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THE LAND-GRANT MISSION 2.

0:

DISTRIBUTED REGIONAL ENGAGEMENT

Nancy Elizabeth Franklin

A DISSERTATION

in

Higher Education Management

Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree


of Doctor of Education

2008

_____________________________
Dissertation Supervisor

_____________________________
Dean, Graduate School of Education
COPYRIGHT

Nancy Elizabeth Franklin

2008

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DEDICATION

This work is dedicated to my husband, Tim,


and children, Maddi, Torrey, and Trevor
whose love and support provided time and space
to accomplish this daunting task as well as
the confidence to persevere to the end.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am tremendously indebted to my dissertation advisor, Matt Hartley,


whose wise counsel and gentle encouragement challenged me to think
broadly and focus deeply; to my second reader, Hilton Hallock, whose
encouragement and advice at critical periods bolstered my resolve and
increased my capacity; and to my third reader, John Bardo, whose passion
for regional engagement has inspired and enlightened me. The quality and
quantity of their investment has been immeasurable.

The research associated with this dissertation would not have been
possible without the willingness of many university, regional, state, and
national engagement leaders to share their experiences and thoughts with
me. I am particularly thankful to the chief engagement officers and regional
engagement program directors from Michigan State University, Purdue
University, the University of Georgia, the University of Minnesota, the
University of Missouri, and Virginia Tech who spoke with me and painted the
landscape of regional engagement from their institutions‟ perspectives.

I extend a special acknowledgment to Steve Dempsey, his colleagues


at the University of Georgia, and the people of Moultrie and Colquitt County,
Georgia for trusting me with their stories, allowing me to deepen my
knowledge of university-regional partnerships and gain new perspectives on
my own engagement experiences.

My colleagues and friends at the Institute for Advanced Learning and


Research, Virginia Tech, and in Southside taught me much about
engagement, not only by their creativity and perseverance, but through their
driving passion to make a difference. To them I will be eternally indebted.

I want to acknowledge the support of several colleagues and family


members – Julie Brown, Ted Settle, Lorilee Sandmann, Rose Baker, Paula
Franklin, Betty Norton, and Tim Franklin - who graciously agreed to read
various sections of my manuscript and offered invaluable advice and
suggestions.

Although moving a family and changing jobs in the middle of a


dissertation is not something I would recommend, I am enormously grateful
to Craig Weidemann and Daney Jackson at Penn State University, my new
home, for their support and patience while I worked through the most
grueling phase of my dissertation.

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To longtime friend and supporter John W. Moore I owe great thanks
for encouraging me to pursue my doctorate and for suggesting the Higher
Education Management program at the University of Pennsylvania to me. I
am thankful to Hilton and the Penn faculty associated with the program for
committing to me and for allowing me to learn from you.

For me, managing and completing this doctoral program and


dissertation has truly taken the support of a community. I cannot imagine
having a more wonderful set of colleagues – smart, witty, sensitive, and
supportive – to share this doctoral program experience with than Cohort 6.
Special thanks to Laura for worrying about the details and doing so much
with such good spirit, and to Ginger for her invaluable early encouragement.

And, finally, I extend my most profound gratitude to my family:

My mother-in-law, Paula Franklin, who set an example by obtaining


her doctorate in mid-life and impressed on me the inestimable value of
possessing that higher education calling card, and whose love and support in
immeasurable ways has made this accomplishment possible.

My parents, Betty and Bill Norton, whose love, pride, dedication, and
willingness to drop everything at various points during the past two years to
come and help when my life was stretched to a near-breaking point meant all
the difference in my taking the next step.

My children, Maddi, Torrey, and Trevor who have borne the brunt of
my unavailability these past many months with considerable patience and
good humor, encouraged me at the start and cheered me on at milestones
along the way.

My husband, Tim, who has been my partner in all ways on this journey
- encouraging me to reach for this life goal, protecting my opportunity to
accomplish the work required, providing insights that expanded my
perspectives, nurturing me through the tough times, and living the
experience with me of charting new territory in university-regional
engagement.

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ABSTRACT

THE LAND-GRANT MISSION 2.0:

DISTRIBUTED REGIONAL ENGAGEMENT

Nancy Elizabeth Franklin

Matthew Hartley

Dramatic shifts in the economy associated with the rise of globalism

call into question the traditional ways in which land-grant institutions have

defined their roles in contributing to economic and social well-being. Since

the assets most needed for global economic viability – a base of innovation,

talented people, and ubiquitous connectivity – are core strengths of

universities, it is fair to ask how these institutions can more holistically

engage with economically distressed regions to build critical innovation

economy competencies. Evidence suggests that although linking 21st century

regional economic competitiveness to university contributions is a concept

gaining momentum in policy circles, few models exist, particularly in regions

not proximate to university campuses.

This qualitative study took a three-tier approach to exploring models

of “distributed” land-grant regional engagement and associated implications

for state policy development. It began by identifying six land-grant

institutions partnering with non-local regions: Michigan State University,

Purdue University, the University of Georgia, the University of Minnesota, the

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University of Missouri, and Virginia Tech. From these six institutional models,

two cases of distributed regional engagement were selected and studied:

University of Georgia – Moultrie/Colquitt (southwest Georgia), and Virginia

Tech –Southside (south central Virginia). Finally, state policy perspectives

on university-led economic development in Georgia and Virginia were

examined.

A conceptual model was developed to portray the relationships

between the conditions that create the potential for engagement, the

catalytic factors in regions and universities that spark a partnering

relationship, and the policy elements that constitute the framework for

engagement. It demonstrates the opportunity to accelerate the velocity of

investment, adoption, and partnership between universities and regions.

Key findings suggest that university commitment to holistic

engagement is dependent on partnerships that provide substantial

institutional benefits. A critical ingredient of successful university-regional

partnerships is a core group of regional leaders who embrace the potential to

partner with a university and who keep their regions focused on the

partnership. Shaping state policy to incentivize university-regional

partnerships should consider how to align regional and university goals, the

scale of funding needed, appropriate short- and long-term measures of

success, and the involvement of public and private leaders in governance

structures.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDEGMENTS……………….……………………………………………...iv

ABSTRACT…….………………………………………………………………………….vi

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………..1

Context……………………….…………………………………………………………………………..2
Research Agenda……………….……………………………………………………………………4
The Innovation Economy….…………………………………………………………………….6
The Importance of Regions…………………………….………………………………………7
Growing Economic Disparity…………………….…………………………………………….8
Engagement…………………………………………….……………………………………………10
Why Distributed Engagement......................................................12
Importance of the Study….…………………………………………………………………..14

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW…………….…………………………………17

Regional Competency…………………………………………………….…………………….18
Higher Education Assets……………………….……………………………………………..23
University-Community Partnerships…………….……………………………………..30
Higher Education and the Public Good………………………………………………..33
Policy Considerations for Higher Education Engagement…….…………….39
Summary……………….………………………………………………………………………………46

Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY…….…………………………………………………49

Rationale for Qualitative Case Study Approach….……………………………….49


Conceptual Model……………….………………………………………………………………..51
Study Design…………….………………………………………………………………………….53
Site Selection………….…………………………………………………………………………….55
Interviewee Selection….……………………………………………………………………….57
Interviews…………………….……………………………………………………………………….61
Interview Questions…………………….……………………………………………………….63
Documents………………………….………………………………………………………………..63
Data Analysis…………………………………….………………………………………………….63
Trustworthiness and Researcher Bias……………………………………….…………65

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Chapter 4: SIX LAND-GRANT UNIVERSITY APPROACHES TO………..69
REGIONAL ENGAGEMENT

Michigan State University….…………………………………………………………………70


Purdue University…………………………………………………….…………………………..72
University of Georgia…………………….………………………………………………………75
University of Minnesota……………….……………………………………………………….77
University of Missouri…………………………………………………………………………..80
Virginia Tech………………………….………………………………………………………………83

Institutional Perspectives on Distributed Engagement……………….……..85


Institutional Motivations…………….……………………………………………..85
Alignment of Mission with Public Needs….…………………………………89
Forms of Engagement……………..…………………………………………………90
University Roles in Engagement………………………………..………………93
Structuring Win-Win Partnerships………………..…………………………..94
Tactical Strategies for Structuring Partnerships……….……………..97
Relationship Development…………………………………………….……..…100
Internal University Considerations……………….………………………..102
Challenges……………………………………………..…………………………………107

Chapter 5: TWO DISTRIBUTED ENGAGEMENT PARTNERSHIPS…...110

The University of Georgia (UGA) – Moultrie/Colquitt Partnership..….110


Beginnings…………………………………………………………..……………………110
Regional Profile………………………….…………………………………………….112
Regional Leadership….…………………………………………………………….113
University Leadership……………………..……………………………………….114
Focus of the Partnership……….………………………………………………..115
Funding………………….………………………………………………………………..117
Structure and Governance………..…………………………………………….118
Major Accomplishments…………………………………..………………………120

The Virginia Tech (VT) – Southside Virginia Partnership…….….……….123


Beginnings…………………………………………..…………………………………..123
Regional Profile……….……………………………………………………………….124
Regional Leadership…………….………………………………………………….126
University Leadership………………………………..…………………………….127
Focus of the Partnership………….……………………………………………..128
Funding………………………………….………………………………………………..130
Structure and Governance…………..………………………………………….135
Major Accomplishments……………..……………………………………………137

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The Findings…………………………..…………………………….…………………………….140
Potential for Engagement…………………………………………………………141
Moultrie/Colquitt Regional Needs……..………………………….143
Moultrie/Colquitt Regional Assets………….…………………….144
University of Georgia Needs……….……………………….……...147
University of Georgia Assets…….………………………………….150
Southside Regional Needs……….…………………………………..152
Southside Regional Assets…………….……………..……………..153
Virginia Tech Needs………………………………………………….…..156
Virginia Tech Assets…………………………………………….……….159

Facilitating Engagement……………………..…………………………………..161
The Role of Regional Leadership in Moultrie/Colquitt….162
The Culture of Regional Engagement in….…………………..165
Moultrie/Colquitt
The Role of University Leadership at UGA…………………..169
Engagement as Defined by the University of Georgia..172
The Role of Regional Leadership in Southside…….……….178
The Culture of Regional Engagement in Southside.…….181
The Role of University Leadership at Virginia Tech.…….185
Engagement as Defined by Virginia Tech……………….……187

Structuring Engagement……………………………….………………………..193
Goal-Setting in the UGA–Moultrie/Colquitt….………………194
Partnership
Goal-Setting in the VT–Southside Partnership…….……..198
Resourcing the UGA–Moultrie/Colquitt……………….……….204
Partnership
Resourcing the VT–Southside Partnership……….….………208
Accountability in the UGA–Moultrie/Colquitt………….….…213
Partnership
Accountability in the VT–Southside Partnership.…………217
Governance in the UGA–Moultrie/Colquitt…………………..221
Partnership
Governance in the VT–Southside Partnership………….….228

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Chapter 6: UNIVERSITY-REGIONAL ENGAGEMENT ………..………….235
THROUGH A STATE POLICY LENS
Georgia: Background on State Investments in University/…………….235
Economic Development Engagement Strategies
Virginia: Background on State Investments in University/…..………..237
Economic Development Engagement Strategies
Current State Perspectives on University-Regional Engagement…...239
in Georgia and Virginia
What can and should universities contribute to the state?.....240
Where should the money come from?................................240
How should university contributions be linked to the….……….242
state’s economic development plan?
What roles should various entities play?.............................244
What policies in GA and VA directly incentivize university……245
engagement in economically distressed regions?
What investments should state dollars fund and where…..…..246
should the investments be made?
What leadership and governance structures should be…..…….249
considered?

Chapter 7: PROGRESS, POSSIBILITIES, AND…..………………………..250


RECOMMENDATIONS

Characterizing Distributed Regional Engagement at Six………….………251


Institutions
Advancing Distributed Regional Engagement………..…………………………269
Potential for Engagement……………..………………………………………..270
Facilitating Engagement……………..…………………………………………..273
Structuring Engagement………………………………………..……………...275
State Policy Implications……….…………………………….………………….279
A New Paradigm for Engagement………………………….………………………….282
Public Policy as an Accelerator of Engagement…….………………………….300
Case Discussion……………………………….…………………………………………………306
Conclusions………..………….…………………………………………………………………..313
Recommendations…………………………………………….……………………………….326
Recommendations for Regions………….…………………………………….326
Recommendations for Universities…….……………………………………328
Recommendations for States….……………………………………………….331
Suggestions for Further Study………………….……………………………………….333

APPENDIX A……………………..……………………………………………………337

APPENDIX B……………………………….………………………………………...339

REFERENCES…………………..……………………………………………………..340
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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Interviewee Distribution by Role………………………………………..….…59

Table 2. State Leader Interviewees by Position….……………………….…..…...60

Table 3. University of Georgia and Moultrie/Colquitt –……….……….….….142


Needs and Assets

Table 4. Virginia Tech and Southside - Needs and Assets…….…………….152

Table 5. University of Georgia and Moultrie/Colquitt –……..…………………163


Partnership Facilitators

Table 6. Virginia Tech and Southside – Partnership Facilitators…….……177

Table 7. University of Georgia and Moultrie/Colquitt…….…..………………..194


Partnership Goal-Setting

Table 8. Virginia Tech and Southside Partnership Goal-Setting…..……..197

Table 9. University of Georgia and Moultrie/Colquitt….……………………….203


Partnership Resourcing

Table 10. Virginia Tech and Southside Partnership Resourcing………..…..208

Table 11. University of Georgia and Moultrie/Colquitt……………………….….212


Partnership Accountability

Table 12. Virginia Tech and Southside Partnership Accountability……..…216

Table 13. University of Georgia and Moultrie/Colquitt…………………….…….221


Partnership Governance

Table 14. Virginia Tech and Southside Partnership Governance…….……..227

Table 15. University Leadership…………………………………………..………………….252

Table 16. The Engagement Agenda…………………………………………………………254

Table 17. University Roles in Regional Partnerships……………………………….257

Table 18. Role of Regional Partners…………………………………………………………261

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Table 19. Funding Models………………………………………….………………………..….264

Table 20. Strengths of Engagement Approach…….…………………………………266

Table 21. Regional Engagement Typology: Approach to Engagement….283

Table 22. Regional Engagement Typology: Roles and Relationships….…287

Table 23. Regional Engagement Typology: Research Implications……....290

Table 24. Regional Engagement Typology: Education Implications……...293

Table 25. Regional Engagement Typology: Public Service……………..……..296


Implications

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Conceptual Model……………………………………………………………………….52

Figure 2. Virtuous Engagement Circle…………………………………………………….303

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Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

One challenge we face is growing public frustration with what is seen


to be our unresponsiveness. At the root of the criticism is a perception
that we are out of touch and out of date. Another part of the issue is
that although society has problems, our institutions have ‟disciplines.‟
In the end, what these complaints add up to is a perception that,
despite the resources and expertise available on our campuses, our
institutions are not well organized to bring them to bear on local
problems in a coherent way. (Kellogg Commission on the Future of
State and Land-Grant Universities, 1999, p.9)

The notion that universities are critical ingredients in creating and

maintaining economic well-being is integral to Americans‟ understanding of

higher education‟s role in society. Universities have long embraced the

mission to address the needs of citizenry at large and have been publicly

funded for this purpose. Yet, in recent years, public dissatisfaction with

universities‟ lack of focus on serving “the public good” has increased and,

correspondingly, state support for higher education has declined

(Longanecker, 2005). Perhaps, as the Kellogg Commission on the Future of

State and Land-Grant Universities (1999) has surmised, we in higher

education have not engaged effectively with the complex challenges and

opportunities faced by citizens and communities. Among higher education

institutions, land-grant universities have not only an obligation to address

economic and social needs broadly, but have a particular responsibility to


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interface with the needs of the citizens and communities throughout the

states in which they are situated.

This dissertation is a study of how land-grant institutions are engaging

with regions of their states distant from campus in ways that contribute to

the development and well-being of those regions. I was drawn to this topic

because of my own experience engaging a land-grant university with an

economically distressed region situated 120 miles from campus. There I

came to appreciate the tremendous benefits to both the region and the

university, but also the enormous challenges of what I have come to call

“distributed regional engagement.”

I believe the interest in linking research universities more closely to

state economic opportunities and needs is increasing in this age of

globalization. The time is right for policymakers, particularly at the state

level, to get serious about policy to incentivize such engagement. So,

information will be needed which sheds light on the variables associated with

successful distributed regional engagement models. This study offers a

starting point for understanding how and why these models work, and the

implications for shaping policy.

Context

The roots of engagement in the United States date back to the Colonial

Era, when colleges were established for the purpose of preparing citizens for

public service (Thelin, 2004). Subsequently through the Morrill Act of 1862,

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federal government policy linked higher education to utilitarian concerns

associated with expanding the economy. This was followed by mid-western

progressivism in the early 20th century which led to the development of “The

Wisconsin Idea,” partnering higher education, through the land-grant

university, with state needs (Stark, 1995). Through a complex set of federal

and state policy coupled with historic expectations associated with higher

education‟s mission, land-grant institutions came to exemplify higher

education‟s commitment to the public good.

Today the U.S. finds itself, along with the rest of the world, in the

midst of a large-scale economic transformation. This economic sea change is

propelling some regions to new levels of prosperity but is leaving many

regions, particularly rural and semi-rural regions, far behind. What role can

and should higher education, and land-grant universities in particular, play in

assisting economically distressed regions? How might such regions,

particularly those that are not proximate to a research university, gain a

foothold in the new economic environment? How can partnerships with

economically distressed, geographically distant regions be structured such

that universities can meet their own needs while benefiting the regions?

Concurrently, as the wave of economic transition has begun to wash

over regions across the U.S., the higher education community has been

engaged in its own conversations about how to best serve the public good in

the emerging landscape. Ernest Boyer (1994) promoted the concept of “The

New American College,” which, among other defining characteristics,

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challenged higher education to be more integrally connected with

communities outside of the ivory tower. Subsequent calls by the National

Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges and the American

Association of State Colleges and Universities promoted a commitment to

“engagement” (Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant

Universities [Kellogg Commission], 1999) and “stewardship of place”

(American Association of State Colleges and Universities [AASCU], 2002),

respectively.

Yet, robust engagement to date has been mostly elusive (Jones,

2005). Jones places much of the blame for this situation on the failure of

state higher education policy. “In spite of the potential power of state policy

to affect the extent to which institutions direct their attention to state and

regional priorities, this power is seldom wielded effectively. State policy has

long been focused on building institutional capacity, not on ensuring that this

considerable capacity is utilized to achieve priority state purposes” (p. 4). He

offers that appropriate policy levers at the state level might include: public

agenda definition, funding allocations, accountability mechanisms, and

governance structures.

Research Agenda

This study investigated how land-grant universities are partnering with

non-local economically distressed regions to build economic and community

capacity. The motivations and challenges of “distributed regional

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engagement” associated with six land-grant institutions were investigated in

the first stage of the research. From those examples, two particularly robust

examples of university-regional partnering were selected for in-depth study.

These included a partnership initiated in 2005 between the University of

Georgia and a two-jurisdiction region in southwest Georgia centered in the

city of Moultrie and Colquitt County, and a partnership initiated in 2000

between Virginia Tech and an eight-jurisdiction region in south central

Virginia centered in the city of Danville and Pittsylvania County. A third

stage of research focused on state policy perspectives related to university-

regional engagement, with a focus on Georgia and Virginia.

The research questions considered why and how land-grant institutions

are engaging with non-local regions in their states and the ways in which

regional engagement was focused on innovation economy capacity

development. Critical ingredients for engagement, roles and responsibilities

of partners, and structures for sustaining effective relationships were

investigated. Four policy issues were investigated to shed light on how

existing university-regional partnerships are addressing critical engagement

components with an eye toward broader implications for policymakers.

These policy questions centered on the development of engagement agendas

between universities and their regional partners, the resourcing mechanisms

employed by the university-regional partnerships, the accountability

expectations associated with demonstrating short and long term progress

toward goals, and the governance structures utilized to sustain engagement.

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The Innovation Economy

The new economy is built on innovative capacity (Council on

Competitiveness, 2005b). Economic viability is driven by the ability to

develop better products and services faster than the competition. This

means that research and development are critical building blocks in

establishing a strong economic base. Highly innovative places are

characterized by high tech companies choosing to locate near research and

development expertise as well as by start-up companies which capitalize on

new discoveries emanating from the research activities (State Science and

Technology Institute [SSTI], 2006).

Arguably the most critical asset in the emerging economy is the

intellectual capital that drives innovation (Business Roundtable, 2005).

Cutting edge research is highly dependent on scientists and engineers, who

depend on high quality post-secondary education for their own and their

employees‟ baccalaureate and graduate credentialing. Indeed, the most

frequently cited measure of a region‟s economic prosperity is its per capita

income, which is a surrogate for its college educated workforce (Milken

Institute, 2002, as cited by Waits, 2003).

Every state has key assets which are engines of innovation (research)

and intellectual capital development (education) – – its public universities.

Every state has at least one land-grant university and many states have

additional public research and comprehensive universities. Land-grant and

research universities have the research expertise, the laboratories and

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physical infrastructure, the administrative knowledge and infrastructure to

support and sustain robust research. The challenge, however, is that the

economic impact of research and development is only felt within a

commuting distance of where the money is spent (Kirchhoff, Arrington,

Hasan, & Newbert, 2003). So, regions without research universities do not

directly benefit from these engines of innovation.

Similarly, every state has public institutions of higher education which

offer baccalaureate and graduate programs of study. These programs both

attract and develop intellectual talent. To the extent that these institutions

prepare scientists, engineers, and technologists, they are wellsprings of the

most highly prized intellectual capital in the knowledge-based economy

(National Center on Education and the Economy, 2007). The trick is to

create enough “stickiness” so that this human capital chooses to remain in

place once their formal education period is complete. Regions without

institutions of higher education are particularly challenged to attract this

talent and have it stay put.

The Importance of Regions

Economic development in an innovation economy extends beyond

cities and counties to regions that are bounded by a common geography,

culture, and economic conditions (Henton, Melville, & Walesh, 2002; Duke,

2005). Drabenstott (2005) chronicles the rise of regions in the innovation

economy and suggests that two key characteristics define regions: a hub

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city that creates agglomeration benefits, and a sufficient level of critical mass

to compete effectively in the global marketplace. Therefore, a region might

be defined by the employment base and associated workforce commuting

pattern of a geographic area. Experts attribute the increasing importance of

regions to the devolution of political power from national to state and local

government (Drabenstott; Henton et al.).

In the innovation economy, regions grow when they create

competitive advantage in the global marketplace (Drabenstott, 2005).

Effective economic development strategies are driven by a region‟s unique

assets and its intellectual capital. Thus, successful regions work to identify

and exploit their assets (Drabenstott) and compete for innovation and talent

(Arbo & Benneworth, 2007). States and nations are beginning to understand

the relationship between maximizing the success of their regions and global

competitive position. According to Drabenstott “More experts now conclude

that vibrant regional economies boost macroeconomic growth” (p. 4).

Therefore, the prosperity of a state or nation is linked directly to the sum of

the economic health of its regions.

Growing Economic Disparity

Virginia is not unlike most states in the United States, so serves as an

example of a national phenomenon. It is, with apologies to Charles Dickens,

a tale of two states. One “state” includes the urban corridor or “golden

crescent” that extends from the outskirts of Washington, D.C., south through

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Richmond, and east to Hampton Roads. The other Virginia encompasses the

majority of the land mass of the state and is dominated by rural and semi-

rural regions. Income disparities in Virginia demonstrate the gulf between

the “haves” and the “have-nots.”

According to Cai and Murray-Krezan (2006), “Virginia‟s household

income had a pronounced bimodal distribution, with 24 percent of workers

earning between $25,000 and $49,999, and 22 percent earning at least

$100,000” (p. 24). Income disparities between urban northern Virginia and

rural southern Virginia demonstrate the tremendous regional prosperity gap.

Virginia‟s government reporting website indicates, “The Northern Region had

the highest per capita personal income in 2005 ($48,888)…At the other end

of the spectrum, the Southside and Southwest regions had the lowest per

capita personal income at just over $21,000” (Virginia Performs, 2007, p. 1).

The net result of this differential is that the wealthier areas of the state

essentially subsidize the less prosperous areas. This is true in Virginia as it is

in many states. Governors and state leaders invested in economic

competitiveness know that subsidization suppresses a state‟s economic

growth potential. Creating a rising economic tide across an entire state

becomes a paramount concern in an era when competition for economic

opportunity extends far beyond national borders and literally around the

globe (National Governors Association, 2002a).

Moving distressed regions to economic self-sufficiency and ultimately

to economic prosperity entails the development of innovation economy

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assets in these regions. These innovation economy assets, which dovetail

with the expertise of American higher education, include a research cauldron

for developing new innovations and converting them into commercial assets

and a well-educated workforce with particular strengths in science,

technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Thus it is no surprise that the

question increasingly being asked is how to effectively partner higher

education institutions with economically distressed regions to create

innovation capacity (Johnson, 2007; Mattoon, 2007).

Engagement

The concepts of “engagement” and “stewardship of place” focus on the

academy‟s interest in redefining higher education‟s service mission within the

context of the 21st century. This nomenclature addresses higher education‟s

interest in crafting a new, more robust partnership between the academy and

the publics it serves. Rather than perpetuate the historical notion of

“extension” wherein universities push knowledge out from campus uni-

directionally, the new focus is rooted in mutuality (Kellogg Commission,

1999). Universities can best serve when they understand the communities

with whom they are interfacing. Benefits in this new model accrue both to

the community and to the university.

The Kellogg Commission, convened in 1996 by the National Association

of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, popularized the notion of

engagement. It suggested that institutions of higher education should

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redesign their “teaching, research, and extension and service functions to

become even more sympathetically and productively involved with their

communities” (Kellogg Commission, 1999, p. 9). This new model envisioned

two-way partnerships that would include sharing, reciprocity, and mutual

respect. Engagement would be inextricably tied to putting universities‟

“critical resources (knowledge and expertise) to work on the problems the

communities it serves faces” (Kellogg Commission, p. 10).

Subsequently, the American Association of State Colleges and

Universities (AASCU) challenged institutions of higher education to serve as

stewards of place, “to function as learners as well as teachers in tackling the

myriad of opportunities and issues facing our communities and regions”

(AASCU, 2002, p. 5). Development of a regional stewardship agenda for

higher education has continued with a Kellogg Foundation grant to AASCU,

the Alliance for Regional Stewardship, and the National Center for Higher

Education Management Systems. These three entities have engaged in a

project titled “Making Place Matter” which proposes a new three-pillar

definition of the university mission – learning, innovation, and shared

leadership. A commitment to shared leadership, rather than service, signals

a sustained commitment to regional partnering and a focus on place by

learning from local partners (Alliance for Regional Stewardship, American

Association of State Colleges and Universities, & National Center for Higher

Education Management Systems, 2006).

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Why Distributed Engagement?

