Open AccessThe Incubation Model of University-Community Relationships: A Case Study in Creating New Programs, New Knowledge, and New Fields of Practice
Author(s) -
Lois Gander
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
canadian journal of university continuing education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 0318-9090
DOI - 10.21225/d5g59k
Subject(s) - watson , community engagement , general partnership , sociology , institution , civic engagement , best practice , public relations , resource (disambiguation) , management , political science , social science , law , computer network , natural language processing , politics , computer science , economics
Universities in Canada and elsewhere are recognizing the importance of being more engaged with their communities. Indeed, the president of the University of Alberta made engaging with external communities one of the cornerstones of her vision for the institution. So how are universities meeting this challenge? In his book, Managing Civic and Community Engagement, David Watson laments the dearth of scholarly attention paid to the practice of civic engagement by universities (Watson, 2007). In this article, I discuss the university community partnership between the Faculty of Extension, University of Alberta, and the Legal Resource Centre of Alberta Ltd., which began more than 30 years ago. Both a success story and a cautionary tale, the case study helps to define a little-discussed model of university community engagement and to expose some of its strengths and limitations. It is useful in advancing both the theory and the practice of university-community engagement.