Building Sustainable Campus-Community Partnerships: A Reciprocal-Relationship Model

Taking education outside of the classroom is an exciting, yet daunting, proposition. Community-based education can provide students exposure to the richness and complication of the world outside of academe—the people, politics and interconnections that both challenge and complement our traditional modes of teaching. These educational experiences also play many other important roles within the institution, reinforcing the mission, providing relevance within the communities the institution serves, and fulfilling the citizenship roles many colleges and universities value. This paper uses experiences and insights gained planning and staffing an annual community arts festival to develop a model of campus-community partnership that is based on a broad conception of reciprocity. Incorporating the perspectives of a faculty member, a student, a college administrator and a community partner, the paper describes the process by which the project, and an associated course, have been (and continue to be) developed. We argue that applying the broader concepts of reciprocity enhance the success, sustainability and satisfaction of working in partnership.