With all of the dialogue around engagement and stewardship of place,

an increasing number of universities are reaching out to partner with the

communities of which they are a part. In many cases, one could speculate

that the motivation stems as much from enlightened self interest as it does

from a sense of higher calling to serve the public good. What has not been

particularly prevalent in the literature are discussions of engagement and

stewardship of place between universities and regions that are geographically

distant.

Areas where universities are located, although perhaps rural, benefit

from the economic and intellectual capital contributions of those institutions.

These are, in a sense, the “easy” or easier forms of engagement. A few of

the studies and policy papers related to university engagement in innovation

economy capacity development refer to examples of engagement that have

occurred beyond the community or region in which a university is located.

However, there appears to be no concerted focus to identify the various

program model components of successful distributed engagement that are

occurring in economically distressed regions. Nor is there evidence that a

holistic policy framework has been developed that can be implemented at the

local, state, and federal levels to engage higher education with economically

distressed regions.

I believe there are three compelling reasons to study distributed

engagement. One reason to study engagement that is occurring in parts of

12
the state geographically distant from campus is to better understand how to

address the pressure to enhance regional economic competitiveness. Many

regions do not house a research university and are desperately trying to

develop innovation economy competitiveness. If we can clarify how and why

universities have chosen to engage with distant regions, we will be better

positioned to develop appropriate policies to encourage much more

distributed regional engagement.

A second reason for studying distributed engagement is to better

articulate the ways in which such partnerships can be conceptualized to

attract new, external capital and investment to both the university and the

region. Arbo and Benneworth (2007) discuss the opportunities to attract

external funds by partnering universities with regions. If new money can

flow to both the region and to the university in a properly structured

engagement relationship, it may be possible to understand how to create

such a structure so that significant, tangible benefits to both parties can keep

partners at the table.

The third reason to study examples of land-grant universities that are

involved in significant capacity-building in regions distant from campus is to

understand motivations for engagement that extend beyond enhancing town-

gown relationships. Studying engagement that is occurring in the region

where the university is located makes it difficult to separate university

motivations associated with enhancing its local relationships from

13
motivations associated with broader purposes that could be transferable to

other situations.

If land-grant universities are to be engaged in robust, sustainable

partnerships with communities outside their geographic regions, it will be

important to identify substantial benefits for the universities. Effective state

and federal policy levers will tap the motivations not just of economically

distressed regions, but particularly the motivations of higher education. The

key is identifying the deep-seated higher education triggers and establishing

a policy environment that creates a win-win situation for universities and

regions.

Importance of the Study

The two primary audiences for this research are expected to be leaders

of higher education and policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels.

Leaders of higher education systems, as a primary interface in most states

between policymakers and higher education institutions, appreciate the need

to maintain the relevancy and public support for higher education by

addressing state interests to the extent possible. In addition, state higher

education system officers are concerned with the distribution of resources

and services, promoting collaboration, and policies that will strengthen higher

education over the long term.

Higher education institution leaders most likely to be interested are

those associated with research universities, particularly land-grant

14
institutions, and comprehensive state universities. Each of these types of

institutions is sensitive to both market pressures as well as to public mission,

so should be interested to know how both of these agendas can be met

simultaneously.

Federal policymakers are becoming increasingly concerned about the

nation‟s competitiveness in a global marketplace dominated by scientific and

technological innovation. U.S. production of scientists and technologists,

once unparalleled, is now under siege (Council on Competitiveness, 2005a;

The Task Force on the Future of American Innovation, 2005). Rural,

economically depressed regions require a disproportionate share of tax

dollars to address basic needs and become an increasing drain on the nation

at large. Too often, natural economic regions span across state lines and are

captive to the differing policies of their respective states.

State policymakers have the responsibility to distribute resources in

ways that will maximize value. They are faced with the pressure to subsidize

distressed regions with the disproportionate tax dollars generated by the

wealthier areas of the state, through redistributive economic policy. They

also know that their state‟s economic competitiveness will depend on the

care and feeding of highly innovative and financially successful ventures.

State-funded higher education is another part of the funding landscape that

these policymakers must address.

Local policymakers in economically distressed regions are under

tremendous pressure to find a way to reverse the declining fortunes of the

15
constituents they serve. If they understand that universities can provide

expertise that might help them solve this puzzle, they often don‟t know how

to find the front door of these complex entities or even know what to ask

once they do. Compounding this issue is the high likelihood that local

policymakers have a poor understanding of the university‟s priorities and

motivations as it wrestles with market forces.

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Chapter 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

It might be argued that there was never a time in the history of the

United States when it was more critical to link the intellectual assets of

higher education with the economic needs of regions. The forces of

globalization, spurred by pervasive Internet connectivity, are providing

opportunities for restructuring work on an unprecedented scale. The

economic health and well-being of communities is increasingly dependent on

innovative capacity, the ingredients of which are the core of the higher

education enterprise. What do we know about the changing economic

landscape and about the feasibility of engaging higher education effectively

to create innovation capacity?

In the following literature review I focus on five broad topic areas. In

the first section, I address literature that describes and defines the critical

elements of competitiveness in an innovation economy. Bardo and Evans

(2006) call these elements of competitiveness “regional competencies.” The

second section includes literature that discusses how higher education assets

can and are being applied beyond the university to develop innovation

capacity. In the third section I include literature that addresses elements of

successful university-community partnerships.

A fourth body of literature, emanating primarily from the academy,

examines concepts of “engagement” and “stewardship of place.” These

17
terms have become part of the rhetoric associated with how higher education

can and should serve the public good in the 21st century. The final section

focuses on policy frameworks that might be used to engage higher education

with innovation economy capacity building. It includes references to higher

education faculty and institutional motivations. Each of these is discussed

briefly in the pages that follow.

Regional Competency

As noted in the introduction, geographic regions have become the

predominant organizing concept for understanding local economies. Regions

are typically multi-jurisdictional areas that share a common economic

structure. Commuting patterns in a geographic area demonstrate the

existence of common catchment areas for workforce participants and retail

services consumption. These economic regions are not the result of political

definition, but rather the result of natural human behavior patterns

associated with land-use and spatial organization. Sociologists term this

“human ecology” and describe its characteristics as human interdependence,

competition for scarce resources, changing equilibriums within communities,

and cooperative alliances to create competitive advantage (Bardo & Hartman,

1982). It is this last characteristic which is particularly relevant to

understanding the importance of regionalism in a global economy – the

strategy of banding together across local jurisdictions, which may even cross

18
state lines, in order to create a viable presence in a worldwide competition

for resources.

Experts have noted the shifting economic tide that replaced natural

resources and physical capital with ubiquitous electronic connectivity and

intellectual capital (Florida, 2002; Friedman, 2006; Reich, 2006). At the

beginning of the economic change wave, increased computerization led to

the emergence of a service industry economy and automation of growing

numbers of production processes. With the advent of Internet adoption,

accelerated dramatically by a browser interface, the “world wide web” in the

mid-1990‟s, people began to use terminology such as the “new economy,”

the “networked economy,” and the “knowledge-driven economy,” to define a

new economic era. A decade later, increasing attention was focused on the

impact of globalization as it affected the race to develop new capabilities

faster than others players in the market. The watchword to describe the new

economic era became the “innovation economy.”

Innovative capacity, the ability to be “faster, cheaper, better” (Reich,

2006. p. 31), and “the transformation of knowledge into new products,

processes, and services” (Porter & Stern, 1999, p. 12), has now been

recognized as the defining characteristic of the new economic era. In policy

circles, innovation has become the name of the game. The 2006-2007

National Governor‟s Association Chair‟s Initiative is titled, “Innovate America”

(Atkinson & Correa, 2007). The 2006 Southern Growth Policies board report

was titled, “Innovation with a Southern Accent” (Clinton, Doron, Hoke,

19
Johnson & Pennock, 2006). The Council on Competitiveness has trumpeted

its “National Innovation Initiative” (Council on Competitiveness, 2005a).

Drabenstott (2005) catalogs three eras of economic development:

industrial recruiting, cost competition, and innovation (p. 21). He points out

that in the first two eras, the focus driving economic development was on

external factors. In contrast, he asserts that the current innovation era puts

the focus on the region itself. This regional focus requires the identification

of economic assets and the creation of critical mass across jurisdictional

boundaries to compete effectively in a global marketplace. The Council on

Competitiveness‟s February, 2006 report, “Regional Innovation National

Prosperity” speaks to this as does Harvard economist Michael Porter‟s,

“Clusters of Innovation: Regional Foundations of U.S. Competitiveness”

2001 report.

Embedded in the literature associated with competitiveness in an

innovation economy are discussions of the innovation-capacity development

“competencies” (Bardo & Evans, 2006) necessary in geographic regions.

These regional competencies are the elements consistently present in

thriving innovation economies. In the following section, regional

competencies pervasive in the literature on innovation economy

competitiveness are identified.

Michael Porter is widely credited with the concept of clusters, a

prominent term in economic development since 1990. Clusters are defined

as “geographically concentrated groups of interconnected companies and

20
associated institutions in a particular field.” (Porter, Ketels, Miller, & Bryden,

2004, p. 44). Porter (2001) notes that successful regions leverage their

unique assets to develop specialized economic sectors, forming clusters.

Thus, one regional competency required is a focus on sector strategies –

defining industry clusters around which to build an economy. Sector

strategies should be selected through the identification of unique regional

assets.

Human capital development is a second regional competency. The

Council on Competitiveness (2005) report, “Measuring Regional Innovation,”

discusses the need to focus on intellectual-capital drivers for growth rather

than on tax incentives and access to inexpensive labor. Richard Florida

(2002) documents a correlation between places that are thriving

economically and those with high concentrations of creative human capital.

Drabenstott (2005) notes that economies which accumulate a lot of technical

knowledge and human capital experience faster growth than those that do

not.

Beyond highly talented human capital is the need to focus particular

attention on scientific and technical capacity building. “A critical determinant

of the underlying innovative capacity of an economy is the overall supply of

scientific and technically trained individuals available” (Porter & Stern, 1999,

p. 26). In its report, “The Talent Imperative,” the Building Engineering and

Science Talent (BEST) public-private partnership stated that “in the last 50

years, more than half of America‟s sustained economic growth” has come

21
from the five percent of the workforce comprised of engineers, scientists, and

advanced-degree technologists (Building Engineering and Science Talent

[BEST], 2003, p. 1). Building on the work of BEST and others, the National

Academies addressed science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)

capacity as a critical innovation economy competency in the seminal report,

Rising Above the Gathering Storm (Committee on Prospering in the Global

Economy of the 21st Century: An Agenda for American Science and

Technology, National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering,

and Institute of Medicine [National Academies], 2007).

Another essential regional competency is innovation-creation capacity.

Innovation creation is associated with scientific and technical research and

development. According to the National Academies‟ (2007), “Since the

Industrial Revolution, the growth of economies throughout the world has

been driven largely by the pursuit of scientific understanding, the application

of engineering solutions, and continual technological innovation” (p.41). This

view is supported by the Council on Competitiveness (2005b), “Research and

development (R&D) adds to the knowledge base of a region and is essential

to long-term economic growth” (p. 15). Research is associated with

inventions, patents, and science. Development is focused on the value

created by the research investments, including new firm creation and

existing firm improvement (Clinton et al., 2006).

Finally, a regional competency implicit and explicit in the literature is

high-speed telecommunications infrastructure. The necessity of robust

22
Internet connectivity is widely associated with the globalization phenomenon

discussed earlier in this literature review. The increasingly universal

availability of production technology along with the global

telecommunications infrastructure has resulted in an intense level of

competition in nearly every business sector (Reich, 2006). Findings from

Gillett, Lehr, Osorio, and Sirbu (2006) demonstrate a correlation between

communities with broadband and employment growth, business in IT-

intensive sectors, and higher property values.

In sum, the core competencies needed by regions to compete

effectively in the innovation economy are: a focus on sector strategies,

human capital development, STEM capacity, innovation-creation capacity,

and high-speed telecommunications infrastructure. How do these regional

competencies match up with higher education‟s competencies? The next

section provides an overview of literature that addresses the strengths of

higher education as it relates to these regional competencies.

Higher Education Assets

Higher education has perhaps never been as valued as it is today. The

United States is widely recognized as having had the pre-eminent system of

higher education in the world, though challenges from within (Bok, 2006;

Thelin, 2004) and from abroad (Jackson, 2002) are increasing calling this

pre-eminence into question. The nation‟s colleges and universities have

attracted thousands of students from around the globe to study. Many

23
students have stayed in the United States after completing their studies and

made tremendous contributions to the intellectual and economic well-being

of the country. Harnessing intellectual capital is a critical challenge

associated with economic competitiveness. Wooldridge (2006) points out

that there is an intensifying international competition for brainpower and

notes that, “Many countries regard universities as ideal talent-catching

machines” (p. 7).

Beyond being a magnet for talent, the work of universities is centered

on activities and expertise that speak directly to the kinds of competencies

that are most valued in an innovation economy, as outlined in the preceding

section. The core focus of universities is education and research.

Increasingly, to accomplish this work, universities must rely on high speed

telecommunications networks, so have developed among the nation‟s

foremost expertise in advanced networking. In these three areas - research,

education, and advanced networking – universities offer tremendous

expertise and assets.

The fuel of innovation is research. Universities are among the nation‟s

most significant research assets. “One of the most critical elements in a

technology-based economy is the strength of its research and development

institutions. Research and development drives technological progress and,

therefore, economic growth” (SSTI, 2006, p. 11). Where this research

expertise has been significantly leveraged beyond the campus, it has resulted

in world-renowned economic engines such as California‟s Silicon Valley, North

24
Carolina‟s Research Triangle Park, Boston‟s Route 128 Corridor, and Austin‟s

Silicon Gulch.

Many efforts are underway to replicate the successes of these

university research-based regional economies. In numerous places, regions

are working to develop industry clusters that center on university expertise.

“Universities that are highly engaged with regional industry clusters have

diverse and complementary units that broadly address the needs of the

cluster…In order to have an impact on a regional industry cluster, the

university must have a significant base of research aligned with the needs of

that cluster” (Paytas, Gradeck, & Andrews, p. i).

Several other studies demonstrate that university-led research and

commercialization activities are frequently linked with fast-growing,

technology-oriented economies. One significant study in terms of scope and

longevity was conducted by faculty associated with multiple universities in

the United States, Finland, Norway, and the United Kingdom who studied

innovation-enabled change across 22 locations in six countries between 2002

and 2005. The report presents evidence that universities indeed do

contribute to innovation-based business development in a variety of ways

(Lester, 2005). Similarly, a pair of researchers examining studies that

focused on the relationship between research universities and economic

development concluded, “Overall, we find that the literature…document(s)

the presence of a research university program as an important, often the

25
number one, contributor to economic growth and to a strong and competitive

private business sector” (Purcell & Mundy, 2003, Executive Summary).

The seed of human capital development is education. “In the globally

competitive economy of the 21st century, state economies in large part will

thrive or decline based on how well they cultivate and retain „knowledge

workers”: individuals who possess postsecondary educational credentials”

(Mazzeo, Roberts, Spence, & Strawn, 2006, p. 1). If the U.S. and its regions

are going to compete at the high end of the innovation economy value chain,

they will need to put a significant emphasis on education at all levels and will

particularly need to develop STEM capacity. Higher education institutions are

squarely in the education business and generally have significant STEM

expertise. The key is employing this expertise off-campus to exponentially

increase educational opportunities and STEM capacity nationally.

One form of education opportunity expansion is access to degree

programs off-campus, generally via technology-mediated means. Distributed

education emanating from institutions of higher education is a concept that

gained new-found popularity in the early to mid-1990s with the advent of the

modern Internet and which continues to flourish and grow today. The

expansion of educational opportunities has included access to degree

programs including baccalaureate degree completion programs, such as Old

Dominion University‟s Teletechnet and Indiana State University‟s DegreeLink.

Many examples of technology-mediated masters degrees abound.

26
There is evidence that access to higher education offerings via distance

education is seen as an important ingredient in economic development. “In

order for the U.S. economy to remain competitive in a worldwide knowledge

economy, however, colleges and universities need to provide more

innovative approaches to providing education and training…Innovative

approaches, such as… distance learning via Internet, are needed to meet the

needs of today's students and the U.S. economy” (National Alliance of

Business, 2002, Abstract). However, what is not as clear is the extent to

which these distributed degree program offerings are linked to regions‟

strategic economic development plans, particularly in STEM fields.

Growing interest in increasing STEM capacity has led to hundreds of

university-led STEM outreach programs. One of the more significant funders

of STEM outreach programs is the National Science Foundation (NSF). In

addition to generally targeting STEM capacity development, NSF has

particularly focused its interest on increasing STEM engagement among

underserved populations. The Model Institutes for Excellence program has

provided funding to universities such as Oglala Lakota College and Xavier

University in New Orleans to develop and refine models for increasing

graduates from underrepresented groups in STEM disciplines.

An area of significant STEM capacity development need that higher

education is particularly well-positioned to address is K-12 faculty

development in STEM fields. Many regions are hampered in their ability to

develop students‟ enthusiasm for STEM occupations due to a dearth of

27
adequately qualified science and math teachers. Because it is difficult for K-

12 schools to compete effectively for highly qualified science and math

professionals, a more fruitful strategy has been to offer high quality STEM

faculty development opportunities to already committed teachers. The

federal Math and Science Partnership Program has funded, through the

National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Education, partnerships

between higher education and K-12 school systems that focus on STEM

teacher preparation. Some state departments of education, such as the

Virginia Department of Education, offer similar math and science partnership

programs.

The roadbed for the global economy is broadband connectivity.

Without high speed telecommunications capability, regions cannot hope to

compete in the global economy, much less connect effectively with

institutions of higher education that are not located in their communities.

Higher education has been and continues to be on the forefront of designing

and developing next generation telecommunications infrastructure.

Research universities realized early on that they would need to

connect to the electronic infrastructure used by the federal government if

they were to effectively compete for federal research contracts. As the

Internet became commoditized, research universities developed Internet 2 as

a next-generation, higher speed network primarily to support research

activities. Today, the National Lambda Rail all-optical network is being

deployed nationally as a follow-on to Internet 2.

28
There are a number of examples of engagement between research

universities and communities to develop high-speed network capacity.

Virginia Tech has worked with leaders and funders in rural Virginia to

implement over 1000 miles of fiber optic network. Case Western Reserve

has been extensively involved in the greater Cleveland region to develop high

speed network infrastructure. “The goal of the project was to address

crosscutting community priorities by leveraging technology from City Hall to

the coalition of education/research facilities and our world-class health care

provider networks” (DeAloia & Gonick, 2006, p. 1). Wake Forest University

has partnered with Winston-Salem to develop a community-owned

broadband network, “WinstonNet,” to serve the community at large.

Virginia Tech has created an office, dubbed “eCorridors,” within its

Information Technology organization to track policy and technical

developments relevant to regions interested in deploying broadband

infrastructure. In addition to this research function, the eCorridors team

assists communities in planning for the deployment of cutting-edge network

technologies that fit their circumstances.

In sum, core strengths of universities that align with regional

competencies include: being a talent magnet, conducting research, providing

formal and informal educational opportunities particularly in STEM disciplines,

and high-speed telecommunications infrastructure planning and

development. Given the congruity of innovation economy regional

competencies with universities‟ core strengths, key considerations revolve

29
around partnering universities with regions in ways that are beneficial to

both. The next section addresses literature associated with university-

community partnerships.

University-Community Partnerships

Partnerships involve two or more parties who are prepared to make

investments to achieve a common goal. Each partner puts something at risk,

such as resources, assets, reputation, expertise, or time, and expects

something in return (Vidal, A., Nye, N., Walker, C., Manjarrez, C., &

Romanik, C., 2002). By inference, the most successful partnerships are

those which have a goal or vision that all partners embrace and to which all

partners contribute in proportion to the benefits they receive.

When parties enter into a partnership, they may do so with the best of

intentions; but if a party is unable to fully deliver on the commitments made,

the partnership will not have the same opportunity to realize its goals. Vidal

et al. (2002) suggest that successful partnerships depend on the ability of

organizations to contribute as well as to benefit from the shared endeavor.

The ability to deliver on commitments is linked to organizational capacity to

bring needed resources, such as money or expertise, to the partnership, as

well as to solve problems together. The benefit an organization receives

from a partnership is related to the consistency between the goals of the

partnership and an organization‟s core mission (Vidal et al., 2002).

30
In university-community partnerships, experts suggest that success is

more common when leadership emanates from the community (Corrigan,

2000; Lester, 2005; Maurrasse, 2001; Wilson 2004). Such leadership may

be grounded in a community-based entity that takes the responsibility for

managing the partnership (Corrigan, 2000), which plays into governance

considerations about structuring university-community partnerships. Faculty

members need to be particularly cautious about imposing a research agenda

on communities without sensitivity to the community‟s needs and desires.

“Residents of communities are no longer receptive to academicians as lone

rangers who come into communities and prescribe solutions to social,

economic, and educational needs and conditions without involving the

communities in the solutions” (Wilson, 2004, p. 22).

Some preparatory steps may be needed to structure successful

university-community partnerships. Weerts (2005) postulates that effective

two-way relationships between universities and communities focus on

breaking down social and cultural barriers between the partners, building

organizational capacity on each side of the partnership, and identifying

motivators for engagement within the institution and the community. If

these issues are addressed in the formative stages of a partnership, a solid

foundation for the relationship will have been established.

The opportunity to generate significant impacts from university-

community relationships may be associated with the establishment of a long-

term commitment to partnering. Long-term commitments can lead to the

31
“institutionalization” of partnering, wherein partnering becomes part of the

culture of the respective entities. In an examination of factors that lead to

the institutionalization of community outreach within universities, Vidal et al.

(2002) identified four principal factors associated with self-sustaining

partnerships: “mobilizing a steady stream of resources; changing academic

traditions; expanding the capacity of the university to be a responsive and

responsible partner; and addressing any limits on the capacity of the

community partner(s)” (p. vi).

The effort and extent to which a university commits its own human

resources to a community partnership is linked directly to the

institutionalization of the engagement. If the university envisions a

commitment to strategic community revitalization, it will be more likely to

devote substantial resources to ensuring the success of the partnership

(Vidal et al., 2002). As the university applies resources to the partnership, it

contributes to the definition of the program model employed and is able to

ground the work of the partnership in research. “Excellent community

outreach is not episodic; it is programmatic, research-based, and often long-

term” (Wilson, 2004, p. 21).

In sum, several considerations are important in establishing and

maintaining university-community partnerships, including: identifying

common goals, delivering on commitments, community-based leadership,

breaking down cultural barriers, building organizational capacity for

partnering, mobilizing a steady stream of resources, and alignment with

32
mission. How does community partnering align with higher education‟s

mission? The next section explores the literature associated with the

academy‟s internal conversations about responsibility to the public good.

Higher Education and the Public Good

A fourth area of literature related to my research agenda is focused on

higher education and the public good. This literature addresses the interest

in crafting a new, more robust partnership between institutions of higher

education and the publics they serve. The dialogue in higher education about

appropriate 21st century public service has revolved around a reshaping of

that mission. In the early 1990s, highly influential Carnegie Foundation for

the Advancement of Teaching leader Ernest Boyer called for a “New American

College” distinguished by a larger engagement in the nation‟s life (Boyer,

1994).

Concurrently, the National Association of State Universities and Land-

Grant Colleges (NASULGC) commissioned a set of reports through the

Kellogg Commission, which focused on the role of the land grant university in

the 21st century. The higher education organization for public universities,

the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) issued

its own set of reports, designed to position its member institutions for the

challenges of a new era. And the University of Cincinnati in partnership with

The Milwaukee Idea of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee assembled

leaders and practitioners from across the United States in 2004 at the

33
Wingspread conference center in Wisconsin to consider the challenge of

institutionalizing university engagement.

Institutions of higher education have long recognized that they have

an incumbent service mission. The notion of creating institutions of higher

education to serve the public good can be traced to this country‟s beginnings.

Benson, Harkavy, and Hartley (2005) suggest that “fulfill(ing) the democratic

promise of America for all Americans…served as the central mission for the

development of the American research university, including both land-grant

institutions and urban universities” (pp. 191-193). According to Roper and

Hirth (2005) the service mission of public higher education emanated from

university gratitude for public support. In more recent decades, according to

the authors, universities have more deliberately partnered with business to

advance economic development agendas.

The Kellogg Commission (1999) defined engaged institutions as those

that “have redesigned their teaching, research, and extension and service

functions to become even more sympathetically and productively involved

with their communities” (p. 9). Embedded within this definition is the

expectation that engagement means two-way partnerships, rather than one-

way knowledge transfers out of the university. A follow-up report issued in

2006 catalogued several indicators of engagement that had been

incorporated into the fabric of the colleges and universities within NASULGC

institutions. These encompassed the inclusion of engagement in institutional

mission statements and strategic plans, the creation of leadership positions

34
for institutional engagement, and the development of faculty incentives

associated with engagement (Byrne, 2006).

The American Association of State Colleges and Universities paralleled

the Kellogg Commission reports with a set of its own, focused on the role of

public universities in assuming responsibility for the public welfare. The first

of this set was published in 1998 and was focused on the public good, tracing

the history of public higher education and sounding an alarm about the need

to more seriously address the public responsibility mission of higher

education (AASCU, 1998). It laid the groundwork for the signature 2002

report, “Stepping Forward as Stewards of Place.” The “Stewards of Place”

report was issued as a practical guidebook, intended to assist institutions and

policymakers with translating the engagement concept into action (AASCU,

2002).

The report opens with a call to higher education institutions to see

themselves as stewards of place: “From their earliest days, state colleges

and universities have diligently served in their role as stewards of place,

answering the call to join with pubic and private partners in their

communities and regions to take advantage of opportunities and confront

challenges” (AASCU, 2002, p. 7). It notes, however, that while many

universities espouse the importance of engagement, few have truly aligned

their institutions to support it in a robust manner. This raises the question,

“How do we in higher education truly understand the complexities of

35
community and regional issues, and then engage our resources effectively to

serve as stewards of place?”

In 2004, 41 leaders and practitioners from engaged institutions

throughout the U.S. assembled at the Wingspread conference center to

“assess progress and look forward.” The focus of the conference was on

institutionalizing university engagement. The post-conference Wingspread

report called for significant institutional changes to better align the mission

and structure of the university with engagement. The need for “radical

change” was trumpeted in the report, including making interdisciplinary

relationships a priority, altering faculty reward systems, and providing

financial incentives from the institution to match contributions from outside

funders (Brukardt, Holland, Percy & Zimpher, 2004). Wingspread

participants suggested that a clear understanding of the kinds of rewards and

incentives that are required to invest faculty members and institutions of

higher education in institutionalized engagement was needed.

