Higher Education Collaboratives for Community Engagement and Improvement

Our society is in a period of dramatic change with the transition from an industrial-based to a knowledge-based economy, as well as technological advances, fiscal challenges of higher education, and cultural shifts in society as a whole. Increasing collaborations between communities and universities in order to influence the public good becomes paramount during this time of dramatic change. As frustratingly slow as the movement to strengthen the relationship between higher education and society sometimes seems to be, few social institutions are better situated than colleges and universities to stimulate significant community improvement. Individually and collectively, institutions of higher education possess considerable resources—human, fiscal, organizational, and intellectual— which are critical to addressing significant social issues. Additionally, these institutions are physically rooted in their communities. Therefore, investing in the betterment of their immediate environments is good for both the community and the institution. However, it is recognized that higher education institutions often fall short of making a real impact in their home communities. Therefore, a conference was convened to examine the current and evolving role of higher education institutions, particularly those operating within the context of coalitions, consortia and state systems, to catalyze change on issues affecting communities and society as a whole. Specifically, the focus of the conference was to develop and strengthen an understanding of how higher education might work more effectively with communities and we believe that consortia or collaboratives of higher education institutions, along with community partners, can learn from one another. Cooperation between efforts is important. The papers offered in this monograph are the result of the Wingspread Conference on Higher Education Collaboratives for Community Engagement and Improvement, conducted on October 27-29, 2004, in Racine, Wisconsin. The conference, the second of a three-part series, was sponsored by the National Forum on Higher Education for the Public Good at the University of Michigan School of Education, the Johnson Foundation, Atlantic Philanthropies, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The first conference in the series held in October 2003 and titled Public Understanding, Public Support and Public Policy focused on higher education’s role in society and the concluding conference will be held in the fall of 2005

Critical Issues in Higher Education for the Public Good: Qualitative, Quantitative & Historical Research Perspectives

Critical Issues in Higher Education for the Public Good offers new evidence and insights into the complexities of higher education and the public good. This unique collection of award winning authors discusses what is needed in order to actualize higher education for the public good, where higher education and the public are inclusive of multiple constituencies. Issues of race, class, gender, ethnicity, urban environments, and systemic oppression are addressed, along with teaching and learning, study abroad, affirmative action and community-university engagement. This book represents an ongoing commitment to bring new scholarly voices into a public discussion about the relationship that exists between higher education and American society. In organizing the writing project that is reflected in these chapters, we sought to provide original empirical evidence regarding the myriad benefits between higher education and society situated within a contemporary context. The degree to which this goal has been met is a reflection of the insight, scholarship and creativity of the authors represented in these chapters. We all owe them a debt of thanks for what they have brought to their work and for their career-long commitment to higher education for the public good. It has resulted in a book that has local, state and national implications for educational practice, policy and the public; furthermore, this is a book that breaks down old frameworks that needed to be challenged, replacing them with new ideas to be explored and debated.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/ksupresslegacy/1001/thumbnail.jp

Disrupting the Ethical Imperatives of “Junior” Critical Qualitative Scholars in the Era of Conservative Modernization

In this article, we wrestle with the core issue of how early career researchers translate central tenets and core concepts of critical theory and critical methodology into their research practice. By way of creative representation, we draw from bell hooks and Cornel West’s (1991) written rendition of their verbal dialogue in Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life. Their hope was to offer the book in a dialogic format in such a way that mirrored the synergy in their verbal discussions as friends and intellectual colleagues. In a similar vein, we hope to share with readers the synergy and depth of the narratives that have transpired during our ongoing discussions on the important topic of critical praxis as part of a collaborative research group called the Disruptive Dialogue Project (Gildersleeve, Kuntz, Pasque & Carducci, 2010; Kuntz, Pasque, Carducci, & Gildersleeve, 2009).Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Radical Interrelated Qualitative Space in the Midst of Multipandemics: A Collaborative Scholarly Personal Narrative

Given the current unprecedented multiple pandemics of COVID-19, anti-Black and anti-Asian violence, and white supremacy, we—a group of graduate students and a faculty member who hold diverse identities across disciplines, race, gender, nationality, and additional categories—came together to focus on qualitative research as an ontological, epistemological, and axiological space toward community and culture change. Specifically, we took up scholarly personal narrative, which centers postmodernism and focuses on the reality that “we see what we believe; we observe what we narrate; we transform what we reframe. ”What emerged were radical interrelated understandings of privilege, guilt, and the importance of kinship. As such, this vulnerable group reflected on graduate student experiences with multiple pandemics and how the academy may enact transformative change, reframing our own understandings of qualitative space

Disrupting Façades of Clarity in the Teaching and Learning of Qualitative Research

In this article we examine two methodological façades of clarity that commonly shroud critical qualitative educational inquiry. More specifically, we interrogate discussions of reflexivity and positionality and explore the ways in which methodology curricula and instructional practices perpetuate façades of clarity, or a false sense of coherence, ultimately undermining the transformative potential of critical educational research. We identify specific pedagogical opportunities, spaces, and strategies for dismantling these façades and offer ways to reconstruct methodological practices congruent with the emancipatory and empowering aims of critical scholarship

The Disruptive Dialogue Project: Crafting Critical Space in Higher Education

The Disruptive Dialogue Project (DDP) is a dialogic network of education scholars committed to fostering conversations that trouble normative practices of critical qualitative scholarship, pedagogy, and methodology, within an interstice of the contemporary educational inquiry landscape. In this essay, we describe the origins of the DDP as well as present a conceptual framework of the Project based on four spatial understandings of our disruptive activity (i.e., the DDP space as energy, alternative, critique, and possibility). Building on this conceptual model, we provide an overview two specific strategies / spaces the DDP intentionally cultivates as means of transformation and resilience – “disruptive” academic conference symposia and bi-weekly DDP teleconferences –and discuss the role these activities play in the development of our critical colleagueship. Our intent in sharing the DDP narrative is not to promote imitation of our project, but rather to encourage other critical scholars to create, seek out, produce and pull apart interstices of their own; spaces that disrupt the hegemonic narratives of educational research and faculty life

Desmoronando Fachadas de Aparente Claridad en la Enseñanza y el Aprendizaje de la Investigación Cualitativa

In this article we examine two methodological façades of clarity that commonly shroud critical qualitative educational inquiry. More specifically, we interrogate discussions of reflexivity and positionality and explore the ways in which methodology curricula and instructional practices perpetuate façades of clarity, or a false sense of coherence, ultimately undermining the transformative potential of critical educational research. We identify specific pedagogical opportunities, spaces, and strategies for dismantling these façades and offer ways to reconstruct methodological practices congruent with the emancipatory and empowering aims of critical scholarship.En este artículo se reflexiona sobre dos fachadas metodológicas de aparente claridad que normalmente se encuentran amortajadas en la investigación de la educación crítica de calidad. Más concretamente, se cuestionan los debates sobre reflexividad y posicionamiento. También se investiga cómo los currículos metodológicos y las prácticas docentes perpetúan esta aparente claridad, o falsa sensación de coherencia. En última instancia, se indaga en el potencial transformador de la investigación educativa crítica. Identificamos oportunidades pedagógicas específicas, espacios y estrategias para el desmantelamiento de estas fachadas y ofrecemos maneras de reconstruir las prácticas metodológicas congruentes con los objetivos de autonomía y de impulsar el pensamiento crítico