an example and can provide a model for further development of this mission. (MSE)

The variety of approaches taken by urban universities in partnerships with local communities is examined, and a number of related issues are addressed, including implementation of partnerships, the proper role for the university in applied work, adaptation of institutional structures and processes, determination of who should benefit from university-community involvement, and the future for this direction in university work. (Author/MSE)

This article addresses criticisms that U.S. colleges and universities have lost their moral and civic purposes. It suggests that a major problem is the fragmentation resulting from higher education's organization into departments. A University of Pennsylvania project to revitalize an urban Philadelphia neighborhood is described as an example of new interdisciplinary relationships with neighborhood schools. (DB)

Universities can contribute significantly to the improvement of human welfare by directing academic resources toward solving problems. They need a radical mission-oriented focus devoted to using reason to improve the human condition and local public schools and school districts. The article describes programs that have succeeded to this end. (SM)

In this article, Ira Harkavy points to the beliefs that education and schooling significantly determine the character of a society, and that higher education has broad societal impacts, including helping to shape the rest of the schooling system. It is this core idea that unites the work of Benjamin Franklin and Ernest Boyer and serves as the basis of their revolutionary vision for higher education. Both men believed that higher education should be of service to society for the progressive betterment of the human condition; therefore, Franklin in 1749, and Boyer 245 years later in 1994, wrote what were in effect proposals to create the New American College. Harkavy includes examples of their thoughts, and states that colleges and universities have increasingly been called on to do the right thing and engage with their communities in comprehensive and mutually beneficial university-community-school partnerships. In order for them to engage effectively, however, they must overcome the burden of tradition. By focusing on solving universal problems that are manifested in their local communities, institutions of higher learning will be better able to reduce the "ancient customs and habitudes" that are impeding college and university community engagement. This, in turn, will advance research, teaching, learning, and service, thus making it possible to realize Benjamin Franklin and Ernest Boyer's revolutionary vision for higher education--that of active engagement and service.