Subsequently, the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education

developed a new higher education elective classification category –

Community Engagement: “Community Engagement describes the

collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger

communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually

beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership

and reciprocity” (The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching,

Community Engagement Description webpage). This new, elective

36
classification was announced in December, 2006, along with 76 institutions

that had met the Carnegie benchmarks for engagement. Selection for the

community engagement designation required institutions to demonstrate an

alignment between values and practices. Even among the most compelling

applications, however, there were few that explicitly linked faculty rewards

with engagement, according to project director, Amy Driscoll.

An important concept in structuring effective higher education

partnerships with communities is creating a situation that will benefit all of

the partners. “…institutions of higher education…are all searching for the

win/win situation, in which the mission of their institution is being met

through the process of partnering with local communities” (Maurrasse, 2001,

p. 182). Different institutions have different strengths as well, so it is

important to find effective ways to engage institutions in ways that are

synergistic with their assets and interests. “If, for example, an Ivy League

university and a community college each adds a particular value, they should

work together on issues facing a common area. How do we leverage the

unique advantages of each different type of institution of higher education on

behalf of communities?” (Maurrasse, p. 190). Implications of this

institutional matching notion include playing to the specific research,

education, and technology expertise strengths needed in a particular

community or region, rather than relying on a single institution to bring a full

complement of expertise and resources to a single place.

37
Ramaley (2007) points out that the complexities of the world in which

we live necessarily focus on the development and long-term maintenance of

partnerships and collaborations. Such long-term partnering is consistent

with the Wingspread concept of institutionalized engagement and AASCU‟s

stewardship of place. She suggests that these partnerships should be rooted

in creating “regions of innovation” as coined in the National Governors

Association Innovation America prospectus. “To create regions of innovation,

we need to link our educational systems (both K-12 and postsecondary) to

resources in the community to address both workforce development and

economic and community development” (Ramaley, 2007, p. 17).

Clearly, there is a growing dialogue in higher education about how to

connect more effectively with the public good that has been integral to many

universities‟ missions. This dialogue, coupled with an understanding of

regional competencies for innovation economy competitiveness, higher

education assets pertinent to those competencies, and considerations for

structuring effective university-community partnerships suggests possibilities

for engagement that advances regional economic and social development.

What is possible and what is practical often boils down to supportive policy.

The final section of the literature review examines various policy

considerations associated with higher education engagement.

38
Policy Considerations for Higher Education Engagement

A logical starting point for examining policies that shape higher

education‟s engagement in addressing the public good is the current

environment in which higher education exists. Many have charted the

growing role of the market in shaping the focus of higher education

institutions (Arbo & Benneworth, 2007; Zemsky, Wegner & Massy, 2005). A

focus on institutional rankings has entered the public mainstream, thanks to

the mass media. In this emerging environment of “Academic Capitalism”

(Arbo & Benneworth) there is tremendous competition for bright students,

high quality faculty, and research funding among institutions of higher

education.

Land-grant institutions, as research universities, are characterized by

“organized anarchy” (Birnbaum, 1988). As such, they are not grounded in a

coherent set of institutional goals, but rather in a fluid mix of individual

interests. This organized anarchy dynamic and the associated need to feed

individual agendas have contributed to growing entrepreneurialism in higher

education. Competition for resources, according to Zemsky et al. (2005),

dominates the faculty‟s attention.

In research universities, resource competition is intensely focused on

acquiring sponsored funding for research. Votruba (2005) notes that

“America‟s top research universities have evolved over the past fifty years to

a point where all elements of the campus…reinforce the importance of

externally funded research as a core institutional mission” (p. 264). Hand-in-

39
hand with the pre-occupation on sponsored research funding is the

importance of institutional and departmental reputation. According to

Ostriker & Kuh (2003), “Reputation is one part of the „reality‟ of higher

education that affects a tremendous number of decisions – where graduate

students choose to study, where faculty choose to locate, and where

resources may flow” (p. 38).

The National Research Council, which is part of the National Academy

of Sciences, worked under the leadership of Kuh and Ostriker to develop a

new rating methodology to assess research doctorate programs (Lederman,

2005). In their book, Kuh and Ostriker (2003) outline the quantitative

factors which contribute to the ranking. These include, among others, net

assignable square feet of research space, quality of faculty, quality of

graduate students, and external funding. A companion ranking developed by

the company Academic Analytics, ranks research universities on the basis of

per-capita faculty productivity. Their rating tool, the Faculty Scholarly

Productivity Index, includes measures associated with grants received,

awards bestowed, and books and journal articles published. (Redden, 2007).

Jones (2005) points out that the federal government has done a very

effective job of engaging higher education in issues of importance to the

nation at large by playing to the interests of research university faculty to

access sponsored funds. “The federal government has proven beyond a

shadow of a doubt that mechanisms – both financial and those for ensuring

40
performance – can be created that will focus the attention of the intellectual

assets of a university on issues that governments deem important” (p. 5).

The question that policymakers and higher education leaders face is

how to create effective incentives for connecting universities to innovation

economy capacity development. “Specifically, (building regional advantage)

requires public investment in the ingredients of innovation – educated people

and new knowledge…it requires public purpose, policy, and investment to

create a knowledge society competitive in a global economy” (Duderstadt,

2005, p. ii). Some of the salient issues embedded in the policy discussion

include such questions as positive incentives vs. negative consequences

(“carrots vs. sticks” approaches), money flowing directly to university

campuses vs. flowing to universities through regions, explicit links between

regional economic strategies and targeted university engagement vs. a

generalized approach to matching needs and assets, and how to tap

enlightened self-interests of regions and universities to achieve desired

outcomes. These issues are outlined in the following paragraphs.

Although members of the higher education community are sympathetic

to and, in some cases, attracted to engagement opportunities, the reality is

that financial incentives will need to be strategically and systematically

associated with engagement (Jones, 2005; Melle, Isaak, & Mattoon, 2006;

National Governors Association, 2002b). Targeted funding is important to

ensuring that efforts are directed to engagement. Atkinson and Correa

(2007) note, “…Simply giving universities and colleges more money and

41
hoping for the best is not enough…Without strong leadership or strong state

incentives, or both, most universities will do what comes naturally: focus on

research and teaching of interest to faculty.”

The role of state policy in providing financial incentives for

engagement is critical. According to Jones, “Stewardship of place is an idea

whose time has come. Much of the improvement in economic opportunity

and quality of life sought by policymakers for the citizens of their states

depends on the acceptance by universities…of a leadership role in their

communities. But university leadership cannot marshal the forces within

their institutions without a supportive state policy environment” (p. 29).

Zemsky et al. argue, “Fundamentally, what colleges and universities need –

and they should not forget or abandon – is more public funding as opposed

to more market funding… We believe an effective public policy requires

greater public underwriting of institutions in pursuit of public purposes” (p.

197).

Savvy policy-makers will ensure that funds for university engagement

are linked to accountability standards (Atkinson & Correa, 2007; Jones,

2005; Melle et al., 2006; National Governors Association, 2002b). Jones

suggests that stewardship of place funding be linked to performance

measures that are both activity-oriented as well as outcomes-driven, since

economic and community development is complex and there is a need to

measure incremental progress toward objectives.

42
Then there is the question of where the money should be directed in

order to realize much more extensive university engagement in regional

economic development. Duderstadt (2005) advocates directing increased

funding to (in his case, Michigan) universities to cause economic

revitalization across the state. He specifically suggests that dramatically

increased funding should flow to campuses to support the expansion of

educational opportunities, the strengthening of research capacity, and the

development of 21st century physical and cyber infrastructure.

Alternatively, two internationally authored papers suggest that

stewardship of place funding should play to the entrepreneurial interests of

faculty and institutions (Etzkowitz, Webster, Gebhardt, & Terra, 2000) and

regions (Goddard, 1997). In this model, financial incentives should be

associated with the region where the engagement is desired, then allowing

the universities to come to the money. Goddard further suggests that when

money is directed to regions, the regions themselves become entrepreneurial

by “shift(ing) from being an arm of the national welfare state to a catalyst for

local co-operation and policy innovation” (p. 4).

Another policy consideration is whether universities should be

encouraged generally to participate in economic development or guided to

specifically targeted forms of engagement. Both Virginia and North Dakota

are actively seeking and implementing policy mechanisms to encourage

engagement that is focused on advancing the state‟s economic development.

Virginia, in its 2005 Restructured Higher Education Financial and

43
Administrative Operations Act, included a stipulation that universities desiring

increased autonomy should “actively contribute to efforts to stimulate the

economic development of the Commonwealth” (Couturier, 2006, p. 67).

North Dakota has positioned its University System to “actively pursue

strategic alliances and partnerships…(for the purpose of) expanding the

economy of the region and the state” (Roundtable for the North Dakota

Legislative Council, 2000) by linking greater budgeting flexibility with

accountability associated with contributions to economic development.

However, neither of these states tried to focus university efforts on particular

regional economic development strategies.

Alternatively, the National Governors Association and other think tanks

advocate university engagement that is targeted to specific economic

priorities (Davies, 2006). “Maximizing the economic impact of state

investments in higher education requires that states develop a higher

education strategy that is tied closely to the state‟s overall economic

development strategy” (Atkinson & Correa, 2007, p. 38). In particular, it is

suggested that university contributions be specifically focused on research

and development that is linked with strategic economic sectors as well as

STEM educational offerings (Erlich, 2006; Atkinson & Correa; National

Governors Association, 2007). University engagement should also be linked

to a sector strategy approach. According to Erlich, “Beyond improving their

post-secondary institutions‟ production of math and science related degrees,

states have the opportunity to make them relevant to the clusters inside

44
their boundaries” (p.11). The question becomes, “Can states systematically

identify regional cluster strategies and then link their public higher education

degree programs to the workforce needs associated with these clusters?”

A successful policy will be one that plays to enlightened self-interests

of regions, states, and higher education. Huffman and Quigley (2002)

quantify the economic impact of engineering and business graduates from

the University of California Berkeley and conclude that investments in high

quality educational institutions can and do return considerably more to the

region than the initial investments.

Another consideration in policy development is the appropriate role of

various entities, based on position power and resources. Governors and

state leaders can use bully pulpits to establish a vision and develop funding

mechanisms to facilitate stewardship of place agendas (National Governors

Association, 2002a). Private sector business leadership involvement allows

universities to be entrepreneurial, risk-taking, and to link with the business

community (Melle et al., 2006). The federal government can do more to

expand federal funding and match it with state contributions for university-

industry partnerships such as the National Science Foundation‟s Industry-

University Cooperative Research Center program (Atkinson & Correa, 2007).

The challenge is to create a depth of partnership between communities

and universities such that higher education-led projects fit into a larger whole

for locally led strategic development of the region, rather than a hit-and-miss

limited-perspective approach. Higher education must be able to tailor its

45
contributions in each engagement activity to the particular needs of the

region based upon a robust understanding of the strategic directions of the

community. This approach stands in contrast to the more common examples

of engagement, which emanate from the interests of a particular faculty

member. According to Lester (2005), “The „one-size-fits-all‟ approach to

economic development pursued by so many universities…should be replaced

with a more comprehensive, more differentiated role. Universities…should

seek to align their own contributions with what is actually happening in the

local community” (p. 3).

Summary

In answering the question, “What do we know about the changing

economic landscape and about the feasibility of engaging higher education

effectively to create innovation capacity?” five areas of literature were

reviewed.

The first body of literature suggested that there are particular traits, or

competencies, that a region must master if it is to be competitive in the

innovation economy. These competencies include: a focus on sector

strategies, human capital development, STEM capacity building, innovation

creation capability, and high speed telecommunications infrastructure.

A second body of literature addressed higher education assets,

particularly as they relate to regional innovation economy competencies.

This literature suggested that talent attraction, research, education, and

46
expertise associated with broadband connectivity are core strengths of

universities.

Thirdly, literature associated with university-community partnerships

was reviewed to understand the factors that contribute to successful

partnering. Key ingredients of successful partnerships include the

establishment of a common goal, organizational capacity on each side of the

partnership to bring resources and solve problems, leadership and

governance that is community-based, mobilizing a steady stream of

resources, and identifying the motivators for partnering within the university

and the community.

The fourth set of literature traced the development of higher education

and the public good. This literature suggested that there is a rich history

associated with the service mission of higher education, but that mission has

assumed a more dominant role in the last decade as evidenced by the focus

on “engagement” and “stewardship of place” in many sectors of the higher

education community.

A fifth set of literature examined policy approaches to university-

community engagement directed toward regional innovation capacity

development. The policy literature emphasized the growing role of the

market in shaping higher education behavior, the preeminence of focus on

externally funded research in American research universities, the necessity of

financial incentives for engagement, and maximizing impact by linking

engagement to specific locally-led economic development strategies.

47
Amidst the policy positions, little empirical study is directed to how

policies might be employed to engage universities with regions that are

remote to their campuses, but where there is significant need. This points to

the opportunity and need for developing an understanding of how successful

off-campus stewardship of place is occurring so that appropriate policies

might be developed.

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Chapter 3

METHODOLOGY

Rationale for Qualitative Case Study Approach

I employed a qualitative case study methodology in this dissertation

research to investigate land-grant university partnerships with non-local

regions focused on economic and community development. According to

Creswell (2005), qualitative methodologies are appropriate when little is

known about a phenomenon and there is a need to explore and gain a

deeper understanding of the phenomenon. Since few examples exist of land-

grant engagement in distributed regional development and virtually no

literature addresses this particular subject, there is a need to learn about the

critical variables in such partnerships from those who have been involved in

them.

The assumption underlying my research is that meaning is embedded

in the perceptions of those who have participated in the development and

implementation of university-regional partnerships. Understanding meaning-

making, according to Merriam (1998), is another justification for employing a

qualitative methodology. Through my analysis of the data gathered in this

study, there is an opportunity to understand the meaning participants have

constructed as they‟ve initiated, contributed to, and benefited from

university-regional partnerships. A critical consideration in this study is to

learn how and why the various actors and agendas contributed to the

49
phenomenon of distributed engagement. This concept, of exploring how the

parts work together to create the whole, is consistent with the use of

qualitative research methodologies (Merriam).

According to Yin (2003), a case study approach is appropriate when

the questions to be researched focus on “how” and “why.” Further, Yin

indicates that case study methods can be used when the issue under study is

a contemporary phenomenon in a real-life context. Because distributed,

holistic engagement is not very prevalent, there is much opportunity to

explore why some land-grant universities have pursued partnerships with

regions distant from their campuses and much need to understand how these

complex partnerships are structured. Since it was assumed that the context

of the environments in which distributed engagement occurred was

important to understand in addition to understanding particular aspects of

the partnerships, a case study approach was selected as the most

appropriate methodology (Merriam, 1998; Yin).

Rather than just study one example of distributed engagement, I

decided that a study involving multiple cases would strengthen the

conclusions and broaden the opportunity to apply the lessons learned to

other situations. By examining distributed engagement in various contexts,

the study offered opportunities to learn how different circumstances and

personalities can contribute to productive partnerships. As Yin (2003) states,

“Criticisms about single-case studies usually reflect fears about the

uniqueness or artifactual condition surrounding the case” (p. 54). My

50
research provides insights to multiple constructions of university-regional

partnerships, adding to the current understanding of partnerships, critical

variables associated with university engagement success, and policy

approaches to structuring university-regional partnerships.

Conceptual Model

I developed a conceptual model based on my review of literature and

personal engagement experience to frame my research and organize the

findings. This model is included in Figure 1. It includes an identification of

the three key entities associated with distributed university-community

engagement: higher education institutions, regions, and states. Each of

these entities has, in the conceptual model, a set of assets as well as a set of

needs that can be instrumental in partnership formation. In my research, I

sought to learn how universities and regions identified and partnered around

their respective assets and needs.

I also wanted to understand the role of leadership in the partnering

universities and regions. Did individuals in the regions and at the universities

understand the connection between needs and assets and act on the

opportunity to partner with the other entity? In want ways were the

university and regional leaders initiating an engagement partnership

supported by and successful because the respective cultures of the regions

and universities embraced engagement at some fundamental level?

51
52
The third “partner” I wanted to include was the state, which also

presumably had assets and needs. I was interested in finding out how state

perceptions of assets, such as public institutions of higher education in the

state, financial resources in the form of tax collections, and political capital

were considered as economic development levers. I also wondered how

state leaders thought about strengthening weak or underperforming regions

to boost a state‟s overall economic competitiveness.

The particular policy levers investigated in the research were distilled

from Jones‟ (2005) “Shaping State Policy to Encourage Stewardship of

Place.” These policy levers included: statement of goals and priorities,

financing and resource allocation policy, accountability, and governance

structures. This study considered how these policy levers were addressed in

a broad institutional sense by Stage One universities involved in distributed

engagement, in a much more specific sense within the Stage Two

engagement cases studied, and explored possibilities for structuring effective

state policy in the Stage Three data gathering.

Study Design

This study followed a three-staged design approach. The first stage of

the study examined models of distributed engagement associated with six

land-grant institutions: Michigan State University, Purdue University, the

University of Georgia, the University of Minnesota, the University of Missouri,

and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). The
53
focus at this stage of the research was on the universities‟ rationales for and

constructs of engagement, the leadership of outreach and extension

organizations at the universities, examples of distributed engagement

activities, the universities‟ contributions to regional development, and the

challenges associated with engagement. Overviews of each institution‟s

distributed engagement models were followed by a cross-cutting analysis of

common themes across institutions.

The second stage of the study examined two cases of distributed

engagement in depth: the University of Georgia‟s partnership with

Moultrie/Colquitt in Southwest Georgia, and Virginia Tech‟s partnership with

Southside Virginia in the south central Virginia Piedmont region. The focus at

this stage of the research was on the motivations, contributions, and benefits

associated with the university partners and the regional partners; the

catalytic elements in the universities and in the regions that ignited and

sustained the partnerships; and the practicalities associated with structuring

each partnership. Rich descriptions of each of the two partnerships in the

second stage of research were assembled from the data collected. Findings

were described in the context of various environmental elements that

contributed to the partnerships in terms of: potential for partnering, human

factors that facilitated the development and maintenance of the partnerships,

and policies that were employed to structure the partnerships.

The third stage of the study examined the state policy context associated

with university engagement in economic development in Georgia and Virginia

54
and sought insights from key state leaders about policymaking associated

with such engagement. The emphasis in this stage was less on the specific

partnerships included in the second stage of the study and more on the

insights of state leaders on policy options to incentivize partnerships between

research universities and economically distressed regions. In this stage of

the study, the state‟s history of stimulating and nurturing university

engagement in regional development was traced. Perspectives on why and

how such partnerships can be established through state policy were explored.

Site Selection

I used several criteria to select the universities included in Stage One

of the study. First, I decided to study universities that were similar in

mission to reduce the number of relevant variables and elected to

concentrate on land-grant institutions. Second, I looked for land-grant

universities involved in one or more partnerships with regions sixty or more

miles from the universities‟ main. Third, I was interested in identifying

university engagement partnerships which were focused on economic and

community capacity development. Fourth, I wanted to find examples of

engagement that involved multiple university disciplines and departments.

Fifth, I looked for evidence of faculty member involvement in the

partnerships. Sixth, I was interested in identifying engagement partnerships

that had been in place for at least two years. And finally, I sought out

partnering that was not centered in regional university branch campuses.

55
Multiple strategies were used to identify qualifying institutions

including:

Personal network

In-person distribution of fliers coupled with announcements to


participants at June, 2007 National Association of State
Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC) Council on
Extension, Continuing Education, and Public Service (CECEPS)
and Commission on Outreach and Technology Transfer (COTT)
meetings requesting leads

Request to Amy Driscoll at the Carnegie Foundation requesting


leads based on university submissions in conjunction with new
Carnegie engagement classification

Requests to national experts on state and federal policies


associated with university engagement in economic
development at the National Center for Higher Education
Management Systems (NCHEMS), the Rural Policy Research
Institute (RUPRI), and the National Governors Association
(NGA)

Review of web sites of institutions noted for their engagement


rhetoric and/or classified by the Carnegie Foundation as
“Engaged”

Request to evaluator of first generation U.S. Department of


Labor WIRED grants to identify examples of universities
involved in comprehensive regional development activities

Despite all of this effort, very few examples of distributed regional

engagement emerged. Many of the national experts I consulted were hard-

pressed to identify any examples. The institutions I selected were those that

met the selection criteria referenced above and were willing to participate in

interviews associated with my research. Among the universities chosen,

there was a wide range in terms of scope and scale of engagement. Since

there were so few instances of multi-dimensional, sustained university-

56
regional partnerships in places not proximate to campus, direct apples-to-

apples comparisons of those that were included in the study were difficult.

Stage Two cases were selected from among the Stage One

universities. I knew I wanted to limit the number of Stage Two cases to two

and used five criteria to select Stage Two sites. I looked for engagement

that was centered in a strong regional relationship and where there were

identifiable regional leaders. I was interested in partnerships that had a

holistic focus, involving economic and community development goals. A third

selection criterion was associated with engagement that was shaped by

community-driven, rather than researcher-driven goals. I wanted to

concentrate on university-regional partnerships that were visible to state

leaders. Lastly, I looked for engagement that was already replicated or in

the process of replication to other parts of the state.

Interviewee Selection

In Stage One of the study, two informants from each institution (with

one exception) were interviewed. The first interview was conducted with

someone who was personally knowledgeable about the university‟s regional

partnerships. The focus of these interviews was fact-finding regarding the

nature and scope of the universities‟ regional partnerships. The information

gleaned from these interviews assisted me in identifying qualifying examples

of distributed engagement and provided a solid basis of fact-oriented

information on which to base subsequent formal interviews.

57
Formal interviews were conducted with the chief engagement officer at

each of the six institutions, except the University of Minnesota, which was in

the midst of a search process for a chief engagement officer during the

research period. The chief engagement officers I interviewed were the

individuals who carried primary institutional responsibility for the university‟s

engagement activities, typically called a Vice Provost for Engagement, Vice

Provost for Outreach, or Vice Provost for Extension.

In Stage Two of the study, key informants in the region and at the

universities were interviewed in conjunction with each of the two cases

selected. Regional informants consisted of public and private leaders

associated with the development and sustenance of the university

partnership. University informants consisted of faculty members and

administrators associated with the initiation and/or implementation of the

regional partnership. A mix of university personnel based on campus as well

as in the region was included.

Questions that were used to guide the interviewee selection process

included:

University Informants:

Who was responsible for committing the institution to the


partnership and could speak most comprehensively about the
value of the partnership to the university?

Which faculty members have been leading research and/or


other activities in the partnering region?

Which non-faculty university personnel have been leading


engagement activities in the partnering region?

58
Community Informants:

Which business leaders were most instrumental in establishing


the partnership and could speak about the value of the
partnership to the region?

Which local public leaders were central to establishing the


partnership and could speak about the value of the partnership
to the region?

Individuals in the University of Georgia-Moultrie/Colquitt partnership

were identified by a key administrator who had detailed first-hand knowledge

of the partnership. Individuals in the Virginia Tech-Southside partnership

were identified by me, based on my personal experience with and knowledge

of the partnership.

Table 1.
Interviewee Distribution by Role

Interviewee Role UGA-Moultrie/Colquitt VT-Southside

Regional Public Leader 2 1

Regional Private Leader 2 3

Campus-Based 5 3
University Administrator
Campus-Based Faculty 2 6

Region-Based University 1 1
Administrator
Region-Based Faculty 0 2

Region-Based Extension 3 0

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The total number of interviewees associated with the University of

Georgia-Moultrie/Colquitt partnership was 15. The total number of

interviewees associated with the Virginia Tech-Southside partnership was 16.

The distribution of interviewees by role is provided in Table 1.

In Stage Three, two state leaders conversant on university

engagement in economic development were interviewed from each of the

two states where the Stage Two partnerships studied were located. One

leader in each state was intimately familiar with the pressures and policies

associated with the state‟s higher education system. The other was charged

with a leadership role that involved connecting the state‟s economic

development to research university assets and expertise. State leader

interviewees by position are listed in Table 2.

Table 2.
State Leader Interviewees by Position

State Position

Georgia Senior Vice Chancellor, Board of Regents

Georgia President and CEO, Georgia Research Alliance

Virginia State Higher Education Executive Officer

Virginia Secretary of Technology

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Interviews

Stage One interviews were conducted during July, August, and

September, 2007. The initial six interviews were conducted informally,

without recording devices. All but one of these six interviews was conducted

by phone. Informal interviews lasted approximately one hour. Written field

notes (Creswell, 2005) were kept for each informal interview. The

subsequent five formal interviews with chief engagement officers were

electronically recorded and utilized a semi-structured interview technique

(Creswell, 2005). Formal interviews lasted approximately one hour. All but

one of these five interviews was conducted by phone; the fifth was conducted

in person. Each of the five interviewees was contacted informally to request

an interview. Subsequent to their agreement to grant an interview,

interviewees were sent formal letters of invitation to participate in the

interview and provided interview consent forms by me.

Most of the Stage Two interviews were conducted in person, on site in

both the region and on the campus during September, October, and

November, 2007 over approximately a three-day period per case. All were

semi-structured, electronically recorded interviews. Each UGA-

Moultrie/Colquitt partnership interviewee was contacted by a UGA

administrator associated with the Office of Public Service and Outreach to

request an interview. Each Virginia Tech-Southside partnership interviewee

was contacted informally by me to request an interview. Subsequent to their

agreement to grant an interview, all interviewees were sent formal letters of

61
invitation to participate in the interview and provided interview consent forms

by me.

Stage Three Georgia leaders were identified and initially contacted by

a key UGA administrator, then by me to request interviews. Virginia leaders

were identified and contacted informally by me to request interviews.

Subsequent to their agreement to grant an interview, all interviewees were

sent formal letters of invitation to participate in the interview and provided

interview consent forms by me. All state leader interviews were conducted

by phone and recorded electronically. A semi-structured interview technique

was used. State leader interviews were conducted in November and

December, 2007.

Electronic recordings were transcribed by a professional

transcriptionist. Electronic and hard copies of interviews have been stored,

as have the researcher‟s interview notes. Quotes from the interviews that

are included in the findings are attributed to specific individuals if the nature

of the comment seemed to be best presented in the context of the source.

None of the institutions included in the study, nor any of the individuals

interviewed requested anonymity. In only a couple instances did an

interviewee request that a comment be “off the record.” In those cases, the

interviewee‟s request was honored.

62
Interview Questions

Interviews included structured and unstructured questions. I used

information that was known to me in advance of each interview to tailor

questions to the particular interviewee. During the interviews, I sought to

gather new insights and information as well as to triangulate data gathered

from prior interviewees, from documents associated with the partnerships, or

from my personal experience. Topics addressed in interview questions are

provided in Appendix A.

Documents

Electronic and hard copy documents were consulted as part of the

research. The information in these documents was utilized to provide

additional information pertinent to the research as well as to triangulate

interview data. Materials were obtained directly from interviewees as well as

through web sites associated with the universities, the regions, and the

states included in the research. The vast majority of the collateral

documentation analyzed contained public domain information. Hard copies

of documents consulted have been stored with interview transcripts and

notes. Types of documentation consulted are included in Appendix B.

Data Analysis

Interview data were analyzed in three stages, corresponding to the

three stages of research. A coding process was used, as suggested by

63
Creswell (2005), to “make sense of the data, divide it into segments, label

the segments with codes, examine the codes for overlap and redundancy,

and collapse the codes into broad themes” (p. 237). Documents were

consulted to add detail and background to interview data as well as to

triangulate information shared by interviewees.

Stage One data analysis consisted of reviewing the transcripts and

coding them. More than forty categories emerged from this initial coding. A

cross-case analysis was conducted on the coded data from the Stage One

interviewees. From this analysis several broad themes emerged, which

formed the basis of the Stage One findings narrative. Documents pertaining

to the themes were obtained through each university‟s web portal and

consulted to “flesh out” and triangulate the interview data. From this

analysis, a short descriptive narrative about each of the six universities in

Stage One was developed and a cross-case synthesis (Yin, 2003) of findings

themes was created.

Stage Two data analysis consisted of creating coding categories that

correlated with the components of the conceptual model presented in Figure

1 and organizing the forty categories of coded interview data referenced

above into the conceptual model categories. The Stage Two interview data

in each conceptual model category was analyzed to identify themes. These

themes provided the basis for the State Two narrative. Documents provided

by individuals associated with the two cases in Stage Two, as well as public

domain documents obtained electronically were consulted to add detail and

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triangulate aspects of the interview data. From this analysis, a narrative

about each of the two partnerships studied was developed and a synthesis of

findings related to each case was presented.

Stage Three data analysis consisted of focusing on three of the original

forty-plus categories that pertained to state policy issues: state needs, state

assets, and state policy levers. Interview data coded into these categories

was analyzed to identify themes. These themes provided the basis of the

Stage Three narrative. Documents referenced by interviewees and other

relevant information were obtained electronically. This supplementary

information was used to provide background detail and add context to the

Stage Three interview data. From this analysis, a brief narrative about each

state‟s 20-25 year history of linking higher education to economic

development was profiled and a cross-case thematic synthesis of state policy

relationships to university-regional engagement was presented. Although

the cross-case synthesis relied most heavily on the interview data from

Georgia and Virginia state leaders, it also included relevant information from

all interviewees.

Trustworthiness and Researcher Bias

Several methods were employed to ensure validity and trustworthiness

of the research. Commonly accepted methods of testing trustworthiness and

validity of qualitative research data (Creswell, 2005; Maxwell, 1992;

Merriam, 1998) were utilized.

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Descriptive, interpretive, and theoretical validity was addressed

through triangulation, member checking, and peer examination.

Triangulation was facilitated by consulting multiple sources of data, including

numerous interviews addressing common topics and collateral documents

gathered from interviewees as well as independently. Member checking

techniques were employed during the interview process to clarify and

develop themes that were being discussed. In a few cases, follow-up

conversations with individuals providing interview data occurred. Peer

examination strategies were employed by having colleagues with pertinent

knowledge or expertise comment on the findings as they emerged.

My experience in university engagement broadened the opportunities

to identify applicable cases as well as to probe a wide range of topics and

issues during the interview process. This experience helped to establish

credibility with many of the interviewees and permitted a depth of issue

exploration that would otherwise have been quite difficult to achieve. At the

time the research process was initiated, I was in a leadership role in the

Virginia Tech-Southside engagement partnership profiled in the Stage Two

findings discussion. My husband and I were hired by Virginia Tech to live

and work in Danville, the heart of Southside Virginia, as the university‟s

initial and primary “on the ground” leadership presence in the region. We

worked extensively with policymakers at the local, state, and federal levels to

garner support and resources for this initiative.

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I relocated to Danville in Spring 2001, providing leadership for a wide

range of activities associated with Virginia Tech and the Institute for

Advanced Learning and Research, until Fall 2007. These activities included:

advanced communications network infrastructure deployment, STEM

outreach programs, hybrid-delivered undergraduate and graduate degree

programs, marketing and communications strategies, conference center

operations, information technology operations, planning and assessment.

Resource development, program planning, partnership and relationship

development, project management, budget management, and stakeholder

reporting constituted some of my leadership responsibilities.

During my tenure in Danville, Virginia Tech and the Institute for

Advanced Learning and Research garnered many regional and national

awards. Most recently, Virginia Tech was recognized by the National

Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC) with

the 2007 C. Peter McGrath National Engagement Award. Other recognitions

have come from the University Economic Development Association, the U.S.

Small Business Development Administration and Kauffman Foundation, the

U. S. Economic Development Administration, Southern Growth Policies

Board, Archi-Tech and the International Communications Industries

Association, and the Governor of Virginia. These awards seem to suggest

that the engagement model established in Southside Virginia is worthy of

study in a broader context.

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Through my research, I have learned much about how other land-

grant universities conceptualize distributed engagement. I have learned a

great deal from the Georgia partnership included in this study about

partnering strategies that were quite different in many respects than the

Virginia partnership I had experienced, and quite successful in a relatively

short period of time. I worked to structure my research around issues and

opportunities, rather than personalities and politics, so as to minimize

researcher bias and maximize interviewee comfort levels.

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Chapter 4

SIX LAND-GRANT UNIVERSITY APPROACHES TO


DISTRIBUTED REGIONAL ENGAGEMENT

American universities have seen many radicals and revolutionaries


come and go over the years, and all of them put together were not
nearly so revolutionary as a land-grant university itself on an ordinary
weekday. (Garrison Keillor, as quoted in The University and the
Community: Creating a Sustainable Future Through Civic Engagement,
University of Minnesota, p. 11)

The Garrison Keillor quote above speaks to the ideal of the land-grant

university. We must ask ourselves whether our land-grant institutions today

are truly expressing themselves in revolutionary ways. In particular, are

these institutions holding themselves accountable to larger public purposes

by considering how their special expertise and assets could be brought to

bear in the everyday lives of citizens and communities? This study identified

six land-grant universities engaged with the issues and challenges faced by

citizens and communities within their states, but distant from their

campuses.

The following sections outline the focus of distributed engagement

among the six institutions then identify cross-cutting themes articulated by

the chief engagement officer in each university. The six land-grant

institutions investigated were: Michigan State University, Purdue University,

University of Georgia, University of Minnesota, University of Missouri, and

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech).

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In each of the land-grant universities, a majority of the engagement

responsibility falls to two offices – Outreach (sometimes called Public Service

or Engagement), and Cooperative Extension. Regional engagement

sometimes involves an integrated interface between these two university

entities, so both are briefly described in this section.

Michigan State University

Michigan State University (MSU) has a long and proud history of

engagement, tracing its land-grant heritage to 1863. In recent times, the

university‟s work with external entities has been guided by a 1993 report

prepared by the Provost‟s Committee on University Outreach titled,

“University Outreach at Michigan State University: Extending Knowledge to

Serve Society.” A key component of the report was the identification of

outreach as a form of scholarship. Subsequent to the publication of the

Kellogg Commission‟s reports on the future of the land grant university

(NASULGC, 1999), MSU included the terminology of “engagement” to

recognize the two-way nature of outreach work. The university‟s web site

states, “Outreach and engagement is now defined as occurring when

scholarship is applied directly for the public good and when the relationship

between partners is reciprocal and mutually beneficial.”

Engagement at Michigan State is led by the Assistant Provost for

University Outreach and Engagement. The individual in this role, Hiram

Fitzgerald, came from the MSU faculty as a university distinguished professor

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of psychology and was himself highly engaged with external communities, in

particular, Jackson, Michigan. The office of University Outreach and

Engagement houses several public service units and centers and is

particularly focused on human, community, and economic development.

Cooperative extension at MSU is led by a University Extension Director, who

reports to the Dean of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. The

extension organization includes approximately 300 faculty with extension

appointments and a statewide staff in all 83 counties of Michigan. Although

the MSU outreach and extension organizations are separate, principals with

each interact in several communities across the state. Outreach activities

are characterized as “evidence-based,” meaning that they are tied to

scholarly activity, whereas extension activities are characterized as “service-

oriented,” meaning that they exist to meet the needs of the population

served.

Communities with whom MSU has been working include Jackson, Flint,

Detroit, and locally, Lansing. Some of these partnerships have been in place

for as many as thirteen years; others are relatively new relationships. Much

of the work highlighted is centered in the social sciences and includes

partnerships with schools, neighborhoods, and faith-based communities.

Agriculture, the arts, and information technology projects have also been

part of the engagement mix of activities.

According to Hiram Fitzgerald, the longest-standing community

partnership has been focused on a range of initiatives associated with

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community and economic development in Jackson, which is approximately

thirty miles from the MSU campus in East Lansing. There, a relationship

initiated by the Jackson Community Action Agency involving a

multidisciplinary team of MSU researchers to evaluate new Head Start

services blossomed into the development of a self-sufficiency plan for the

agency‟s clients. This plan, focused on community capacity building, became

the basis of a community conversation about the transformation of Jackson.

At numerous steps along the transformation path, the community has invited

MSU to partner with them, resulting in relationships with faculty across many

disciplines over time.

Michigan State‟s approach to engagement is driven by the scholarly

interests of faculty. The Office of Outreach and Engagement works to marry

the scholarly interests of MSU faculty with community needs and

opportunities. Partnerships in communities established in conjunction with

one scholarly area of inquiry are, to the extent possible, leveraged into a

broader set of relationships. The goal, over time, is to have a continuity of

relationship between the university and community that will open a multitude

of opportunities for scholarly inquiry and evidence-based practice.

Purdue University

Purdue University became a nationally recognized leader of

engagement under the presidency of Martin Jischke, who served in that role

from 2000 until 2007. Dr. Jischke was honored by the National Association

72
of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC) in 2006 with its

inaugural engagement award “for Purdue‟s efforts to use university resources

to improve the lives of Indiana citizens,” according to the university‟s web

site. During Jischke‟s tenure as president, Purdue became a very active

partner with the state of Indiana on economic development issues. Purdue‟s

home page includes a tab for economic partners, which references

community visits scheduled throughout the state. Topics at these visits

include: What does your community need from a major research university?

What does Purdue need from your community?

Purdue‟s engagement mission under Jischke was led by the Vice

Provost for Engagement. This position was held initially by Don Gentry, then

by Victor Lechtenberg. Lechtenberg was tapped in the summer, 2007 by

incoming president France Cordova, to serve as the university‟s interim

provost. In turn, he appointed Jay Akridge as interim vice provost for

engagement who, like Lechtenberg, came from an agriculture faculty

background. The Office of Engagement is focused on economic development,

educational enhancement, and service-learning. Purdue‟s 700-person

Cooperative Extension organization reports separately to a Director of

Cooperative Extension Service who also serves as Associate Dean of

Agriculture.

The university is engaged with several communities across the state,

including Maryville (Chicago area), Fort Wayne, New Albany, Anderson, and

the Crane naval base. Activities are centered on economic development

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goals and range from establishing business incubators to offering courses to

research collaborations. The Purdue Research Foundation has been an

important partner in many of these community-based operations, through

investments in facilities to house Purdue-related activities in regions. In

addition to the various community-centric activities, Purdue‟s distributed

engagement includes an extensive programmatic focus through its Technical

Assistance Program (TAP). Through TAP, Purdue conducts contract services

for businesses in partnership with faculty and graduate students across

several colleges.

Purdue‟s Office of Engagement has been quite active with state

government and business leaders, meeting as frequently as weekly with the

state Departments of Commerce and Workforce Development to understand

emerging issues faced by these state government offices and prepare to

apply university expertise to them. The Vice Provost for Engagement is a

member of the Governor‟s Education Roundtable and maintains key contacts

in the governor‟s office. The university created a Center for Regional

Development in early 2005 which promotes the value of regionalism

throughout Indiana, and has worked with the state‟s Office for Rural Affairs

to develop strategies for rural regional development. More recently, Purdue

has been invited into K-12 education discussions by the Central Indiana

Corporate Partnership, which views K-12 STEM education as a critical

economic development issue as the state targets the life sciences,

information technology, and logistics economic sectors.

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Purdue‟s approach to engagement is driven by the sense that its

mission is tied to the economic well-being of the state. The university‟s

senior administration is focused on maintaining close partnerships with key

government and business leaders. Purdue seeks to be responsive to the

economic and workforce needs of Indiana and has established primary

communication channels into the university through its Office of

Engagement. Although faculty expertise is clearly an important strength of

the university, faculty scholarship interests do not drive the university‟s

engagement agenda.

University of Georgia

The University of Georgia (UGA) is a land-grant and sea-grant

institution, and the state‟s flagship university. It is committed to addressing

the state‟s strategic economic, social, and community development needs

through public service, cooperative extension, continuing education,

experiment stations, and technology transfer activities. Outreach at UGA is

centered on assisting communities, according to the university‟s website,

“improve their quality of life” through the extension and application of

university expertise. Highlighted programs address poverty issues, minority

business development assistance, and Latino assimilation and capacity

building. The university is committed to providing programs and services

that open opportunities for Georgians in general, and rural Georgians in

particular, to compete effectively in the global economy.

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Primary responsibility for leading UGA‟s engagement mission falls to

the Office of the Vice President for Public Service and Outreach. The Vice

President‟s position has been occupied since 2000 by Art Dunning, who came

to the university after nine years with the Board of Regents of the University

System of Georgia. Dunning also served as the chief executive officer of the

Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education, Inc., a cooperative activity

of the state‟s business, economic development, and public education entities.

Cooperative extension at UGA reports to the Associate Dean for Extension,

who is responsible to the Dean and Director of the College of Agricultural and

Environmental Sciences, and focuses on programming associated with

agricultural and natural resources, 4-H youth, and family and consumer

sciences.

The Office of Public Service and Outreach has adopted an initiative-

based approach to accomplishing its mission. Initiatives include community

economic development, internationalization, changing demographics, civic

engagement, and academic pre-collegiate programming. Regions where

outreach and extension activities are particularly concentrated are in coastal

Georgia northwest Georgia, southwest Georgia, and the metro Atlanta area.

A common thread woven throughout the strategic thrusts of public service

and outreach is reaching out to disadvantaged populations. The university‟s

work with Georgia‟s exploding Latino population has focused on issues

associated with language skills, health care, education, day care, housing,

and transportation.

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The Archway Partnership Program is a relatively new experiment in the

UGA‟s community economic development portfolio which is designed to

provide a unified interface to the university‟s expertise based upon the

expressed needs of a region. A pilot Archway Partnership was launched in

southwestern Georgia, centered in Colquitt County. The Archway concept

partners Cooperative Extension with Public Service and Outreach, along with

faculty across multiple departments and schools within the university. It

interfaces with government, business, education, heathcare, and non-profit

organizations in the region as well as numerous state agencies and

departments. Based upon the early success of the Colquitt pilot site, the

Archway Partnership model is being expanded to other regions of the state.

The University of Georgia‟s approach to distributed regional

engagement might be characterized as social and economic issue-driven. Of

particular focus are the rural disadvantaged populations. Through innovative

structures, the university seeks to understand community issues then engage

appropriate university expertise and state government entities in a unified

approach to problem-solving.

University of Minnesota

The University of Minnesota (UMN) aspires to be one of the top three

research universities in the world, and seems to recognize that increased

base state funding will provide the institution with greater leverage capacity

in seeking sponsored research funding. To this end, taking care of the state

77
of Minnesota through public engagement is an important priority. A system-

wide Council on Public Engagement was created to “incorporate public

engagement as a permanent and pervasive priority” across all campuses in

the University of Minnesota system. The council brings together people

working on public engagement activities with faculty across all academic

colleges, student government leaders, and administrators. Public

engagement is viewed at the university‟s executive level as an avenue to

increase the quantity and scope of research and teaching, and as an

opportunity to parlay relationships with community partners into scholarly

work.

An Office of Engagement was created in 2005 to formalize the work

that had been started by the Council on Public Engagement, by housing the

responsibility for system-wide engagement activities in an administrative

home. The first Associate Vice President for Public Engagement appointed

was Victor Bloomfield, a professor of biochemistry, molecular biology, and

biophysics at the University of Minnesota since 1970. He was a founding

member of the Council on Public Engagement and the university‟s

representative to the Committee on Institutional Cooperation organization‟s

Committee on Engagement.

The mission of the Office of Engagement is to provide leadership for

the alignment of engaged initiatives across university units and external

constituents. While the Office of Engagement includes a few program units,

it seems to function more as a cross-connect for a wide range of engagement

78
activities that are housed in various places throughout the university system.

Examples of engagement initiatives include: the Career and Community

Learning Center; the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs; the Children,

Youth, and Families Consortium; the Institute on Community Integration;

and the Regional Sustainable Development Partnership program. At the

University of Minnesota, Extension and Engagement are housed in separate

organizations, though report to a common senior vice president who is

responsible for system-wide academic and outreach units and initiatives.

Extension programs and experiment stations are led by the Dean and

Director of Extension, formally outside of the academic college housing

agriculture-related disciplines. Many similarities exist between the focus

areas of UMN extension and other extension organizations that are more

closely aligned with colleges of agriculture, namely agriculture, youth and

families, and community vitality.

However, UMN‟s Extension‟s unusual reporting structure and recent

restructuring, suggest the possibility of positioning the organization for

broader engagement opportunities. One initiative being led by Kathryn

Draeger in Extension is the Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships

(RSDP), which is billed as “an experiment in rural cooperation.” RSDP builds

from a premise of active citizen-led partnerships that identify and address

agricultural, environmental, societal, and economic issues through

engagement with university research, education, and outreach. Five regional

partnerships exist in various parts of the state, with the expectation of more

79
in the future. Over a ten-year period the regional partnerships have secured

approximately eleven and a half million dollars in support of more than 180

projects.

The over-arching concept associated with the regional partnerships is

“in-reach,” which refers to “the dynamic by which citizens contribute

knowledge and have access to the University for the innovation, experience,

and resources needed to address community-identified issues.” An important

aspect of the regional partnerships is that regional boards of citizen leaders

have decision-making authority to direct funds that engage university

resources. The regional boards work with stakeholders to determine

priorities and make decisions about whether and how much resource to

invest in various projects. Modest funding for the partnerships flows from

the state, is matched by community contributions (either directly or through

third party sources), and is sometimes leveraged to secure sponsored funds.

University of Missouri

The University of Missouri – Columbia has developed a Statement of

Values that acknowledges its responsibility as the state‟s major land-grant

university to be accountable to the people of Missouri for the stewardship of

their trust and the public resources. During a university strategic planning

process culminating in June, 2004, four strategic initiatives were formulated,

two of which center on outreach and engagement. One strategic initiative is

focused on reaching out from the university through increased basic and

80
applied research that is designed to stimulate economic growth, as well as

technology transfer and high technology business support services. The

other strategic initiative is focused on the development of public/private

educational partnerships that address economic, educational, health, social,

and public policy issues.

Regional and statewide engagement responsibilities are shared

between three offices that report directly to the Provost: research,

extension, and economic development. The research office concentrates on

research and technology transfer activities. Economic development

commands front-page billing on the university‟s home web page and is

directed by an Assistant to the Provost. This office serves as a visioning

point for the university‟s economic development activity and as an organizer

of strategic councils and committees that shape the interface between the

university and its economic development stakeholders. Community-directed

economic viability and community capacity-building activity is led by the Vice

Provost and Director of Extension, Michael Ouart. Ouart came into the

position in spring 2007, from faculty, extension, and administrative

experiences in animal sciences and natural resources. His portfolio at the

University of Missouri includes agriculture, youth and family, business,

community, and continuing education programs across the multi-campus

system.

The University of Missouri Extension organization is driven by a

strategic plan that lists economic viability as its top priority program area. A

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program in this priority area which has risen to prominence in the Provost‟s

economic development focus is the Community Economic and Entrepreneurial

Development (ExCEED) program. Begun in late 2005, this program has

recently come under the direction of Sharon Gulick, who had previously

spent twenty years in the state‟s economic development office. The initiative

targets the stimulation of cross-disciplinary entrepreneurial activities in

partnership with Regional Planning Commissions. It especially is focused on

economically disadvantaged communities, particularly those in rural regions.

ExCEED is the most prominent example of Missouri‟s commitment to

distributed regional engagement. The initiative is seeded with money from

the university, which is offered to self-selected regions through a grant

application process. The initial round of funding was in the form of cash

grants of $30-75K; the second round of funding is based on a line of credit

concept from the university with matching contributions from the regions.

Applicants are asked to demonstrate a holistic approach to community

economic development and to engage a broad-based project team that

includes as least two University of Missouri Extension faculty. To date, ten

regional projects have been funded in various economically disadvantaged

parts of the state. In summary, regional development on a rural basis is a

particular focus of the University of Missouri‟s out-of-region engagement.

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Virginia Tech

Virginia Tech‟s motto, Ut Prosim “That I May Serve,” provides the

underlying principle for its engagement mission. Engagement at Virginia

Tech means serving the economic and social needs of communities in

Virginia, the United States, and across the globe through strategic

partnerships that strengthen the university‟s discovery and learning missions,

according to the university‟s website. Virginia Tech aspires to enhance its

standing as a research institution so has established as a primary goal to

double its research expenditures by 2012. To that end, fostering an

entrepreneurial culture through revenue-producing engagement relationships

that diversify the university‟s revenue sources, and establishing partnerships

that create new research opportunities are priority enablers.

Leadership of the university‟s engagement mission is centered in the

Office of Outreach and International Affairs, which is led by Vice Provost John

Dooley. Dooley assumed the Vice Provost of Outreach and International

Affairs position in 2003, coming into the role from a career with Virginia

Tech‟s Cooperative Extension organization. He has put a particular focus on

international engagement and establishing solid relationships with key

political and private stakeholders in Virginia. Cooperative Extension is led by

a director who also serves as an Associate Dean of the College of Agriculture

and Life Sciences.

Virginia Tech‟s most extensive distributed engagement in Virginia,

according to John Dooley, has centered in south central (Southside) Virginia,

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Northern Virginia, Roanoke, and more recently, Lynchburg. Each of the three

more established regional partnerships includes significant research and

education components. Research activities at these sites are driven by

regional assets in economic sectors with growth potential. Graduate

education complements the research and addresses other needs of the local

region, and is delivered by a combination of local faculty and distance

education. In addition to targeting economic vitality in the regions, Virginia

Tech has recently placed a particular emphasis on PK-12 STEM education.

Of particular note is Virginia Tech‟s engagement in Southside Virginia,

which is centered in a partnership with a regional institution, the Institute for

Advanced Learning and Research (IALR). The Southside partnership was

borne out of a region‟s need to reinvent a dying textile and tobacco

economy. Planning conversations began in 2000 and resulted by 2007 in a

700-mile fiber optic regional network, four centers of Virginia Tech-led

research and innovation, dozens of academic and outreach programs, more

than $80 million dollar committed to date to the IALR, an influx of scientists,

and thousands of new jobs in the region.

Virginia Tech‟s overall approach to engagement has been driven by the

existence of a critical mass of regional leadership interested in partnering

with Virginia Tech. The intersection of regional needs, entrepreneurial

faculty interests, administrator passion for the public service land-grant

mission, and ability to secure resources has been the basis of the university‟s

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successful regional partnerships. Each partnership has been established

within the unique context of the environment and people associated with it.

Institutional Perspectives on Distributed Engagement

This section outlines the major findings from the Stage One set of

interviews with chief engagement officers of the institutions profiled in the

first part of this chapter, including: institutional motivations, alignment of

mission with public needs, forms of engagement, university roles in

engagement, structuring university-regional partnerships, internal university

considerations, and challenges.

Institutional Motivations

Weerts (2005) has indicated that one of the factors associated with

effective two-way relationship between universities and communities is

identifying motivators for engagement within the institution and the

community. What motivates land-grant research universities to partner with

regions of their states that are distant from campus? The underlying

rationales range from pragmatic to personal. Leaders of university

engagement at land-grant institutions interviewed for this research project

outlined a number of pragmatic reasons their universities had invested in

partnerships in other parts of their states. Most also noted their personal

sense of responsibility to, and passion for, the land-grant mission with

respect to serving the public good. The mix of underlying motivations for

engaging in out-of-region partnerships is presented below.


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Land-grant university leaders recognize that adequate financial

resources are a high priority agenda. In particular, university leaders

understand that base funding levels from the state are dependent upon

securing and maintaining the favor and confidence of elected state officials,

who in turn are responsible to their public constituencies. As higher

education has come to be seen increasingly as a private good, rather than a

public good, the sense of state responsibility to funding significant

proportions of university budgets has diminished (Longanecker, 2005). In

response, public universities are becoming more focused on demonstrating

their value to the public at large (NASULGC, 1999).

University engagement leaders interviewed referred to generating

“goodwill” and increasing public “credibility” as important motivators for their

distributed regional engagement. Art Dunning at the University of Georgia

spoke about the need to demonstrate public return on the state‟s investment

in the institution:

There‟s too much money flowing into universities for us to be left


alone. People are very much interested in all of us answering the “so
what” question. If you get $300 million or $400 million from the
people of this state, so what? What do you do with that to better the
lives of people in this state?

Closely related to the goal of sustaining (or increasing) state funding is

a sensitivity to major donors. Beyond their personal financial contributions

to the university, major donors often are well connected politically within the

state to elected officials. Major donors also are often connected to the board

of trustees for the university, if they are not actually board members

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themselves. So, another rationale stated by interviewees for engaging in

distributed regional partnerships is to respond to individuals who have the

ability to influence important funding and governance stakeholders.

A different set of pragmatic reasons offered for establishing

partnerships with other regions of the state is the opportunity to advance the

university‟s research and teaching missions. There is an understanding

among university engagement leaders that these external partnerships

provide opportunities to convert relationships and interaction with the “real

world” into new research agendas and lessons for the classroom. In addition

to informing research agendas on campus, regional partnerships offer new

avenues for scholarship and open new opportunities for sponsored funding.

Many cited examples of faculty who were able to advance their scholarly

interests by focusing on an aspect of community need, engage with

community partners to address the need, then convert the experience to a

peer-reviewed publication. Others noted the opportunities to capture

sponsored funds because of established relationships with industry partners.

According to Purdue‟s Jay Akridge, “Right now we‟re working on a consortium

study where we are asking industry to kick in to fund a fairly significant

study… We are able to get those companies to listen in part because we‟ve

helped them out.”

In other instances, there is a recognition that funds may be available

to a region or because of circumstances in a region that are not present on

the university‟s campus. Those funds may be tied to politicians representing

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a particular portion of the state who are able to secure special federal or

state funds. They may be tied to particular resources that are designated to

benefit citizens in a particular region. Or, they may be linked to issues that

are present in a part of the state removed from the university‟s campus. By

pursuing research projects in regions distant from the university, the

institution may be able to grow its sponsored research revenue stream thus

benefitting both the region and the university. According to John Dooley at

Virginia Tech,

You‟ve always got to frame things in the context of win-wins; and so


the ability of faculty to access resources that they otherwise probably
would not have had access to has been a major motivator here…the
conflux of good science and good politics.

The opportunity to enhance student learning is another motivator for

universities to engage with communities beyond the campus. This may occur

as a result of a faculty member who is able to inject real world stories into

classroom instruction because of his or her opportunity to work with a

constituency outside of the campus. “It made my work with the students

very, very relevant. They get that much more enthused about the course,”

in the experience of Jay Akridge at Purdue. Or, regional partnerships may

provide hands-on learning experiences for the students themselves in the

form of service learning opportunities or research experiences, as they have

at the University of Georgia:

The students are developing their portfolios. They are able to point to
practical things that they‟ve done so when they enter the workforce
they can say, „Not only do we have book knowledge and a great GPA
and went to a fine institution, but we were able to actually do practical
work.‟
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Alignment of Mission with Public Needs

In addition to opening access to higher education for the working class

and focusing on a research agenda with practical scientific applications,

Justin Morrill, author of the federal legislation which created land-grant

universities in 1862, envisioned these institutions extending themselves

beyond campus to partner with America (Jischke, 2004). A strong sense of

responsibility to this mission of extension, outreach, and engagement

seemed to be embedded in the core beliefs of the vice presidents I

interviewed as they described their institutions‟ approaches to regional

engagement. As expressed by Virginia Tech‟s John Dooley, “We‟re called

upon…to make sure that our research, our learning, our engagement

activities are relevant to the needs of the people.”

Several interviewees mentioned the responsibility of land-grant

institutions to economic and social development. Michael Ouart of the

University of Missouri said, “I believe that the land-grant university has a

huge economic development role to play both in terms of – well, economic

development and quality of life.” Interviewees expressed an increasing

responsiveness to state economic development agendas by their universities.

“(We need) to be more publicly accountable for helping to contribute to the

resolving of societal problems and issues beyond those that are directly tied

to the production of an educated population,” according to Michigan State‟s

Hiram Fitzgerald. Art Dunning at the University of Georgia indicated,

“There‟s not an issue in this state that does not have a discipline on this
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campus that can help address some of the public policy and decision-making

needs.”

Among the six institutions studied in the first phase of my research,

some were clearly quite focused on aligning themselves with state officials

and business leaders interested in regional economic development. Two

indicated that they participate in regular meetings with key state economic

development officials to understand how they can interface their universities‟

assets and expertise with state development strategies. In some cases the

responsiveness to state needs is reflected in the engagement of the

university with underperforming or economically distressed regions. In other

cases there is interest in involving the university with economically strategic

regions of the state to continue to build and strengthen a key economic

driver.

Forms of Engagement

Arbo and Benneworth (2007) categorize higher education engagement

with regions into two generations of conceptualizing these kinds of

partnerships. In the “first wave” approaches, universities play

“straightforward roles” by “responding to the demands of key regional

actors” and identifying knowledge that is useful to entities in regions (p. 50).

Traditional agricultural and manufacturing extension models, including

technical assistance programs, are good examples of approaches focused on

identifying knowledge that is useful to external entities and disseminating it

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to them. In Arbo and Benneworth‟s “second wave” models, universities bring

external resources to regions which combine with other external resources to

create a “local buzz” which is “far more transformatory in its effects than the

dissemination of knowledge” to regional players (p. 50).

Interviews with the five chief engagement officers included in my

study suggested that their universities are engaging with communities

distant from campus in ways that resemble “first wave” approaches as well

as “second wave” forms. First wave approaches mentioned tended to be

organized around programmatic interventions or around issue interventions.

The engagement activities that are programmatically focused in the

institutions studied are typically led by a university entity that has a vertical

responsibility, often in the outreach or extension part of the institution

(though not always), that is focused on promulgating a particular kind of

program statewide. Examples of programmatic areas of focus mentioned

were: small business development centers, technical assistance programs,

continuing education programs for various professions, agricultural extension

programs, manufacturing extension programs, electronic villages, and

entrepreneurship programs.

Other first wave engagement activities at the institutions studied

focused on issue areas. The issues cited included those that were driven by

community stakeholders as well as those driven by university scholars. In

either case, the focus of the engagement was topical and involved university

faculty or staff expertise to address the particular issues associated with a

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particular place. Examples of issue areas of focus cited were: land use

planning, advanced networking infrastructure planning, persistent poverty

mitigation, brownfield cleanup, technology integration into the classroom,

and non-profit capacity assessment.

Second wave engagement examples cited by interviewees tended to

assume a thematic orientation or geographic orientation. They were

partnerships that brought resources to a place with the expectation that

those resources would be matched by other resources to create a whole that

was envisioned to be larger than the sum of its parts. Thematic approaches

mentioned tended to be implemented on a regional basis in multiple parts of

the state. These thematic orientations typically involved university expertise

across several disciplines and were focused on making significant impacts in

addressing economic or social issues. Examples include the University of

Missouri‟s EXCEED program, which targets entrepreneurship development;

University of Missouri‟s health program, which targets food and nutrition

issues; a North Central consortium to which the University of Missouri

belongs which is focused on biofuels and renewable energy; and the

University of Minnesota‟s rural sustainable development program.

In instances where the engagement assumed a geographic orientation,

the university was typically involved in a range of activities connecting many

departments – both academic and non-academic, focused on addressing the

particular needs of a community or region. Examples include Michigan

State‟s work in Jackson, Michigan; the University of Georgia‟s work in

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Moultrie, Georgia; and Virginia Tech‟s work in Southside, Virginia. Each of

these regional partnerships leveraged significant levels of external funds that

were spent primarily in the regions, not on the university campuses.

University Roles in Engagement

Another characteristic that varied from situation to situation in the

examples of distributed regional engagement referenced by interviewees was

the role played by the university partner. In some cases, the university

served as initiator; in others as facilitator. Experts suggest that success in

university-community partnerships is more common when leadership

emanates from the community (Corrigan, 2002; Lester, 2005; Maurrasse,

2001; Wilson, 2004). While no partnership failures were cited by the chief

engagement officers interviewed, the more robust “second wave”

partnerships tended to include a significant regional leadership role.

In several examples associated with first wave forms of engagement,

the university played an initiator role. In some of these instances, the

partnership need emanated from faculty members who were pursuing a

particular research topic or source of grant funds. They sought out a

community with the right set of characteristics to meet the needs of the

research agenda. In other instances, the partnerships revolved around a

particular service or expertise the university wanted to provide to the

community. Sometimes the service or expertise was available to the

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external partner through a fee-for-service model; in others it was available

because of designated public funding for that activity.

Alternatively, in second wave partnerships, the university tended to

play a facilitator role by following the lead of the community or region and

committing itself to matching university expertise with the particular issues

presented by the community. For example, the University of Georgia

facilitated discussions with stakeholders in Moultrie to identify the largest

challenges the community thought it faced, then brought in faculty and

students with corresponding expertise to provide information for the

community‟s consideration as it made decisions about how to manage the

challenges. Virginia Tech responded to Southside Virginia‟s desire to develop

a Research Triangle Park type of economy, by drawing university research,

education, and other expertise to the region. Michigan State University

responded to Jackson‟s interest in partnering around the university‟s

expertise in social service program evaluation and built a rich partnership

based on the community‟s continued presentation of issues to university

experts across several disciplines.

Structuring Win-Win Partnerships

A theme that was consistent across the conversations with senior

engagement leaders at the land-grant institutions studied was the need to

structure distributed regional engagement in ways that benefit both the

university and the community. This finding was consistent with the Vidal et

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al. (2002) conclusion that the benefit an organization receives from a

partnership is related to the consistency between the goals of the partnership

and the organization‟s mission. Purdue‟s Jay Akridge expressed the

pragmatic approach to partnerships he believes is common across

institutions: “The whole notion of being involved and engaged with the

state‟s government, industry, and citizens is a fundamental part of what we

do, and I think it makes what we do on campus better. So, it‟s a win-win

situation.”

These joint wins sometimes occurred in a series of micro-benefits,

typified by various specific community needs being addressed by various

faculty research agendas. Hi Fitzgerald of Michigan State described a typical

scenario,

We call (faculty members) to a meeting, to a lunch or something, and


have them chat with the community folks who have contacted us and
see if there‟s any interest between the campus group and the
community group in finding some way to build a program..to be an
economic engine for that community, but also a resource for scholarly
inquiry for our faculty.

Joint wins also played out into larger opportunities that elevated the

standing of the university and community with stakeholders. For the

university this sometimes meant an opportunity to enhance the institution‟s

political capital and for the community it sometimes meant a chance to

increase its cachet beyond the region. Both the Virginia Tech – Southside

partnership as well as the UGA – Moultrie/Colquitt partnership reaped these

kinds of benefits to the universities and the regions. Purdue‟s partnerships

across the state clearly have had a positive impact on the university‟s
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political standing in the state and have helped to position regions of Indiana

more prominently to prospective private sector companies looking to

relocate.

A second consideration in structuring win-win university-regional

partnerships was in identifying up front what one vice president called the

“rules of engagement.” Both Purdue and Virginia Tech indicated that they

were willing to commit to large-scale partnerships but that doing so would

require new money. Regions interested in partnering with the universities

did not expect the institutions to carve money out of their operating budgets

to fund the partnerships. Each university‟s primary contribution to regional

partnerships was expertise and a willingness to work cooperatively with the

region‟s leadership to identify potential funding sources. Jay Akridge of

Purdue expressed this philosophy of engagement,

We can bring resources, but people who come looking for funds – this
is not the place to do that. That‟s not our role. I think Purdue is very
entrepreneurial when it comes to funding these kinds of things with
the one sort of rule being (that) we are not the funding agency. It‟s
not something we‟re positioned to do as a state university.

A second rule of engagement mentioned by Purdue was that the

university does not work on a geo-political basis. Purdue clearly sees itself

as a state institution, and is unwilling to become involved in partnerships that

pit one political jurisdiction against another. The university favors regional

partnerships which are inclusive, rather than divisive. A third rule of

engagement offered by Michigan State was the need to connect community

work with scholarship. According to Hi Fitzgerald, “I operate out of the

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Provost‟s Office so we represent an academic arm of the institution and so

our focus always is going to be on scholarship connections to communities.”

Tactical Strategies for Structuring Partnerships

A variety of tactical strategies for effectively structuring university-

regional partnerships were mentioned by interviewees. One tactical strategy

was identifying at the outset whether or not the fit is right between

community need and university expertise. Votruba (2005) recommends that

universities “be careful to define who owns the problems,” cautioning against

“assum(ing) ownership for community problems that are far beyond

(universities‟) capacity to resolve” (p. 269). As described by Jay Akridge at

Purdue, “There‟s a pretty careful screen of everything that comes in here in

terms of where we fit and where we don‟t…(It‟s) the whole notion of not

over-promising on an area that we can‟t deliver on.”

Outreach professionals at the University of Georgia working with

communities consider whether particular issues are a good fit for expertise at

their institution, and if not, look to involve other institutions that may be

better suited. As described by the University of Georgia‟s Art Dunning,

We try to understand our limits to resources to know we can‟t be all


things to all people. There are certain issues that ought to be
addressed by the two-year colleges and there are certain issues that
ought to be addressed by state universities… So, we begin to look for
partnerships as a model because we don‟t have unlimited resources to
do what we can do.

Once appropriate fit is established, it is important to ensure that both

partners are at the table from the inception of the planning process.
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According to Corrigan (2000), the most successful university-community

relationships are characterized by the involvement of people who are charged

with implementing as well as creating the plan. This point was reinforced by

Michael Ouart at Missouri:

I think the most successful programs that we‟ve been involved in have
been partnerships at the most inclusive level. We have been partners
from the beginning, there early in the process… Somebody is not just
bringing us in at the last minute to give us some little piece and expect
us to go do things.

Setting appropriate expectations was a tactic mentioned by many of

the interviewees. It was pointed out that this is especially important in

dealing with deep economic and social issues which take considerable time

and effort to mitigate, and which require the community to invest itself in

being part of the solution. Hi Fitzgerald of Michigan State shared,

We can hopefully begin to work on interesting models that will begin to


show transformation taking place, but many of the communities we
work with are dealing with problems now that have a generation or
more evolution behind them… We‟re not coming at these with
enormous sums of money; we are coming at these with ideas of how
to – it might sound trite – but how to truly empower people to make
transformations.

As suggested by Hi Fitzgerald‟s observation, successful community-

university partnerships are built on the principle of fostering community self-

sufficiency through empowerment, and not doing for people what they can

do for themselves (Corrigan, 2000; Maurrasse, 2001). Employing a strategy

of helping people to help themselves was echoed by the University of

Georgia:

It was really helping people to solve their own problems… (by) helping
them figure out the cause of issues and problems and letting them
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determine their values, and then figuring out the solutions themselves,
of course with the help of other folks. But they get to determine their
path, they get to determine their direction, and they are empowered
to actually implement and make things happen.

An important aspect of leadership in community-university

partnerships is the acceptance of equitable responsibility for the activities

and outcomes of the partnerships. According to Goddard (2007), successful

partnerships depend on both a university “pillar” and a regional “pillar.” This

means ensuring that community partners don‟t expect the university to play

the knight on a white horse, riding in with the solution to the community‟s

woes. Communities interested in partnering with universities must

acknowledge their own responsibility to contribute to solutions. Virginia

Tech‟s John Dooley said,

Rarely does a month go by that I‟m not approached by some local


community interest group who (is) saying, „What can you do for us?‟
And, of course, my response is, „No, the relevant question is, what can
we do together?‟…What we are having to help people understand (is)
that they are thinking about getting fish; it‟s about teaching to fish.
Coming to the table together.

Embedded in the strategy of helping people to help themselves is the

importance of crafting engagement approaches that are tailored to the

particular circumstances of the environment in which they will be employed.

Corrigan (2000) goes so far as to suggest that programs cannot be

successfully replicated en masse; rather, they must “emerge from the

cultural setting in which they will operate.” Minnesota, Missouri, and Georgia

each established regional partnerships which were based on an expectation

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of engaging around a community-driven agenda. According to Michael Ouart

at the University of Missouri,

One of the most important and critical and positive things about the
eXCEED Program is that it‟s a local community-driven process…that
helps communities understand themselves better, that accommodates
the fact that every community is different and each community has its
own set of strengths and resources and needs. Then it really allows for
us to bring the integrated capacity of the university to help them with
those needs as they identify them.

Another tactical strategy is documenting the expectations associated

with each partner. This supports the contention of Corrigan (2000) that

“memorandums of agreement must formalize the process and clearly state

commitments of each of the partners.” Both Michigan State and Georgia

mentioned their use of written agreements to define roles and

responsibilities. Michigan State‟s Hi Fitzgerald suggested that written

agreements help to solidify partners‟ commitments:

A community has to follow through on their commitments as well,


which is why we encourage all faculty members – you can‟t require it –
but we encourage in our model that when they go into a partnership
with a community partner that that partnership actually writes out a
work plan of expectations.

Relationship Development

A final theme relating to structuring partnerships externally focused on

relationship development. Three aspects of relationship development

considerations emerged: getting the right people at the table, developing

trust, and establishing regularized communication. Getting the right people

at the table, as described by some interviewees, meant ensuring diversity,

grassroots involvement, and broad representation from the community. This


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is in line with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development

(OECD) approach to creating strong regional-higher education partnerships

of forming regional steering committees which include both higher education

institution representation as well as a “wide range or regional stakeholders”

(Goddard, 2007).

From the university side of the partnership, according to Virginia Tech

and the University of Georgia, was the importance of placing the right

university people in the community to guide the partnership efforts.

“Hir(ing) strong, competent leadership to begin with that can help guide us

and direct us through the difficult times of start-up,” was cited by John

Dooley as a critical factor for success. The perspective from the University of

Georgia was similar:

We felt that if we had someone on the ground focusing on community


economic development, whether they had the skills to help directly or
not, we needed someone that could reach into the university and pull
the skills and resources necessary to help communities.

These experiences dovetail with an earlier finding that a key factor of

success in regional partnerships are “animateurs” who serve as “gate

keepers” between the critical players in the engagement partnership network

(OECD, 1999).

A second aspect of relationship development mentioned was the need

to develop trust within the partnership. Corrigan (2000), Weerts (2005), and

Alter (2005) suggest that cultural barriers can impede the development of

high trust relationships, so consideration should be given to thoughtfully

building trust between higher education and regional players. Hi Fitzgerald


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of Michigan State articulated his institution‟s focus on developing the

infrastructure of a long-term relationship between community and university

that would allow various faculty to come and go over time. The core of this

infrastructure, he indicated was a sufficient level of trust: “Issues that are

going to be essential for success are: Do we trust each other? Are we

committed to each other? Are we going to stick around when times get

tough?”

A final consideration in developing strong partnering relationships is

communicating effectively within the partnership. Regular communication

within the partnership aids in keeping the goals in front of everyone,

assessing progress against the goals, prioritizing current needs, and

quantifying results. The University of Georgia experienced success with

monthly meetings between community and university leaders: “I think those

monthly meetings of keeping those people in touch and communicating

helped to achieve the goals of the local community and the university.”

Purdue‟s Jay Akridge said that talking about results of the partnership to date

helps to keep everyone on board:

Making sure that people understand what we‟re doing, how it‟s helping
so that there‟s continued support I think is a pretty big deal… I think
we have to be good at quantifying impact in telling the story so that
we find new opportunities and that the people that are partnering with
us understand where we‟re contributing.

Internal University Considerations

An area of focus for several of the senior engagement officers

interviewed is motivating faculty members to apply their expertise to the


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issues and needs of regions. The prevailing faculty reward structure at land-

grant universities is tilted heavily toward publishing research in scholarly

journals and securing sponsored funding for research. So, scholarship

opportunities and extramural funding are powerful faculty motivators

(Goddard, 2007; Votruba, 2005). Another less dominant faculty motivator is

an interest in identifying ways to enhance student learning, and in some

cases, a belief in the value of connecting academic and public questions

(Schneider, 2005). Far less pervasive but also part of the faculty motivation

landscape is a formal expectation or personal sense of responsibility to serve

external communities by extending faculty expertise from the university to

other parts of the state (Peters, 2005).

Of the institutions included in this study, Michigan State seemed to

best exemplify an institution which has developed a successful engagement

strategy by focusing on connecting regional needs to scholarly research and

publication opportunities. The key to this strategy was in finding ways for

faculty members to advance their particular scholarly interests by interacting

with particular issues facing external communities. A predominant focus of

scholarly engagement at Michigan State appeared to be in the social science

fields, which lend themselves well to the application of pervasive social and

cultural issues.

Because scholarship is such a powerful motivator for faculty, an

increasing number of institutions, including Purdue, are discussing how to

increase faculty awareness and buy-in to the “scholarship of engagement.”

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Purdue‟s vice provost of engagement shared that his institution planned a

Fall workshop retreat with deans, department heads, and senior center

directors to create awareness about engagement scholarship. This workshop

would be followed up in the spring with a similar event aimed at faculty.

Michigan State is home to the National Center for the Study of University

Engagement as well as the publisher of The Engaged Scholar magazine.

Virginia Tech, of the institutions studied, perhaps best exemplifies a

successful strategy of connecting external community needs with

opportunities to secure new sources of sponsored funding for research.

Virginia Tech did this by working with regional leaders to connect politically

with federal legislators and state trustees of the state‟s tobacco settlement

money. With this money as a base investment to equip research laboratories

and seed initial research projects, faculty then leveraged these investments

to compete for other government and private research funds. The

predominant focus of this engagement strategy is in engineering, physical,

and biological sciences with a goal of seeding a high tech economic base in

the region.

Tapping into a faculty motivation strategy for expanding student

learning opportunities was best exemplified by the University of Georgia.

Often referred to as “service learning” and sometimes as “civic engagement,”

opportunities for learning are expanded by involving students in community-

based projects and problems that are linked to curricular objectives, ideally

in a collaborative and reflective manner (Benson et al., 2005). Georgia‟s

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student engagement was structured around involving small student groups in

studying an issue and recommending a solution, in a role much like a

consultant. Not only did students have an opportunity to study a real issue,

but they were able to do so in the context of a community setting that was

quite different than many had previously experienced. So, student learning

was occurring on multiple dimensions.

The notion of community engagement through service was most

readily embraced by faculty with extension appointments, where there was

an expectation of service built into their position descriptions. Both Missouri

and Minnesota have organized their most significant regional engagement

initiatives primarily around the expertise of extension faculty. These faculty

members are coupled with a network of field agents or educators, who are

tied into needs and issues at the local level. According to Missouri‟s Michael

Ouart,

We have a huge role to play in that Extension (has) the relationship


with people in the community…We are going to continue to rely on
that presence…to really help states both grow their economy in terms
of jobs and dollars, but also protect the environment, natural
resources to make their families stronger, to make the communities
places where people want to stay and raise their families and work and
live.

Both Georgia and Purdue are moving to build on their extension

organizations as they tackle regional engagement agendas. Georgia has

done this by creating point people in regions who are jointly funded by Public

Service, Extension, and the region. These “Archway Professionals” interface

with community leaders, with local Extension experts, campus faculty across

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the university, and experts outside the university. Purdue has created a

centralized Center for Regional Development which is responsible to the

economic and community mission within Extension. The Center‟s focus is

providing planning resources and data resources to encourage the state to

take a more regional view of economic and community development.

Another internal university dynamic that plays a significant role in

institutions‟ commitments to engagement is university leadership (Alter,

2005; Goddard, 2007; Votruba, 2005). University commitment to out-of-

region engagement is no exception, as was evidenced in the institutions

included in this dissertation study. Bold leadership and significant interest in

pursuing a new kind of university-community relationship seemed

particularly important at the vice president level. This was true of incumbent

vice presidents at Virginia Tech, Georgia, and Purdue, and likely led to the

vice presidential appointment at Michigan State. Some cited strong support

at the presidential and provost levels as critical elements of university

leadership. Such senior institutional leadership may have been strongest at

Purdue, where the leadership of the president with regard to engagement set

a tone for the campus. According to Jay Akridge,

It‟s been something we‟ve aggressively pursued…beginning with Martin


Jischke‟s presidency about seven years ago… Over the last seven years
engagement has become a part of the campus language. So, it‟s not a
new idea anymore, and it‟s one that I think a lot of people would view
as much more important now than they did seven years ago.

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Challenges

Distributed regional engagement is not without its challenges,

according to the university leaders interviewed. Political pressure, resource

pressure, and sustained support were cited as the greatest barriers to more

extensive university-regional engagement. Political pressure resulted from

partisan politics, setting up delicate situations for universities not wishing to

play to the interests of one party at the expense of the other. As Alter

(2005) has observed, “Public scholarship centers typically on important

issues that affect multiple interests or publics, each with differing, sometimes

diametrically opposed perspectives on the issue at hand” (p. 480).

Another source of political pressure comes from the general public‟s

unfamiliarity with, discomfort with, or misunderstanding of university

research. One interviewee cited public concern about university research

agendas; another mentioned the lack of public understanding of the links

between university research and economic issues. According to one vice

president, “I think most people will buy that the…university is an economic

engine, but they are not necessarily always sure that the things we are

working on are the things we ought to be working on.”

Resource pressures seemed to be an ever-present concern. Vidal et

al. (2002) identified the ability to mobilize a steady stream of resources as a

principal factor in self-sustaining university-community partnerships. “Money

and time are always issues,” according to one interviewee. Identifying what

sources of funding will support new out-of-region engagement activities was

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a challenge. Even where a university was not directly funding engagement,

instead relying on third party sources of funds, significant indirect costs were

borne by the institution. Indirect costs were associated with start-up

meetings and activities, extensive staff time committed to developing and

managing partnerships, travel time to distant locations, and indirect costs

associated with research, including grant-writing, and grant management.

Scalability also had a significant connection with resources.

Developing and managing deep, multi-faceted partnerships in various parts

of the state challenge even the most efficient outreach organization. The

price of successful, transformative relationships had the effect of stimulating

widespread demand for similar relationships with the university. Leaders at

Georgia and Virginia Tech referenced the onslaught of demand they‟d had

from regions across their states once word began to spread about their

Moultrie and Southside engagements, respectively.

Finally, maintaining support for engagement partnerships over the

long term was a challenge mentioned in several different contexts. The

ability of institutions of higher education to institutionalize engagement

depends on leadership, resources, and coordination of effort (Vidal et al.,

2002). Support on campus to keep faculty energized about working in a

region over a period of years was cited as a need. Integrating the activities

of multiple faculty across multiple departments, schools, campuses, and

sometimes institutions was mentioned by several as a concern. Maintaining

support in the community or region “over a sufficiently long time to see

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change” presented another set of challenges and spoke to the need to define

consistent and simply ways of measuring impacts of the partnership.

Maintaining the support and interest of funders, particularly at the

state level, was also cited as a challenge that must be continually addressed.

According to John Dooley of Virginia Tech, there is a need to “keep the

project exciting.” He said,

There‟s been an excitement factor here that has contributed in a


meaningful way. I think one of the challenges that we have is not for
this to ever slide into being mundane…I think certainly that the faculty
and staff at the Institute have a major responsibility that we always
have to keep the state executive branch and legislators thinking that
they are doing something cutting edge…because we are.

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Chapter 5

TWO DISTRIBUTED ENGAGEMENT PARTNERSHIPS

The University of Georgia – Moultrie/Colquitt Partnership

Beginnings

In 2004, the University of Georgia‟s (UGA) Office of Public Service and

Outreach (PSO) began to consider how the university might address the

recommendations of the Kellogg Commission (1999) to shape a 21st century

land-grant engagement mission. A small group was charged by the PSO vice

president to consider how the university could improve its ability to address

the community and economic development needs of Georgia‟s communities.

Interviews with more than seventy people, internal and external to the

university, conducted by the work team members preceded the development

of a set of findings and recommendations.

During the same period of time, UGA‟s Cooperative Extension (CE)

organization was re-evaluating its interface with communities, to better

position itself to interface with the university on a broader basis and thus

bring more of the university‟s expertise to bear on community issues. A

team from the CE organization, charged by the associate dean of extension,

looked at Extension models across the country and made site visits to several

places. Through this process, CE learned about the Gateway Partnership

program at North Carolina State University and thought that, with some

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modifications, it could serve as the basis for a new model of interfacing with

Georgia‟s communities.

All of this was occurring at a time when the university had seen a

steady decline of state resource support and increasing pressure to

demonstrate broad public value. As the university‟s admissions standards

had risen, an increasing number of Georgians - particularly from rural areas

– had been denied admission. Citizens and legislators from many parts of

the state were questioning the value of supporting the university with public

money when the benefits seemed to be flowing narrowly.

The CE team proposed the concept of establishing a portal to the

university through a designated county within a region of the state. Playing

off the university‟s arch moniker, it was suggested that this new model be

dubbed the “Archway” county program. The notion proposed was that the

county where the Archway program was established would provide office

space and videoconferencing, and be supported financially by contributions

from the surrounding counties in the region and from the university.

Through this interface, access to a broad range of programs, services, and

resources not traditionally accessed through the CE and PSO organizations

could occur.

The PSO and CE organizations committed to partner with each other to

implement this new Archway partnership model and decided that the most

prudent course of action would be to pilot the concept in one place. It was

determined that the city of Moultrie and its surrounding Colquitt County

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would offer the best opportunity for a pilot. The area was experiencing

significant growth as a result of a new major food processing employer‟s

announcement to locate there and because of a large influx of Latinos and

retirees. The Moultrie/Colquitt region had a strong relationship with the

university, particularly the local CE staff, an interest in accessing a broader

array of university resources, and its needs were a good match for the

university‟s expertise. In addition, the region was generating a lot of state

government attention for its economic successes.

Regional Profile

Colquitt County is located in southwest Georgia, approximately 200

miles south of Atlanta and 60 miles north of Tallahassee, Florida. Moultrie, a

community of 15,000, is the county seat for Colquitt County, which has a

population of 42,000. Colquitt, the 19th largest of Georgia‟s 159 counties, is

the largest and most diverse agricultural county in the state. Its economy is

dominated by agriculture, food processing, and manufacturing. The county

has been growing steadily in the last three decades, but faces significant

economic disparities when compared with state and national averages

according to U.S. Census data:

65% of the county‟s citizens are high school graduates, as


compared with 82% for the state, and 80% nationally

11% hold bachelor‟s or higher degrees, as compared with 27% for


the state, and 24% nationally

Per capita income is $14,457, as compared with $23,716 in


Georgia, and $21,587 for the U.S.
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Median household income is $28,539, as compared with $46,832 in
Georgia, and $41,994 for the U.S.

16% of families live below the poverty level, as compared with


11% in Georgia

20% of individuals live below the poverty level, as compared with


15% in Georgia

The dominant issue facing the county at the initiation of the UGA

partnership was anticipated stress on infrastructure in conjunction with the

arrival of a $140 million Sanderson Farms poultry production and processing

operation which promised to bring 1500 new jobs to the region. Community

leaders saw the need to plan for increased housing and associated utilities

infrastructure, transportation, education and healthcare. Developing a

strategy for managing these and associated issues extended beyond the

traditional services offered by UGA‟s Cooperative Extension.

Regional Leadership

A core group of leaders from Moultrie/Colquitt began to work with UGA

representatives. The leaders included men with backgrounds in business,

local government, and the non-profit sector who had a history of service to

the community. They variously served on boards or in executive leadership

roles associated with the economic development authority, school system,

chamber of commerce, local government administration, hospital, and YMCA.

One was the publisher of the local newspaper. Several had children who

attended the University of Georgia, including one who served on a UGA

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advisory board. Their social circles included members of the UGA Board of

Regents and a U.S. Senator.

Once the Sanderson Farms deal was signed, community leaders felt as

though they had a “tiger by the tail” and needed to figure out how to ensure

that the region was able to deliver the services and amenities that would be

required. These leaders wanted to be thoughtful about their region‟s growth

and believed that the University of Georgia could be tremendously helpful,

given all of its assets. One leader, who had an opportunity to share a box

with UGA‟s president at a couple of sporting events, mentioned in

conversations with the president the region‟s interest in partnering with the

university.

University Leadership

Leadership from the university for the Archway partnership with

Moultrie/Colquitt emanated from the offices of the vice president for public

service and outreach and the associate dean for extension. Operationalizing

the concept involved the special projects director with public service and

outreach in partnership with the associate dean of extension. The special

projects director had served on the university‟s strategic planning committee

earlier in the decade, which had cited increased pressure on the university to

serve the state‟s economic development agenda and the university‟s

responsibility to adjust its strategies for doing so:

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There are enormous increases in the expectations by state leaders of
universities to contribute directly to economic development initiatives
designed to improve the economic well-being of the state, and
substantial rewards available for institutions that do so… UGA's ability
to position itself to help shape and take advantage of this role needs
strengthening and is vital to its future. (The Planning Environment,
2000)

The PSO vice president, associate dean of CE, and special projects

director from PSO hosted a number of meetings with Moultrie/Colquitt

representatives, University of Georgia academic and service units, and the

Georgia Department of Community Affairs to explore partnership interests

and assemble a basic framework for collaboration. By July 1, 2005 they had

identified an individual to oversee the project as the Archway Coordinator.

The person selected had an extensive background in economic and

community development, agriculture issues, and had been working in a UGA

public service unit on the Athens campus.

Focus of the Partnership

On March 11, 2005 community leaders and UGA representatives from

CE and PSO participated in a community listening session at the county‟s

agricultural complex. Issues raised by community leaders during the

facilitated session included increased worker housing, increased school

system enrollment, preservation of neighborhood schools, land use planning

and zoning, increased road infrastructure, blighted neighborhoods, increased

demands on water and wastewater, and addressing the needs of the

increasing Latino population including healthcare, child care, and food safety.

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Subsequently, experts from across several academic departments and

service units on campus were called together and presented with the list of

issues developed by Moultrie/Colquitt leaders.

A second community meeting was held on May 6, 2005 in

Moultrie/Colquitt with an expanded group of community leaders, UGA

representatives, and the Georgia Department of Community Affairs. White

papers that had been developed by various faculty and staff at UGA were

presented. These white papers addressed possibilities for addressing the

issues raised by the community. The net result of the meeting was a shared

desire to enter into a partnership, a commitment of financial resources, and

the adoption of an implementation plan.

The approach that UGA took with Moultrie/Colquitt throughout was to

let the community drive the engagement agenda through the identification

and prioritization of issues. The university‟s role was to serve as a third

party facilitator of community dialogue and to offer its own expertise as well

as access to expertise located elsewhere in the state. The community

remained responsible for addressing issues with possible solutions and made

decisions about what advice to act on and what not to act on. The

community at large was kept apprised of progress on issue agendas through

the local newspaper.

The Archway Coordinator served as the information broker between

the community and the university. The partnership was established with the

expectation that teaching and learning would travel via two-way

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communication channels between the region and the university. Each entity

was to serve as an equal partner serving variously as both teacher and

learner. “In Archway we treat the community as knowers, not just subjects

of research. We don‟t tell [the community what] to do, we only bring

[information] to the decision making process.” (Archway Partnership Project:

Connecting the University of Georgia to all Georgians, 2007, p. 8)

Funding

The immediate funding need for the partnership between UGA and

Moultrie/Colquitt was associated with the creation of a new UGA position, the

Archway Coordinator. Salary, benefits, and base operating funds were

required. Partners agreed to a three-way split of these expenses between

UGA‟s public service office, UGA‟s continuing education organization, and the

community. Each partner contributed $40,000 annually, with the community

meeting its obligation through $10,000 contributions each from the city of

Moultrie, Colquitt county, the public K-12 school system, and the community

hospital. Cooperative extension provided office space and administrative

infrastructure in its Moultrie CE office.

Once specific project activities got underway, possibilities for grant

monies emerged. Most of these grant applications were written by UGA

faculty and staff and the grants subsequently administered by the university.

These grant-funded projects typically involved student service learning and

faculty-driven research.

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Recommendations and actions pursued by the community were funded

through the normal mechanisms used by the community to fund

improvements. Although these were not specifically cataloged as part of this

dissertation study, it was noted that the region is served by two U.S.

Congressmen, one of whom is on Appropriations, in addition to being the

home of a U.S. Senator.

With the success of this pilot project have come requests and

possibilities for establishing Archway partnerships in other parts of the state.

The positive results and visibility of the Moultrie/Colquitt pilot led to a

decision by the University of Georgia Board of Regents to allocate $500,000

to the university for the establishment of other Archway partnerships.

Although the money came to the Office of Public Service and Outreach, it was

immediately split in half, with fifty percent going to Cooperative Extension.

Each pledged their shares to the Archway Partnership Project and deposited

the funds in a single account designed to pay expenses associated with the

initiative.

Structure and Governance

To govern the partnership an Executive Committee was formed which

consisted of eleven members, including nine citizen leaders, a UGA/Colquitt

County Extension representative, and the UGA Archway Coordinator. Most of

the citizen leaders were those who had originally met with the university‟s

representatives in March to discuss a possible partnership. The Executive

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Committee meets once a month and serves as a clearing house for issues to

be addressed by the Archway partnership as well as a priority setting group.

As a complement to the Executive Committee, a Steering Committee

of twenty people was formed with a focus on engaging a broader cross-

section of the community with expertise on specific issues. The Steering

Committee meets quarterly and participates in issue work groups. Each

issue work group consists of approximately 15 people including two to three

members of the Steering Committee, citizen volunteers, UGA experts, and

regional staff members. The Steering Committee discusses implementation

issues, the work program, and resources necessary to achieve goals.

Once the region and university had decided to enter into a partnership

with each other, they formalized their commitment with a written

memorandum of understanding (MOU). The MOU was drafted by UGA and

includes the responsibilities of each partner regarding governance and

funding for the partnership. Certain partnership projects have MOUs

associated with them which spell out the scope of work and responsibilities of

the respective partners. Individual projects are tracked by the Archway

Professional and Executive Committee. Typically, projects include reports

from work group members to the community entity interested in that

particular issue.

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Major Accomplishments

A member of the Executive Committee used the analogy of filling a

glass with rocks to help the community prioritize their issues. He suggested

that they determine what the “big rock” issues were and put those in the

glass first (address those first). Subsequently, they should select the next

biggest rocks/issues and in so doing, work their way down the list. Two of

the big rock issues that emerged were land use planning and wastewater

capacity development.

Land use planning was a particularly thorny issue. Colquitt County

leaders had attempted to get support from landowners, dominated by the

agricultural community, many times over a fifteen year period for a land use

plan, but to no avail. Resolution of this issue became a paramount concern

to local officials with the Sanderson Foods announcement. Strong

relationships with UGA‟s Cooperative Extension facilitated the attendance of

landowners at a meeting with county officials to discuss possibilities. The

Archway Coordinator facilitated the discussion and after proposals were

brought by work groups to the larger group, a workable land-use plan was

adopted.

A second “big rock” issue was the need to develop increased

wastewater capacity. An aging system and limited capacity threatened to

constrain or jeopardize continued industrial and residential growth. Using

data provided by UGA outreach faculty and professional staff, local leaders

designed a plan to increase wastewater system capacity. When a delegation

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of local leaders and UGA representatives presented the plan to the state‟s

tough-minded environmental protection director, approval was granted with

the director‟s acknowledgement that her confidence in the plan was high

because of the collaborative planning between the region and UGA experts.

Subsequent to approval, a local tax was proposed to finance the plan and

was approved in November 2006 with 88% of the voters supporting it.

To assist community leaders and citizens grapple with the needs of the

region, two leadership development programs were offered through

Cooperative Extension. One program, “Welcome to the State of Poverty,”

attracted over 400 local participants, including many members of the

Steering Committee and associated work groups, to learn how to better

understand the challenges of poverty. Another program, “Leadership

Plenty,” targeted participants from diverse backgrounds who would not be

reached through traditional leadership development programs to build

community capacity. To date, Leadership Plenty has graduated 23 leaders.

As a result of these leadership development experiences, the community

formed a task force to tackle academic achievement and its relationship to

poverty.

Progress on housing issues has been addressed on multiple fronts

through the Archway Program. Data gathered by UGA‟s Housing

Demographics Research Center on housing needs and preferences of job

applicants was presented to local bankers, realtors, developers, and

government officials to begin a coordinated plan to increase housing

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capacity. A Latino Housing Fair was organized by County extension agents in

partnership with the Southwest Georgia Regional Development Center. A

three-year Georgia Initiative for Community Housing grant was secured by

the city of Moultrie in November 2004. A previous application for funds from

this grant was denied, but after the high profile of the Archway partnership,

the grant application was funded.

Other successes to date have included community projects that

engaged UGA students in service learning experiences:

Community design needs have been tackled by students and


faculty associated with UGA‟s School of Environmental Design

A business plan is being developed for Colquitt County‟s community


arts center by students in UGA‟s College of Business leadership
program

The university has benefitted from the engagement with

Moultrie/Colquitt in several ways. UGA has strengthened its presence in

southwestern Georgia. The university has enhanced its standing with

political stakeholders at the state and federal levels. Service-learning

opportunities for students have expanded. The university has been able to

successfully direct resources across many different academic and service

units to a slice of the state‟s economic and community needs. The work of

cooperative extension has been integrated into a larger whole in the region

and has received much more attention as a result of being linked to the

Archway program. UGA has been better able to fulfill its land-grant mission

of serving the state while enhancing research and learning opportunities

through applied problem-solving.


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Perhaps the most telling sign of success is the unbridled enthusiasm of

Moultrie/Colquitt‟s leaders and the enhanced profile of their community

across the state. The university has received requests from leaders in

several other parts of the state requesting the establishment of an Archway

Partnership in their region. Plans call for the expansion of the

Moultrie/Colquitt pilot to surrounding counties, to create a more regional

partnership. Preparatory work has already occurred to facilitate this

expansion.

The Virginia Tech- Southside, Virginia Partnership

Beginnings

Late in 1999 leadership of Virginia Tech (VT) approached key Virginia

legislators about gaining their support to fund a new bioinformatics research

center on campus with soon-to-be-available money from Virginia‟s portion of

the Master Settlement Agreement from the four largest U.S. tobacco

companies. Subsequent to the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement, Virginia

passed legislation enabling the creation of the Virginia Tobacco

Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission, charged with the

responsibility to distribute an anticipated $4.1 billion over a 25-year period.

The response of the Commission chairman, a state senator from Southside,

Virginia, to President Steger was essentially, “What have you done for me

and my region lately?”

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The south central part of the state, historically dependent on tobacco

growing and textile manufacturing, had seen the rapid erosion of its

economic base in the wake of globalization. The senator‟s particular area of

interest was the city of Danville and surrounding county of Pittsylvania,

dubbed locally as the Dan River Region. Located approximately 120 miles

from Virginia Tech‟s campus, the Dan River Region is located along the south

central border of the state in Virginia‟s Piedmont. Leaders of the region

looked an hour southeast to the thriving economy of Research Triangle Park

and thought that the avenue they should pursue to revitalize the Dan River

Region would need to involve a research university. Realizing that

substantial sums of money would soon be available to the region from the

Master Settlement Agreement, these leaders began to develop a “game plan”

for economic revitalization. This game plan included a request to incoming

Virginia Tech President, Charles Steger, to partner with the region.

Regional Profile

During the middle part of the 20th century, the Dan River Region‟s

primary economic advantages were affordable land and low cost labor.

Economic shifts related to globalization in the later part of the century

resulted in tremendous erosion of the dominant Southside industries.

Federal cuts to the tobacco quota significantly reduced farmers‟ incomes.

Increased global trade, accelerated by NAFTA, forced manufacturing jobs

overseas. Bedrock industries either declared bankruptcy or completely shut

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down. These losses had a ripple effect through the local economy, reducing

the goods and services purchased locally by farmers and factory workers.

The region found itself in an accelerating downward spiral. The

educational and financial gap between this rural region and its metropolitan

sisters in the Commonwealth continued to widen. The aging population was

poorly prepared to be employed in, much less invent, jobs that would be

associated with the innovation economy of the 21st century. Social inequities

and health issues plagued the region. Statistics from the U.S. Census

demonstrated the region‟s vulnerabilities:

Population in the region declined by an average of 2.7% between


2000 and 2005, as compared to an increase in Virginia‟s population
of 4.3% during the same period

67.9% of the region‟s adults 25 years and older were high school
graduates, as compared with 81.5% of Virginians in 2000

11.6% of the region‟s adults 25 years and older held bachelor‟s


degrees and above, as compared with 29.5% of Virginians in 2000

The median household income in Southside was $31,430 as


compared with $50,028 in Virginia in 2003

Per capita income in Southside was $17,071 as compared with


$23,975 in Virginia in 1999

16.2% of Dan River Region residents were below the poverty level
as compared with 9.6% statewide in 1999

So, the challenges were multi-layered – spanning economic and social

dimensions. A new economic base to position this region favorably in a

global economy was needed. Educational attainment aspirations needed to

be increased. Increasing citizen competencies in science, math, technology

and engineering had to be addressed. Assets in the region which offered


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possibilities for economic leveraging included fields and greenhouses coupled

with agricultural know-how, numerous polymers operations, and a

developing motor sports complex.

Regional Leadership

Critical regional leadership was provided by private sector leaders, who

did not have to be concerned about appeasing political constituencies in the

community. This leadership consisted of a seven-person self-selected group

of private businessmen who formally organized themselves in 1999 to form a

501(c)3 non-profit entity dubbed the “Future of the Piedmont Foundation”

(FOTP). Informally led by a local entrepreneur who graduated from Virginia

Tech, the FOTP leveraged its connections to the university, to local private

money, and to state political connections to engage Virginia Tech in a quest

to reinvent the region‟s economy. Significantly, members of the Future of

the Piedmont Foundation included the chief executives of the major local

news media in the Dan River Region, the former mayor, and the president of

the largest local bank.

Early in their work together, the FOTP traveled to places that had

successfully turned around their economies and from these experiences

decided to engage a research university in assisting them migrate their

economy. They also commissioned a study, through an external consultant,

to present the brutal facts of the situation and make recommendations for

moving the region forward. This report, Learning.Working.Winning., was

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widely circulated in the community and provided a starting focal point for

action.

University Leadership

In early 2000, Virginia Tech President Charles Steger asked a small

group of senior university leaders to begin to strategize about how the

university could best partner with the Dan River Region. The informal group

included the university‟s chief executive officer, vice provost of outreach, vice

president of information technology, government relations officer, and

learning technologies associate vice president. The vice provost for

outreach, who served as “team captain,” had spent a majority of his career in

cooperative extension and by 2000 was particularly interested in how the

university might “reframe what it thought it could be in locations external to

the campus” by expanding beyond the traditional extension model to engage

“broader elements of the university.”

The vice president of information technology, who had pioneered the

Blacksburg Electronic Village project in the early 1990s, had a passionate

commitment to what he saw as Virginia Tech‟s land-grant public

responsibility to the state. He and the associate vice president of learning

technologies both hailed from rural, southern Virginia and had a personal

interest in seeing that region get back on its feet through the engagement of

the university. In addition to conceptualizing how information technology

might be leveraged in the region, both thought that a critical part of the

127
strategy was engaging the people of the region in developing competence

and confidence in relating to the knowledge economy.

The chief operating officer embraced the notion that Virginia Tech‟s

engagement with the region should include a research component. This idea

had been presented by the local leaders and offered an opportunity to link

the proposed new bioinformatics research center to the Dan River Region.

The government relations officer had his finger on the pulse of the

university‟s political relationships and began to see opportunities to leverage

them to fund Virginia Tech‟s activities in Southside.

Later that year, a decision was made to hire two Virginia Tech

administrators to be the university‟s people “on the ground” in the region.

The two administrators selected were a husband-and-wife team who had

worked for Virginia Tech in the past, though were coming into the Southside

roles from a public institution in another state. One was to report to the vice

provost for outreach and the other to the vice president for information

technology. One had a background in university legislative relations,

strategic planning, and institutional partnerships. The other had a

background in program development, distance education partnerships, and

information technology marketing.

Focus of the Partnership

By the latter part of the year 2000, several elements of a plan to move

the region forward had been proposed. Virginia Tech authored a white paper

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outlining areas of synergy between university expertise and regional need.

Community leaders met and discussed the development of a facility in the

region to house Virginia Tech‟s presence and link the university with a local

community college and small private college. In the end, three high priority

projects emerged as a focus of the partnership: construction and subsequent

administration of a center to house research, “advanced learning,” and

conferences; construction of a regional fiber optic backbone with community-

based multimedia service access points; and a K-12 faculty development

program centered on the integration of technology into teaching and

learning.

In part because these conversations occurred during the dot com

bubble period and in part because Virginia Tech had a high level of expertise

in information technology, the most concrete plans for the partnership

focused on developing information technology capacity in the region. Virginia

Tech authored grant proposals for the fiber optic infrastructure and faculty

development program. In addition, leaders of the region set their sights on

the construction of a signature, 93,000 square foot state-of-the-art facility to

house education, research, and conference space, then worked to line up

local support from the city and county elected officials.

In mid-2001, Virginia Tech‟s two on-the-ground administrators arrived

in Danville and were asked to assume responsibility for the implementation

of the information technology projects and the development of the Institute

for Advanced Learning and Research. The expectation was that the two

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administrators would continue to pull university expertise into the region in

ways that were synergistic with the early visioning work. What became

apparent to the administrators was the community‟s expectation that these

various projects would result in a transformed economy.

They took the many ideas that had been proposed prior to their arrival

in the region and created a strategic plan with a set of operational tactics

which ultimately led to the conceptualization of multiple centers of Virginia

Tech-led research, commercialization, contract services and testing;

educational pathways that dovetailed with the research and technology foci

linking K-12 to community college, to baccalaureate to graduate programs of

study; outreach programs that particularly targeted STEM competency

development; information technology infrastructure and program leadership;

entrepreneurial and business support services; and a full-service conference

center operation.

Funding

A strategy was needed to fund various components envisioned for the

partnership between the university and the region that would enable the

creation of a high tech economy. Virginia Tech was very clear from the

outset that it was not prepared to divert funds from campus to the

partnership; new funds would have to be identified. The region, in addition

to having a high unemployment and poverty rate, was fiscally conservative

and highly unlikely to vote for any tax increases to fund the venture.

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However, it was not without assets and connections to money. There was a

substantial amount of privately held wealth in the community, much of it in

trusts and small foundations, and some in the “old money” families. The

region qualified for economic development funds under the distribution

formula devised for the Master Tobacco Settlement funds by the Virginia

Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission.

Early in the Virginia Tech-Southside relationship, state support was

sought to formally recognize the umbrella entity for the partnership, the

Institute for Advanced Learning and Research (IALR), as a state institution.

Danville‟s representative to the Virginia General Assembly carried a bill which

was passed unanimously to recognize the IALR as a political sub-division of

the state. This designation meant that the partnership, through the IALR,

was eligible to receive funds directly from the state as well as from other

funding sources.

The business leaders who approached Virginia Tech about helping the

region had good relationships with both of Virginia‟s senators and their local

congressman in Washington, as well as incoming Governor Mark Warner.

One senator subsequently came into the chairmanship of the Armed Services

Committee; the other had solid connections to his party‟s leadership and

technology projects funding. The region‟s congressman held a seat on

Appropriations and had no qualms about directing money to projects in his

economically needy region. The chairman of the Virginia Tobacco

Commission was from the Dan River Region. Danville‟s representative to the

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Virginia General Assembly was named Secretary of Transportation by

Governor Mark Warner. Over time, each of these connections to political

power and money was tapped to advance the activities of the partnership.

From 2001 to 2007, a mix of revenue sources was utilized to fund the

various physical infrastructure elements. The city and county governments

pledged a portion of their master tobacco settlement funds over a 20-year

period, designated in the funding formula for economic development

projects, toward construction of the $15 million Institute for Advanced

Learning and Research building, and for the $1.2 million fiber optic regional

backbone. Additional Tobacco Commission and federal funds were secured

to develop research laboratories and purchase highly specialized research

and testing equipment.

Subsequent research facilities were funded with a mix of Tobacco

Commission, federal Economic Development Administration, local hospital

foundation, and private investor financing. In all, approximately, $35 million

was invested in research infrastructure through 2007. Five million dollars

was raised from private sources in the community to pay for technology and

furnishings associated with the various facilities. Information technology

vendors viewed the Institute building as a regional showplace and offered

very competitive pricing coupled with workshops, seminars, and sponsorship

of regional events.

The physical infrastructure, though critical to facilitating the kinds of

activities envisioned to assist the region in beginning to develop a new, high

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tech economic base, was just the tip of the iceberg. It was clear that the

partnership would go nowhere without sustained funding for base operations.

The region committed approximately $1.8 million from local private

foundations for the first two years of operation.

Subsequently, base funding from the state in the form of a line item

appropriation to the Institute was sought. The case for base state funding

was made on the premise that Virginia was essentially helping a region that

had become over-dependent on the state for public dollars to become, over

time, a net contributor to the state‟s revenue base. Essentially, this was an

argument for redistributive funding based on the idea that public seed

funding would stimulate the development of a private economy. In turn this

healthy private economy would reverse the region‟s dependency on public

money from the state. The credibility of Virginia Tech as an engine for

research and education-based economic development was an essential

contributor to the eventual acquisition of $6.3 million annual base state

funding.

The third leg of the funding stool for the partnership was the financing

of program activities. These activities included research programs,

commercial testing, degree-based baccalaureate and graduate degree

programs, outreach programs for the community, and conference center

programs. Each was designed to operate under a distinct funding model.

Research programs were seed-funded with federal earmarks and Tobacco

Commission grants, with the expectation that the scientists and engineers

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hired on base state funds would generate sponsored funding at a return rate

of three-to-one on the state dollars. Time on highly specialized research

equipment was contracted out to private sector and government entities who

were interested in specialized testing.

Academic programs were offered through the IALR by Virginia Tech,

the University of Virginia, and other accredited providers through a

combination of face-to-face and distance education offerings. Baccalaureate

degree programs in engineering, science, and technology associated with the

research and technology activities at the Institute, were designed to have a

minimum of two faculty members per program in residence at the Institute.

Seed funding for on-site faculty and transformation of campus courses for

distance delivery was provided by the Tobacco Commission with the

expectation that the state would follow with sustained funding to supplement

tuition revenue streams in the out years.

The initial six years of outreach programs primarily educational

enrichment activities in science, technology, engineering, and math, were

funded by a combination of federal earmarks and competitive grants as well

as fee-based approaches. The long-term strategy for outreach was to obtain

base state funding for a core of outreach programs and supplement that with

grant-sponsored and fee-based programs. Conference center programs were

self-funded through direct charges to clients renting conference space and

services and a percentage cut of food and beverage revenues associated with

Institute-hosted events.

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The primary responsibility for fundraising was assumed by the IALR

staff, which doubled every year during the first six years of the partnership.

Critical support was provided by the region‟s private leadership group in

building strong relationships with state and federal policymakers and raising

private funds from the local community. Virginia Tech, for the most part,

provided consulting advice and symbolic support on government relations,

since the university had other substantial funding priorities.

Regional technology infrastructure was deemed a high priority for

funding by the Virginia Tobacco Commission, based upon significant design

and proposal work done by Virginia Tech‟s information technology staff

members. The Commission, in partnership with the federal Economic

Development Administration, committed more than $40 million to the

construction of a 700-mile regional fiber optic backbone, including links to

major Internet hubs in northern Virginia, the Research Triangle, and Atlanta.

Virginia Tech provided consulting expertise and opened the door to a

relationship with the National Lambda Rail next-generation Internet

consortium. Management of this infrastructure was charged to a new entity,

Mid-Atlantic Broadband Cooperative, which was formed in 2003 by regional

leaders.

Structure and Governance

Although Virginia Tech is engaged in many efforts in the region, a

majority of the partnering work flows through the Institute for Advanced

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Learning and Research. For a variety of reasons, Virginia Tech did not want

ongoing fiscal responsibility for the IALR. Instead, the university proposed a

model whereby the IALR would be a free-standing regional institution,

governed by a board that included a Virginia Tech appointment, and

managed at the outset by jointly appointed Virginia Tech administrators.

So, the Institute was established in Virginia state legislation as a sub-

division of the state in the spring of 2002. This legislation called for the

appointment of a nine-member governing board, including representatives

from the City of Danville, Pittsylvania County, Future of the Piedmont

Foundation, Virginia Tech, Averett University, Danville Community College,

and appointments by the Virginia Senate, House, and Governor.

The initial IALR staff included the two-person team hired by Virginia

Tech to be its people on the ground in Southside. Through dual

appointments to Virginia Tech and the IALR, they reported to the IALR board

and to a Virginia Tech vice president or vice provost. Staff members added

to the IALR were hired as IALR employees. Faculty members recruited to

work in the IALR‟s research labs were given the option of a Virginia Tech or

IALR appointment. Some elected to be IALR employees with an adjunct

appointment at Virginia Tech. Others elected to be hired on Virginia Tech

research faculty appointments and maintain a dual reporting relationship.

The remainder were hired as tenure track faculty reporting to a department

chairperson at Virginia Tech.

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After the first couple of years of engagement work, it became apparent

that the IALR would need to serve and be supported by a broader regional

coalition. Ultimately, it was determined that the IALR‟s official service area

would consist of a six-county region nestled along the North Carolina border

between the Blue Ridge mountains and Interstate 85. To reflect the interests

of the broader region known as “Southside,” another six members were

added to the IALR governing board by the legislature in July, 2004.

To coordinate the many academic and non-academic departments at

Virginia Tech contributing to the partnership, a steering committee was

formed on campus. This 40-person “Southside Implementation Team” was

convened bi-monthly by the vice provost for outreach and international

affairs, and included a representative from each of the academic and

administrative units involved in Southside. Locally, the IALR staff interfaced

with IALR board members as well as Future of the Piedmont members.

Because of the links to local governments, IALR staff also worked actively to

keep local government leaders informed of activities and to craft partnerships

with K-12 school systems, higher education entities, selected businesses, and

numerous non-profits throughout the region.

Major Accomplishments

By the end of 2007, a cutting edge physical and technical

infrastructure of 160,000 sq. ft. in five buildings supported an on-site faculty

and staff of more than 70 IALR and Virginia Tech employees. Over $80

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million of funds from diverse sources had been committed to the IALR

between fiscal year 2001 and 2008. The IALR had been recognized with

multiple regional and national honors.

Virginia Tech had created the beginnings of world-class centers of

research in Southside centered on high value horticulture and forestry;

advanced polymers; performance engineering, road characterization, and

unmanned systems. The research centers had attracted intellectual capital

by employing 40 scientists, technicians, and graduate students who came to

the IALR from around the world. In addition, new investments in research

and development operations in Southside had been established or announced

by several Fortune 500 companies bringing with them dozens of scientists

and engineers. The IALR‟s commercial testing and technical services had

served small- and medium-sized local companies looking to develop a

competitive edge or new market niche. They also had brought to the region

entities with a national presence, such as Dodge Motorsports and the U.S.

Army, to conduct unique performance engineering tests. In addition,

innovation infrastructure components to foster the development of new

businesses had been established, including commercialization and

entrepreneurial support services.

Beyond the research and innovation-related activities designed to

stimulate the development of a new economic base, there had been

university-led work on many fronts targeted to community and social

development. Virginia Tech, had provided K-12 faculty development

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opportunities, particularly in the science content and technology integration

areas, serving more than 800 Southside teachers to date. Hundreds of

children in the region had participated in summer science camps, science and

technology field trips, math tutorials, and college internship programs that

were organized under the leadership of Virginia Tech. Thousands of adults,

businesses, and non-profit organizations in the region had participated in

workshops and community programs designed to build their STEM capacity.

The University of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University,

Longwood University, and Old Dominion University had made major

commitments to offer baccalaureate degree programs and selected masters

degree programs in Southside through a combination of face-to-face and

technology-mediated instruction offered over the regional fiber optic

backbone. Critical leadership in the establishment of a grassroots, minority-

led coalition focused on community education efforts called Southside

Community Advocates for Learning Excellence – United for Progress (SCALE-

UP) had been provided by the Institute‟s executive director in partnership

with Virginia Tech‟s Office of Multicultural Affairs.

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The Findings

Findings from the Stage Two data were organized into three tiers.

These tiers build on each other, such that the first is a precondition for the

second, which is a precondition for the third. I have labeled these tiers

“potential for engagement,” “facilitating engagement,” and “structuring

engagement.”

The first tier, potential for engagement, recognizes that certain “raw

materials” are present in the environments of regions and universities which

set the stage for a potential partnership. These raw materials are needs and

assets, which provide the initial motivation and resources for a university or

a region to come to the partnering table. Each partner must have both the

opportunity to contribute to a partnership as well as to benefit from a

partnership.

The second tier of findings is associated with facilitating engagement.

Once a university and a region determine that they have needs which can be

addressed and assets that can be employed in a partnership, there needs to

be spark that lights a fire between the two. This spark is a combination of

individual and organizational initiative. Key leaders in the regions as well as

in the institutions are able to “connect the dots” between their own needs

and assets as well as the other entity‟s needs and assets, and take critical

steps to initiate partnership discussions. Key leaders, alone, are not enough

to develop and sustain a deep and multi-faceted partnership; many other

actors from the university and the region, respectively, must embrace the

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opportunity. This willingness of a much larger set of people to engage in

partnering is associated with the climate for partnering in the respective

partners‟ environments or organizations.

The third tier, structuring engagement, is the “secret sauce” that

enables partnerships to take root and blossom. The secret sauce is the

policy framework that the partners establish for setting goals, resourcing the

partnership, being accountable for results, and governing the partnership.

The greater the ability to develop a shared understanding about

responsibilities associated with each of these structural elements, the greater

the satisfaction of the partners and the greater the chance that the

partnership will withstand inevitable set-backs.

The following three sections of this chapter outline the findings

associated with potential for engagement, facilitating engagement, and

structuring engagement in the University of Georgia – Moultrie/Colquitt

Partnership, and in the Virginia Tech – Southside Partnership.

Potential for Engagement

At its core, a partnership involves two parties who each expect to

contribute to and benefit from interaction with the other. According to Vidal

et al. (2002),

In a partnership two or more parties make a commitment to invest


resources in joint pursuit of a mutually beneficial end. By implication,
each party to a partnership has something at stake – a contributed
asset, whether money, expertise, time, data, or reputation – for which
they expect some benefit in return.

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So, potential partners each come to the partnering table with a set of needs

they hope can be addressed through the relationship and a set of assets that

they can offer to the partnership. The more clearly both partners understand

their organizations‟ capacity to contribute to as well as what they expect

from the partnership, the better chance the partnership has of success.

In the following section, the assets and needs of the partners in the

University of Georgia – Moultrie/Colquitt relationship, and in the Virginia Tech

– Southside relationship are presented. What did the regions need? What

enticements could the regions offer to engage the universities? How could

the universities meet their own needs by partnering with the regions? What

assets from the universities were employed?

Table 3.
University of Georgia and Moultrie/Colquitt - Needs and Assets

Moultrie/Colquitt Needs Moultrie/Colquitt Assets

Physical Infrastructure Planning Potential Access to Money

Human Infrastructure Development Political Connections

Quality of Life Provisions Strong Core Institutions

Real World Learning Laboratories

UGA Needs UGA Assets

Increased State Support Strong Community Relationships

Increase Relevance Strong Public Service Units

Service Learning Opportunities Faculty and Student Expertise

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Moultrie/Colquitt Regional Needs

Leaders of Moultrie/Colquitt found themselves facing near-term

challenges associated with the need to plan for substantial growth, resulting

from the imminent development of a large-scale poultry processing operation

Issues that had lurked just below the surface in recent years now would have

to be addressed head-on. These included land-use planning, increasing the

region‟s wastewater capacity, integrating an influx of Latino immigrants, and

attracting wealthy retirees from Florida. Simplistically summarized, the

needs of Moultrie/Colquitt at the outset of the partnership with the University

of Georgia focused on physical infrastructure planning and development (land

use, water, wastewater, housing), human infrastructure development (Latino

needs), and quality of life provisions (amenities for wealthy retirees).

Less prominent needs - not necessarily less important, but less

pressing at the time of the study – included skilled human capital

development, sustainable economic diversification, and community

development. Some thought had been given to the mix of economic drivers

in Colquitt County; however, leaders were primarily focused on the strength

of their agricultural base. Attention now is turning to the need to further

diversify the economic base. One community leader said, “You don‟t want to

have all your eggs in one basket, if you will. So, there‟s a recognition that

some diversity (is needed), and I think the community is wrestling somewhat

with what that really should be.”

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Other needs of the region that were posed to the partnership were

urban planning and redevelopment in Moultrie, leadership capacity

development, maintaining the financial viability of the community‟s arts

center, and poverty mitigation. Several of these needs lent themselves to

discreet, fully addressable projects in a two-year period. Others were larger,

longer-term social and economic issues that would need to be addressed

over a much longer period of time.

Moultrie/Colquitt Regional Assets

Moultrie/Colquitt had a number of assets to bring to the partnering

table including: access to money, connections to state political leadership

and University of Georgia leadership, strong core local institutions (K-12

schools, hospital, economic development authority, city and county

governments, Chamber of Commerce), and a “real world” learning laboratory

for students and faculty.

This community had demonstrated an ability over time to identify and

secure the financial means to accomplish goals. Local private money

supported an economic development foundation, a regional community

foundation, and specific community projects including an arts center and

facilities for a higher education presence in the community. Central to local

private philanthropy were the gifts of wealthy individuals as well as a local

bank. The local governments had a solid track record of securing state and

federal money for a range of projects, particularly capital construction. The

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county had contributed building space and some operating funding for the

Extension office in Moultrie.

Politically, the region is represented well at the federal level. One of

Georgia‟s senators resides in Moultrie. He serves on the Armed Services

Committee and is the Ranking Republican Member of the Senate Committee

on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. In the House of Representatives, the

region benefits from having two representatives from different parties

addressing their interests. One representative, whose district extends west

to Moultrie, serves on the House Appropriations Committee. The other

representative, whose district includes Colquitt County, serves on the House

Agriculture, Armed Services, and Financial Services Committees.

Local leaders not only have relationships with these elected federal

legislators, but also have connections to leaders within the University of

Georgia system. These connections include the president of the University of

Georgia, the president of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College, and

members of the University of Georgia Board of Regents. Beyond the higher

education connections, the Moultrie/Colquitt region has attracted favorable

attention from state government officials because of their economic

development successes in the past five years.

By having a strong base of core institutions and strong political capital,

the community was able to offer the University of Georgia a set of

institutional stakeholders who would be willing and capable of effective

partnering. In part, this meant having an environment conducive to student

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service-learning. People in Moultrie have been thrilled to host UGA student

class projects and believe they are providing valuable learning opportunities

for students. According to one community leader, “It‟s been extremely

valuable, and I think beneficial, to the university as well because they believe

very strongly as I do that students limited to the academic environment

through their educational process are not necessarily whole. They‟ve got to

understand the real world.”

Part of “understanding the real world,” in the opinion of local leaders,

is having the opportunity to experience a very different kind of place than

many of the students call home, since a majority is from the Atlanta – Athens

corridor area. Southwest Georgia is located in the same state as those more

urbane places, but from many perspectives – demographically, socially,

economically – is markedly different, even foreign. For faculty members,

conducting projects in Southwest Georgia is an opportunity to “get out of the

ivory tower” in the eyes of locals. One leader pointed out that UGA business

students developing a sustainable business plan for the arts center had an

opportunity to gain valuable experience in learning about non-profit

organizations and speculated that many of the students would, at some point

in their careers, find themselves on non-profit boards.

Taken together, the region‟s political connections, ability to put money

together, and solid core institutions provided confidence and incentive for a

substantial university relationship with the region. In the words of a

University of Georgia academic administrator,

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There are opportunities that these communities of the Archway
Projects have that they (faculty) don‟t have access to. They
(communities) can bring in more money and can give them (faculty)
new ideas, and they (communities) can introduce them (faculty) to
people who can be deal makers for things they (faculty) want to do.

University of Georgia Needs

The University of Georgia saw the opportunity to partner with

Moultrie/Colquitt as an avenue to meet its own needs. In the forefront were

institutional needs, and in the background, academic needs. At the center of

the University of Georgia‟s interest in partnering with a distant part of the

state was a widespread concern about the declining level of state support

coming to the university from the legislature. Part of the equation was the

admittance of fewer students from Georgia‟s rural areas, due to increasing

admissions standards. The concern on campus was that fewer legislators

saw the public value of the university, so were not as inclined to fund it as

robustly as in the past. The declining sense of public good being served by

UGA in the view of state policymakers is not unlike the views of many state

policymakers (Longanecker, 2005).

Sensing the need to enhance the university‟s relevance to its publics

across the state, leadership in the Public Service and Cooperative Extension

organizations independently began work on strategies to better address

public needs. Out of these separate efforts was borne the concept for the

Archway Partnership Program. University officials carefully selected

Moultrie/Colquitt as the pilot site knowing that there would be opportunities

for positive political exposure if the partnership were deemed successful.


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This political exposure, would in turn, presumably enhance the

university‟s reputation as a public servant. As one UGA administrator

expressed,

I think it‟s good for the whole university, if nothing more than building
political constituencies. People vote for football here. They vote if they
like (your team). They‟ll vote for increasing your budget when their
niece gets in the University of Georgia. They‟ll vote against your
budget when their niece doesn‟t get into the University of Georgia.
But this gives them another reason to be a supporter of the University
of Georgia and to follow up either directly through the legislative
process or private giving and donations.

So, the thinking was that Public Service and Cooperative Extension, through

a new kind of regional engagement, could assist the university in enhancing

public relations with state stakeholders, which in turn might lead to increased

public (and potentially, private) funding.

Beyond that interest, Public Service and Extension also saw the

Archway Program as an avenue to increase the stature and value accorded

their programs and people. The need to address the increasing

marginalization of cooperative extension extends far beyond UGA, virtually

throughout Extension nationally, according to Jischke (2004): “The historic

support that we have enjoyed for this aspect of our land-grant mission is

eroding. And support at the federal level for cooperative extension has, in

real terms, been declining for many, many years.” In UGA‟s Extension there

was concern about declining knowledge of, and appreciation for, Extension in

part because of the narrowness of its reach within the university. According

to a UGA administrator, “We started talking about how Extension could get

better visibility across the state if we served as the front door to the entire
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university system, not just to the colleges that were involved in Cooperative

Extension.”

Meanwhile, in Public Service there was a sense of frustration around

their traditional approaches to economic and community development in that

they tended to be very project-oriented, with little opportunity for holistic

problem-solving:

The city, county, local group would say, “We have this issue, this
problem. Can you come help us?” We would go, we would design
something that would meet their needs…and then pretty much leave
and move onto the next place. What we felt was, there‟s got to be a
way to continue to work through implementation directly with the local
community, local government, whatever.

On a different dimension, academic units within the university had

needs to identify external service learning opportunities for students. “The

other thing I think a lot of folks are very much interested in is service

learning and opportunities for professors and students to be part of this work

and get into the community,” according to a UGA administrator. Although a

service-learning experience is not an across-the-board requirement for UGA

students, several academic departments and programs encourage or require

students to participate. At least one academic college houses a public

service function, which serves as that college‟s interface for both service

learning projects as well as community requests for assistance. Beyond the

need to serve as matchmaker, this public service unit also depends on

generating its own revenue stream through grants and contracts. So there

are interests ranging from offering enhanced learning opportunities to

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students to developing revenue-bearing relationships with external

constituencies driving academic interest in regional engagement.

University of Georgia Assets

Going into the Moultrie/Colquitt partnership, the University of Georgia

had many assets which could be leveraged and employed. Cooperative

Extension, a primary partner in the Archway program, had long-standing

relationships with communities throughout the state, and had a particularly

good relationship with Moultrie/Colquitt. There was a strong sense at UGA

that the embedded understanding of the Moultrie/Colquitt community that

existed in the Extension organization would be an invaluable asset. As one

UGA administrator expressed,

I think what…particularly Extension brings to the table in the Archway


partnership is a knowledge of that community – a very strong ability to
identify the key leaders and to get those people to the table, and the
resources of the university to (bring to) bear on those issues.

Beyond the basic community relationships that Extension had to offer was

highly relevant subject matter and programmatic expertise that related

particularly to the Latino integration issues raised by the community.

UGA was able to draw upon a number of its public service units in

bringing resources to bear on the needs expressed by Moultrie/Colquitt.

These units included entities affiliated with the Office of Public Service and

Outreach, such as the Carl Vinson Institute of Government and the Fanning

Institute. In addition to these administratively housed entities, public service

units associated with academic colleges, such as the Center for Community
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Design and Preservation, Engineering Outreach Services, and the Housing

Demographics Research Center were tapped. Beyond these units, UGA drew

upon its connections with other entities, including expertise from Georgia

Tech and various departments of Georgia state government. In addition, the

university offered highly skilled facilitation expertise, which allowed the

community to discuss difficult issues in constructive ways.

Another asset which UGA was able to offer in the partnership with

Moultrie/Colquitt was student consulting expertise couched in service

learning opportunities. Through close mentoring by faculty members,

students in the College of Environment and Design conducted a community

design study which was used in the community development planning

process by Moultrie/Colquitt citizens. The faculty member overseeing the

community design student project said, “I think that our dish for the banquet

is student involvement – fresh eyes, young brains - that the university is

recognized for.” Similarly, students in the Terry College of Business‟s

Leonard Leadership Program took on a service learning project that provided

a business analysis of Moultrie‟s community arts center to recommend

feasible options for the center to pay for itself. The faculty member advising

students associated with the project said,

That program has become kind of an opportunity for the Terry College
to really contribute in a lot of ways and also quite frankly be proud of
some of the accomplishments of its best students. I think most people
who interact with students in the program come away impressed with
them. But we also try to communicate to them that, one thing we say
in the program quite frequently is, „To whom much is given, much is
demanded.‟ So, this is a part of it.

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Table 4.
Virginia Tech and Southside - Needs and Assets

Southside Needs Southside Assets

New Economic Base Access to Money

Intellectual Capital Political Connections

Broadband Infrastructure Unique Regional Assets

VT Needs VT Assets

Increased Institutional Prestige Faculty Interest in Off-Campus


Research and Outreach

Increased Research Capacity Strong Information Technology


Expertise

Increased Student Diversity Administrative Departments‟


Expertise

Start-Up Funds for Virginia


Bioinformatics Institute

Southside Regional Needs

In Southside Virginia, regional needs swirling at the onset of Virginia

Tech‟s engagement were centered on the development of a new economic

base. The job base in textiles and tobacco was rapidly eroding and

community leaders believed that attracting high tech companies was critical

to the region‟s future. A failed bid to land a large America On-Line (AOL)

operation promising more than a thousand well-paying jobs helped the

region understand that it lacked two essential ingredients to compete

effectively in that market space: a large base of well-educated workers, and


152
sufficient high capacity telecommunications infrastructure. Beyond the

specific needs identified through the experience with AOL, leaders of the

region learned through a state government commissioned study that three

central elements were associated with healthy regional economies: an

interstate highway, a regional airport, and a major research university. Only

the latter was available to Southside.

These experiences led to decisions to build a building focused on

expanding higher education access in the region, constructing a regional fiber

optic backbone, and attracting a major research university. Being associated

with the brand of a major university was clearly seen as a need. As one

leader indicated, “I think we also knew that we would…benefit from having a

name university, a franchise that people would recognize that would have

acceptability as opposed to having to build – trying to build – something from

scratch.” Most of all leaders wanted the brainpower of people associated

with universities:

We were looking for intellectual capital. We wanted bright people to


be – to come here because we have a real absence of intelligence,
highly trained intelligence, in the area. We wanted (them) to help us
create a vision for the future.

Southside Regional Assets

Southside Virginia similarly had a number of assets with which to

entice Virginia Tech into a partnership, including access to financial capital,

access to political leadership, and unique regional features. Each of these

became an essential ingredient in the eventual partnership with Virginia

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Tech. Southside had a solid base of private wealth in the community,

reflecting the region‟s earlier experiences with economic prosperity. Local

foundations were overseen by boards of directors, on which members of the

community leadership group were well represented. Large trusts were

managed by officers at the local bank, whose president and board members

included members of the community leadership group interfacing with

Virginia Tech. Through past experiences with fundraising for various civic

organizations and candidates for political office, as well as investment

management for many of the community‟s wealthier citizens, community

leaders had a solid understanding of where the money in the community was

located.

Connections to politicians, however, propelled the region into a much

stronger position with regard to the ability to raise funds in conjunction with

prospective partnering activities. Community leaders did not just have social

relationships with federal and state legislators, but had been actively

involved in fundraising for most of them without specifically asking for

anything in return. With Senator John Warner chairing the Armed Services

Committee, Senator George Allen playing an up-and-coming role in the

national Republican party leadership, and Congressman Virgil Goode on

House Appropriations, Southside leaders were well-positioned to present

their region‟s needs to leaders who were in a position to help.

Within the state, the community‟s leadership group again found itself

well-positioned when Mark Warner was elected governor, in no small part

154
because of local leaders‟ backing of Warner, a Democrat, in a Southside

Republican stronghold. The Virginia Tobacco Commission, an unparalleled

source of significant new money for the region, was led by a senior Virginia

senator who hailed from Pittsylvania County.

Connections of local businessmen extended into other aspects of

leadership in the state. One member, an alumnus of Virginia Tech, was

named to the university‟s Board of Visitors and subsequently became Rector

of the Board. Another was named to lead the oversight board for the Virginia

Economic Development Partnership. The state Chamber of Commerce board

was chaired by a Future of the Piedmont member. These and many other

relationships positioned Southside well politically and financially.

A final group of assets set the stage for Virginia Tech‟s interest in

making a more significant, longer-term commitment to the region. These

were assets of the region that offered unique research opportunities and

partnerships. The regional assets of Southside, a unique 1200 acre

motorsports racing complex, a regional concentration of polymers

companies, and an extensive agricultural base, provided opportunities not

available on campus to conduct applied research coupled with commercial

testing activities. In the words of a community leader,

I think the university and the locality need to jointly identify local
regional assets that make projects make sense. We have done that
here in mechanical engineering, taking primary advantage of the local
presence of a local road track, raceway, which gives us very unique
competitive advantages. We have taken advantage of the agricultural
base and the land availability and the fairly well-developed agricultural
economy to feed and provide places for outcomes from horticultural
research to go, and we had in place a fairly significant polymer
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industry so our research efforts are tied to local assets. I think it
would be very difficult to do something like this and develop a
research effort that doesn‟t show prima fascia fit with the locality.

Virginia Tech Needs

Virginia Tech‟s needs as it entered into partnership with the Southside

region also spanned institutional and academic interests. The university‟s

driving ambition in the current decade has been to increase the university‟s

prestige as a research institution, by improving its national ranking in

sponsored research. As noted by Ostriker and Kuh (2003), institutional

reputation affects “where graduate students choose to study, where faculty

choose to locate, and where resources may flow” (p. 38). The beginnings of

the Virginia Tech – Southside partnership emanated from an interest the

university had in securing start-up funds for a new strategic research center.

Because Southside had access to Tobacco Commission funds that weren‟t

available directly to Virginia Tech, the university saw partnering with the

region as an avenue to those funds. So, prestige, money, and political favor

were institutional needs of Virginia Tech.

There were other university needs associated with increasing research

capacity. Space for laboratory facilities was becoming increasingly

constrained and expensive on campus, so there was a need to identify ways

to create new, affordable research laboratories. The volume of faculty

research was limited in part by the number of faculty writing grants and

conducting research, so there was a need to create sustainable, new faculty

156
lines. Perhaps most importantly, sources of funding for research needed to

be expanded.

Another institutional need mentioned was associated with the relative

lack of diversity in the admissions pool for undergraduate students on

campus. There was interest and pressure to attract more students of color.

As expressed by a Virginia Tech administrator, “We hope (the partnership

with Southside) will lead to a pathway of greater diversity of people coming

to Blacksburg.”

Looking through a faculty lens, additional needs and motivations

emerged. The Virginia Tech – Southside partnership included campus-based,

mostly senior Virginia Tech faculty, including some department chairs, who

initiated what mostly became long-term research-centric partnerships with

Southside. It also included Southside-based Virginia Tech-affiliated faculty

who ran the gamut from tenure-track, to research, to research/public service

faculty appointments. Following are findings related to their needs.

Campus-based faculty indicated that their motivations stemmed from

needs associated with expanding their research portfolios and increasing

graduate student capacity (“I got a basic marching order from my dean at

that time to enhance the research and graduate capacity of the

department.”), accessing new sources of funds (“There were a lot of

opportunities in terms of grants and pots of money that otherwise we simply

did not have access to.”), increasing research space and accessing highly

specialized equipment and facilities for research (“There were physical

157
assets down in Southside that we simply didn‟t have and they had a lot of

synergy with the kind of research that we were already doing on campus.”),

bridging with industry to create a distinctive research portfolio (“Universities

are not always aimed at what I‟ll call the practical side…and this was a

chance to maybe build a component that would contain a distinct, practical

application component.”), conduct funded outreach (“We do look for outreach

opportunities…around the state and this opportunity in particular with you all

was a funded opportunity, which made it even more appealing.”), increase

scholarship opportunities (“(A colleague and) I had done some scholarly work

in the area…so we were interested from an inquiry standpoint.”), fulfill land-

grant responsibilities associated with meeting state needs (“It seemed like

the right thing to do for our land-grant university…We felt like that‟s a part of

our state that really could use and needed our assistance so how can we

assist?”), and changing the culture of an academic department to be

collaboration-oriented (“My ambitions were to turn the department attention

to the outside potential collaborations and resources. I inherited a

department which was inward looking and had a lot of conflicts. So this was

the only way to turn the culture.”).

Needs of faculty hired to be based in Southside were highly correlated

with the kind of appointments they accepted. One view expressed was an

interest in being involved in cutting edge science that would have practical

applications:

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I knew I didn‟t want to be a straight academic…I knew I wanted to do
some interesting science, but I wanted to be able to take that science
and apply it for something (practical) and use the research, rather
than just publish papers.

Another view expressed was a concern that tenure track expectations would

be able to be addressed in an off-campus location:

I came into it with the expectation that it would be no different than


any other (tenure-track) faculty member in Blacksburg, but I
recognized the fact that …there‟s more of an emphasis obviously on
economic development and outreach and engagement…Somehow,
somewhere those things have to be rectified.

Virginia Tech Assets

Virginia Tech has offered a wide range of assets to its partnership with

Southside. Contributors extended across many academic and administrative

units within the university, addressing research, education, and outreach as

well as specialists in numerous areas as diverse as information technology,

economic development, multicultural affairs, university architect, corporate

research center, public relations, government relations, finance, legal affairs,

purchasing, business affairs, human resources, and university libraries.

Academic departments have primarily contributed in response to financial

incentives or compensation, typically through grant money. Administrative

departments have contributed in kind, simply because of their commitment

to the public service aspect of the land grant mission and because it was an

opportunity to extend their expertise in an entirely different venue. As one

administrator described his motivations for becoming involved,

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Mine was…a little bit naïve and also out-of-date perspective…I
remember the days when I was a student here…when they really
treasured and valued the fact that Virginia Tech was really connected
to all parts of the state. They saw that as really powerful. They
referred to it as an army in terms of the political strength of that
engagement across the state.

The information technology staff at Virginia Tech contributed

thousands of hours and untold professional expertise to the design and

development of a regional fiber optic backbone as well as to numerous other

information technology-related projects in Southside. Multicultural Affairs

worked with a minority coalition in Southside to develop a non-profit

organization and strategic plan to engage the grassroots of the community in

supporting an education agenda. The university architect‟s office, university

relations, government relations, corporate research center and countless

other departments provided advice and counsel to various projects and

strategies in Southside. University libraries, the graduate school, and office

of research all provided counsel and expertise related to developing and

supporting a graduate education and research agenda in Southside.

On the academic side of the house, faculty members were looking to

satisfy the demands of their professional roles – to increase their research

capacity, to educate more (particularly graduate) students, and to extend

their expertise through outreach (preferably sponsored). The bottom line

was that the faculty could and would bring an enormous shot of intellectual

energy and expertise to the partnership. Tremendous commitments were

made in the engineering and sciences with the establishment of several

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Virginia Tech–led research centers in Southside. Students in companion

graduate programs conducted research and, in some cases, studied in

Southside. These activities had the dual effect of bringing intellectual capital

to the region as well as seeding the creation of a new economic base.

An extensive array of Virginia Tech-led academic outreach programs

benefitted K-14 educators in Southside by providing opportunities to learn

about integrating technology into teaching and learning as well as to learn

about new and emerging fields of science, such as nanotechnology and

bioinformatics. Faculty members from the Institute for Policy and

Governance conducted community capacity studies for local non-profit

organizations and investigated opportunities to establish a grassroots

community leadership development program. Faculty from the community

Design Assistance Center conducted a number of studies related to particular

community planning, design, and landscape architecture issues

Facilitating Engagement

When universities and regions, as prospective partners, have an

understanding of their assets and needs, they need catalytic ingredients that

spark a partnering relationship and develop the relationship beyond a handful

of individuals (Goddard, 2007; Maurrasse, 2001; Morse, 2004). As the

Kellogg Commission (1999) report states, “Leadership to create an

engagement agenda is critical. Engagement will not develop by itself and it

will not be led by the faint of heart” (p. 11). The catalytic ingredients in the

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partnerships studied are linked to the personalities and culture of the

individuals and institutions within the region and at the university. On each

side of the partnership there are individuals who initiate the relationship and

build interest within their respective communities. This early work is

sustained by cultures in the region and university that support and embrace

the partnering relationship.

Specifically, the catalytic agents, or facilitators, studied included: the

role of leadership in the region, the role of leadership at the university, the

culture of the region with regard to engaging into partnership with a

university, and the culture of the university with respect to regional

engagement. Outlined in the following pages are the engagement facilitators

associated with the University of Georgia – Moultrie/Colquitt partnership, and

the Virginia Tech – Southside partnership.

The Role of Regional Leadership in Moultrie/Colquitt

Henton et al. (2002) define the concept of “regional stewardship” by

suggesting that it combines “regional citizenship” with “stewardship of place”

(p. 10). Regional stewards assume responsibility for creating “broad

prosperity, a healthy and attractive environment, and inclusive communities”

for the current and subsequent generation (p. 10). By this definition,

Moultrie/Colquitt was blessed with regional stewards.

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Table 5.
University of Georgia and Moultrie/Colquitt – Partnership Facilitators

Regional Leadership Regional Culture

Public, Private, Non-Profit Leaders of Active Participation of Community in


Key Community Organizations Public Issue Debate & Decision-
Making
Community Above Self Mindset Accept Responsibility for Making
Choices

Belief in Identifying and Developing Assume Partial Financial


Leaders Responsibility for Partnering

University Leadership University Culture

Initiated by Outreach & Extension Interest in Kellogg Commission


Professionals Notion of Engagement

Functional Leadership Motivated by Faculty Engagement Does Not Have


Practicalities to be Linked to Scholarship

Establish an Embedded Community Facilitate Dialogue with Community


Presence to Lead Engagement Partners Around Possible Solutions &
Strategies

Moultrie/Colquitt‟s regional stewards included a mix of public leaders,

private leaders, and non-profit leaders. Several were natives of the region;

others were long-time residents. All expressed a deep commitment to

community above self. In the words of one community leader, “One thing

that separates (Moultrie) from many other communities is that the people

who are in (positions of) responsibility and who are in authority put Moultrie

before they put their own personal interest.” Beyond the visible, formally

recognized leaders, Moultrie has successful business people who “are very

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community-oriented, very politically-connected, very interested in Moultrie,

do a lot to help Moultrie behind the scenes,” according to an interviewee.

There was also a sense that having committed, capable leaders was

not something that should be left to chance. A community should, in the

opinion of Moultrie/Colquitt leaders, be purposeful in identifying its leaders,

going so far as to develop them over a period of time, if necessary. As one

community leader expressed,

The thing you‟ve got to find are those key players and it may not be
today. They may have to be groomed. This may have to be a five-
year plan that if they are interested in doing it, there‟re some steps
you‟ve got to go through before you can bring everybody to the table.
That, I think in large part, is a local determination.

UGA partners were highly complimentary of the regional leaders and

mentioned that this was an important consideration in selecting

Moultrie/Colquitt as the pilot site: “We sensed they had good leadership,

which we felt was another important element and that‟s very, very true.”

However, there were some initial reservations about the demographic

homogeneity of the core leadership group, which was white, male. As one

faculty member from UGA indicated,

One of the things that the students said – this was a study
observation, and I‟ll confirm that – is that we were exposed to a very
white, male audience in Colquitt. And what I explained to them is that
that is the leadership framework that…this is the beginning of the
partnership and in rural Georgia you‟re more likely to see white male
leadership structures.

A final point about leadership that was made in Moultrie/Colquitt was

the need to have strong public and private institutional leadership throughout

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the community supporting a community development agenda, in addition to

having a committed core leadership group. As one leader indicated,

You need strong leadership from the government, your elected


officials, your county commissioners, your school board, and so forth.
But in order to really resolve issues in the community, you‟ve got to
have the support of businesses and industries in the community. If
they are not supporting it, you are not going to make a lot of progress.
In a lot of ways, they (the private sector) are the ones that have a lot
of the resources to bring to bear on these issues as well. So, I think it
has to be a partnership between the elected officials, the government
entities in the community, and the business community.

The Culture of Regional Engagement in Moultrie/Colquitt

Once the regional stewards initiate a relationship with a university,

there must be some predisposition in the region to support the partnership

because a broad base of participation is needed if the partnership is to have

a significant impact on the long-term wellbeing of the community. As

Goddard (2007) points out, tensions between different interest groups in a

region and fragmentation of decision-making can result in problematic

partnerships. What were the dynamics associated with Moultrie/Colquitt‟s

decision to engage with the University of Georgia? How did those dynamics

play out in the region?

One of the “ground rules” that the University of Georgia established at

the outset of the Archway concept was to have the partnership be guided by

the needs and interests expressed by the community. This meant that the

people of Moultrie/Colquitt had to agree to be active participants in the

process of determining priorities and implementing solutions. At the end of

the day, this participation meant a willingness to invest a lot of time and
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energy in the partnership as well as to accept responsibility for the

outcomes. From the university‟s perspective, this approach would serve the

community well in the long run: “It is community-driven and that‟s what

really helps empower the communities.”

This partnering model required Moultrie/Colquitt to be introspective, to

be thoughtful about the priority and sequencing of addressing problems, and

to be willing to talk openly about difficult and divisive issues. By exposing

their fears, concerns, and “warts” to outsiders, including college students,

they agreed to be vulnerable. In return, they had the opportunity to benefit

from whatever expertise and recommendations the university brought

forward. According to one UGA leader,

You asked what does the community bring, and I think the main thing
they bring is a willingness to openly examine themselves and identify
issues, and then be active participants in the solution…We feel like we
want communities that want us to be there and have the vision to see
what the university can bring to the table, but I think the community
needs to be a willing participant. If they are not, then we‟re not going
to accomplish much.

From the community side, there was an understanding that people in

Moultrie/Colquitt would have to accept responsibility for charting the course.

According to one community leader, “Archway came very clearly stating that,

„We have resources, we have interest, we want to help you. But you‟ve got

to define your own destiny.‟” Those who were skeptical at first, or even put

off, about having outsiders come in and offer expertise and solutions came to

understand that the university expected the community to judge what

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suggestions to accept and which to throw away. As described by one

community member,

What we found is those who are coming are not trying to tell us how to
do our business. They are trying to help us understand what our
business is and try to facilitate ways to find solutions to those things.

A strategy that was used as the partnership developed was to invite

the broader community into the process of considering recommendations and

piloting solutions. According to one community leader, this approach of

involving the citizens was part of the community‟s standard practice when

considering significant decisions: “Whether we are talking about Archway or

whether we are talking about special projects, we always try to involve the

public. The public doesn‟t always accept an invitation, but they‟re always

invited.” Leaders see this public dialogue as an important mechanism for

obtaining community buy-in: “We try to do things with small groups of the

public to start validating what we‟re doing and trying to make that buy-in

more than just words. And that just grows as the process continues.”

When pressed about the inclusion of voices that represented different

parts of the community, racially, ethnically, and socio-economically, city

leaders pointed to efforts to be more inclusive of under-represented

populations. Some particular efforts mentioned were the city manager‟s

work to proactively connect with all the neighborhoods of Moultrie “to try to

make sure that connection wasn‟t just casual or academic,” the deliberate

hiring of a new (minority) planning and community development director

“who was very, very interested in building from the grassroots up as opposed

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to top-down,” the diversity of the city council, the proactive work through the

Archway partnership to engage the Hispanic population, and the

development of a human relations commission.

At a concrete level, Moultrie/Colquitt committed to the Archway

partnership through a financial contribution. Four prominent regional

organizations decided to match contributions from the university to fund an

Archway professional in their community. This commitment invested them in

the success of the partnership and provided ample opportunities to ensure

that their issues had visibility to the expertise of the university: “The city

and the county and hospital and schools…came up to match the funds. So

there was more than just casual commitment, there was financial

commitment. The buy-in was not just philosophical; it was real.”

The engagement by the people of Moultrie/Colquitt sparked a virtuous

circle, because they became human and their issues became real to faculty

back on the University of Georgia campus in Athens. The needs and the case

for applying university expertise became very compelling. The UGA faculty

member responsible for the business school‟s service-learning engagement in

Moultrie said,

Why we went to Moultrie was because Moultrie came to us and asked.


And we felt like – both from the community and from the university –
this was something that we should take seriously. They were asking
and asking in a compelling way. When I say the Moultrie citizens
came to us, they were citizens who were passionate about this arts
center and saw it as an integral part of their economic development.
And (they) wanted assistance with how to…make this arts center
everything that they envisioned it potentially to be.

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In the eyes of the people of Moultrie/Colquitt, the success of the

partnership hinged on the chemistry of the partners and the community‟s

desire to engage with the university. Without the right mix of people on both

sides of the relationship and the community‟s desire to enter into a

partnership with the university, sustainable engagement is unlikely to occur.

According to a Moultrie regional steward,

In terms of Moultrie,…the timing was right and the chemistry was right
and it happened, but there‟re some things that‟ve got to be in place
before it‟s a done deal…You‟ve got to want it and they are there to
help you if you do want to do it…You gotta have to want to. That‟s the
bottom line. You‟ve gotta want to.

The Role of University Leadership at the University of Georgia

The role of university administrators in engagement involves

“connecting to community resources” and “creating institutional structures

that support community partnerships” (Brukardt et al., 2004, p.3). Just as

there was a critical core leadership group in the Moultrie/Colquitt region, so

too there were key leaders at the University of Georgia who provided the

impetus and fuel for the partnership. As documented earlier in this chapter,

these key leaders at UGA emanated from the Public Service and Outreach

office and from the Cooperative Extension organization. Leaders in the two

organizations saw the need for a way to more effectively interface with

communities across the state.

What did these university leaders do behind the scenes to facilitate the

engagement? One approach they took was to make a conscious decision to

let the engagement be driven more from the ground up than from the top
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down. So they did not go to the president or the deans and solicit their

approval. As one recounted, “Did we start by going to the deans and saying,

„We‟ve got this neat program and you really need to get your faculty

involved‟? No. I‟m not sure that works.”

UGA leaders of the partnership with Moultrie/Colquitt also worked

through contacts they had within and outside the university to identify

individuals with particular kinds of expertise, subsequently following up to

gauge interest among these individuals for engaging that expertise with

Moultrie/Colquitt:

We try really hard to find – we have a need from the community and
we try to find somebody who has a common interest and if those
match up, then life is generally easier. So, it‟s a pull, rather than a
push.

After initial meetings in the community, the university leaders brought

community leaders to campus to present their needs to an invited group of

faculty and staff with expertise in various areas related to the issues surfaced

by the community. This campus-based meeting was followed by a trip to

Moultrie “to see first-hand” and “develop some of that desire to help, like we

had,” in the words of a UGA administrator.

The leaders from Extension and Public Service worked intentionally to

entice faculty and students to seriously consider engaging with the region.

One strategy they employed was to “grease the wheels” by paying for faculty

and student travel and incidental expenses:

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Someone said early in the process, „You‟ll never get them (faculty) to
do that because they want you to serve it to them on a silver platter.‟
I heard that and I said, „You know, that‟s what we‟re about. Serving it
up on a silver platter.‟ And so that‟s what I told the provost when we
took him down to Moultrie. I said, „If we make it easy for faculty to be
involved, more will be involved.‟

Archway campus leaders, through the Vice President of Public Service

and Outreach, kept the university vice presidents informed on the status of

the project, and through that interface were invited as a team to give a

presentation to university leaders about Archway. As the project began to

experience some successes, key university leaders, including the president,

provost, and chief financial officer, were invited to Moultrie/Colquitt to see

and hear about the partnership firsthand.

The other significant element in the university‟s leadership approach

was the decision to designate someone as the official point person from the

university in the community, and the ability to find someone who was

masterful at the role:

I think one of the keys to success is having that…person to provide the


active transfer of information and resources. I don‟t think you could
do it with someone or not consistently be successful by having
someone on campus, particularly when Archway is a four-hour drive
from campus. I think a critical component is having that person on
the ground in that community.

Another UGA administrator spoke to the importance of developing a high

trust relationship between the Archway professional and community:

“(Dennis) became part of that community. They felt like he was one of

them…the community has to have trust in that individual.”

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Engagement As Defined by the University of Georgia

The University of Georgia embarked on the Archway Partnership

concept as a means to respond to the Kellogg Commission‟s Returning to Our

Roots (1999) call for state and land-grant universities to engage with the

needs of their publics:

Ever since the Kellogg Commission‟s publication in 2000 on the Future


of State and Land-Grant universities, UGA leadership had been
struggling with how best to implement the Commission‟s Seven Part
Test of Engagement... (Archway) aims to transform UGA into a land-
grant institution for the 21st century by offering a mechanism for fully
integrating research and teaching with outreach to address the state‟s
critical needs. (The Archway Partnership Project: Connecting the
University of Georgia to All Georgians, 2007, p. 2)

The university determined the best way to re-define their land grant

mission was to leverage the infrastructure, relationships, and success of the

Cooperative Extension organization, by extending the concept of a

community-based university presence to one that would interface with the

full university. They learned in the first meeting how powerful that concept

was to a community:

I‟ll tell you what sold (the region) though, and this is really powerful. I
told Dr. Dunning this after the first meeting. What really lit up the
eyes was when we sat down and said, „What we‟re going to do is we‟re
going to - you know Extension, and you know some of the public
service units – do is we‟re going to come together…to give you access
to all the rest of the university (beyond the two colleges you‟re
currently accessing through Extension)‟. The eyes lit up and people
could develop a vision of what could happen and that really helped get
it going.

The point of the Archway model was to provide a simple, single point

of interface from the community into the university, and to provide faculty

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and students an easy avenue for interface externally. As described by a UGA

initiator of the Archway Partnership Program,

It‟s really a very simple model. We want to make it easy for the
community to figure out what their needs are and access higher ed,
and we want to make it easy for faculty and students, especially those
that don‟t have an Extension or Outreach-type appointment, to
become engaged in those communities.

Although many faculty and staff members associated with land-grant

universities are familiar with their institutions‟ historic ties to a public service

mission, they don‟t always have an effective mechanism for connecting in

meaningful ways to external communities. Archway has provided that, in the

eyes of one academic:

The University of Georgia can be a big part of (helping the state


address the needs of poor counties) because we‟ve got the brainpower
to help communities think about how they want to grow and develop
and change. So, finding a way of getting our capacity to those really
poor counties that desperately need it is critical. And this seems like a
good way of doing it.

A critical way that the University of Georgia has defined its

engagement role through the Archway program is to be a facilitator of

community development, by engaging a cross-section of the community in a

dialogue: “The process is very powerful and ends up pulling together

communities in a way that they haven‟t been pulled together before and gets

people talking across some of those boundaries.” Another significant aspect

of partnering with the region is UGA‟s commitment to draw in resources that

make sense to address the community‟s issues, whether or not those all

come from the University of Georgia:

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We don‟t make any claim that we can solve all problems. We do make
the claim that we are going to put a resource in place to facilitate the
discussion and to bring resources. But it‟s not just University of
Georgia resources and not even just higher ed.

Taking engagement seriously has a number of benefits back to the

academic side of the university, according to UGA academicians. There‟s

been opportunity to cross disciplinary silos to address community needs:

“So, this can get us to a place where we can have disciplines partner in a

way that we haven‟t partnered before on campus.” Partnering with the

Moultrie community has helped faculty shape their work in a more relevant

way: “Our solutions tend to be fairly academic and so sometimes they work

and sometimes they don‟t. By combining these two groups (faculty and

community) it helps our faculty get a little more grounded…into what‟s

doable and what‟s not.” There is also a sense that all community

engagement doesn‟t have to meet the litmus test of providing an opportunity

for scholarship. Sometimes, recognizing that serving a community with

faculty or student expertise is the appropriate response: “I don‟t think

anybody wants to go to a local community and say, „We‟ll only do this if we

can get data to publish a paper.‟”

Part of regional engagement in the Archway model, according to one

faculty member, is providing the community with information they need, not

just information they want. It means entering into dialogue with the

community about solutions and rationales for those solutions, rather than

autocratically telling the community they need to take a certain path to solve

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a problem. As described by one faculty member involved in

Moultrie/Colquitt,

In my piece of the pie…we had to make some pretty tough calls and
tell them some pretty not-anticipated recommendations….I think
having a forum for discussion rather than just the big university
coming in and telling them, this was much more of a dialogue
situation. It was one that if we had told them something that they
could not live with at all, we would have had a chance to discuss that
at length. But we told them a lot of things they had questions about
and by the end, with explanation, they saw the benefit of our
recommendation.

An important point about UGA‟s perspective on engagement is that

making a commitment to a holistic partnership requires a university to put

itself out there - going out on a limb to say to a community that the

university will be open to helping with whatever issues the community puts

on the table:

You have to be a risk-taker because you are fully exposed. I mean


there‟s no doubt about it. You are exposed…You can‟t hide. You gotta
go and you better do well, but that‟s OK, though. That‟s what it‟s
about. You know, that is what institutions (of higher education) should
be about. We should be the risk-takers because there are certain
things in place that help shelter us from the downside of the risk. We
should not be the most conservative element in the state. We should
be the most innovative, we should be pushing the envelope…I mean,
go for it, you know?

An engagement challenge with which UGA is wrestling in the Archway

concept is defining the “end game” and the appropriate role of the university

in a region over time. The focus of the university‟s work has been very

process- and project-oriented. Should a goal be that the community

becomes self-sufficient at facilitating community dialogue, rather than

continuing to depend on the university to provide third party facilitation

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neutrality? Should the university limit its engagement to a pre-determined

timeframe, agree with the community on a list of projects to be addressed

during that timeframe, then move on to work with another community or

region at the end of that timeframe? All of this is weighed against the

region‟s previous experiences with universities, as shared by community

partners in Moultrie/Colquitt with UGA Archway representatives, of “being

used” by universities to obtain grants that benefit the researcher much more

than the community. When the grants were over, the community never saw

the faculty members again.

The payoffs to the university from the Archway model extend beyond

the academic quarters of UGA. The Cooperative Extension organization

found that it was drawn into the center of critical issues, in ways that had not

previously valued Extension expertise. According to one Extension

administrator, “That‟s taking extension from being marginalized and putting

them right here. That‟s a change.” Far beyond Extension, evidence of a big

political payoff to the university was cited by one UGA administrator who told

a story about Moultrie/Colquitt hosting one of the top UGA leaders. Toward

the end of the visit, the university leader, in a conversation with local

leaders, indicated that he‟d like to share some of the story of the partnership

with the governor. One of the community partners responded by saying that

he‟d be with the governor in the next week and would be happy to take care

of that for the university leader. From the university‟s perspective, having a

prominent regional leader across the state from the university comment to

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the governor about how much value the university was bringing to the region

was invaluable.

Table 6.
Virginia Tech and Southside – Partnership Facilitators

Regional Leadership Regional Culture

Private Sector Leadership Accepted Regional Development Plan

Regional Brokers Create a Physical Presence for


University in Region

Initiate and Sustain Ask University to Define Engagement


Strategies that Would Result in
Economic Transformation
Hold People Accountable to Accept Full Financial Responsibility for
Partnership Partnership Start-Up

Advocate Risk-Taking

University Leadership University Culture

Pursue Engagement at Request of Interest in Defining 21st Century


President Land-Grant Mission

Functional Leadership Motivated by Embrace Concept of Holistic


Idealism Engagement – Institutional
Commitment to a Region
Establish an Embedded Community Faculty and Staff Motivated by
Presence to Lead Engagement Opportunism and Idealism

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The Role of Regional Leadership in Southside

Regional stewardship, according to Henton, et al. (2002), is the

“commitment of regional leaders to place” to “ensure the long-term well-

being of a region” (p. 10). This definition of regional stewardship suggests

that leadership in a region must transcend a dependence on elected leaders

who may be overly focused on short-term community improvements.

Rather, it must envelop groups of individuals who are deeply committed to

leaving a multi-generational legacy of regional prosperity.

Southside‟s local leadership group, the Future of the Piedmont,

consisted of self-selected private sector businessmen who collectively

committed themselves to improving their region. These seven white men

were natives or longtime residents of Danville or Pittsylvania County. All had

earned at least a bachelor‟s degree; a couple had professional degrees

beyond the bachelor‟s level. Most were the presidents or leaders of their

respective businesses. By the year 2000, they were discouraged by the lack

of progress their region had made on an economic change agenda, despite

several studies that had been shared with the community. Rather than

throwing in the towel or depending on political leaders saddled with short-

term constituent expectations, these leaders decided that they would work as

a very small core group to begin to move the region in a new direction.

From a Virginia Tech‟s perspective, local leadership was the critical

factor that moved Southside forward. One Virginia Tech administrator

interviewed recounted a story of another Virginia community that had, in the

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late 1990s, seemed to have more potential for the kind of holistic partnership

that the university later entered into with Southside. He indicated that the

other community had a larger resource base and a group of people who

embraced a different kind of economy than Southside envisioned at the time,

“but the leadership never really emerged there locally to partner with the

land-grant university in the same way it did in Southside…The difference pure

and simply was leadership from the community.” Another Virginia Tech

administrator said,

The critical factor is, you know, Virginia Tech can make itself available,
but the critical factor in terms of whether or not this is going to play I
think is…whether or not they‟ve got a critical mass of several really
strong, committed leaders that are just going to do everything in their
power to make this thing successful. And I think that‟s what we‟ve
had in Southside.

One of the key considerations of the self-selected Future of the

Piedmont group was the sense that they should constrain membership to

private sector leaders only. The rationale for this was a concern about public

leaders being subject to political whims and pressures as well as being

constrained to a much slower public scrutiny process. According to one FOTP

member, “I think it goes a lot easier because (if) the private sector does it

then you avoid a lot of the impediments to slow movement, and we have

been very careful to stay non-political.” Another said, “I think one of the

shortcomings of having the public drive it rather than the private is that it

took staying power even in the face of difficult times… Public officials – they

have got to play the political game.” And a third added, “They lack staying

179
power. They‟re short-term, relatively speaking...They‟re elected for finite

periods of time.”

Part of the challenge in the geographic footprint originally targeted in

the Virginia Tech partnership, the City of Danville and Pittsylvania County,

was the bitter history between the city and county. In Virginia, cities and

counties are governed independently and separately, which can lead – as it

did in this region – to annexation battles with winners and losers. The Future

of the Piedmont knew that it would take support and resources from both the

city and county to change the economic tide, so believed that it would be

best to serve in the role of regional brokers, to bring the government leaders

together: “The fact that we have had the private sector commitment here, I

think, has tended to bring along the public sector. The public sector,

particularly those who are elected, recognize that they are elected by the

private sector.”

It is not enough for regional leaders to initiate partnerships with

universities and step away from relationship responsibility. Such

partnerships are complicated, long-term affairs requiring continuous work on

both sides to anticipate and solve problems. The role of regional stewards in

sustaining the Southside – Virginia Tech partnership was emphasized by the

regional leaders: “I don‟t think the partnership will sustain itself without

(regional leaders). I think that just like you need the regional leadership to

get started, they have got to be there providing the sustained support and

staying power.”

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Part of the responsibility of the regional leaders, as they articulated,

was to keep both the local governments focused on the partnership as well

as the university. Southside regional leaders saw part of their role as holding

people accountable to the partnership and working behind the scenes to do

whatever was necessary to keep the partnership on track: “I think (the role

of regional leaders) is to continually communicate support and demand high

standards of performance.” Finally, in the opinion of Future of the Piedmont

members, the regional leaders have to be ready to do what it takes to keep

the partnership moving forward, “including providing some political cover

when necessary.”

The Culture of Regional Engagement in Southside

Leaders from Danville and Pittsylvania County in Southside Virginia

began to think about partnering with a major university in the 1990‟s, after

being exposed to a study suggesting that growing, high-tech economies were

often linked to research universities. They went so far as to try to get

Virginia Tech to assume responsibility for small, private Averett College in

Danville. Virginia Tech wasn‟t interested, and the possibility of an alliance

dropped until the prospect of tens of millions of dollars flowing to Southside

from the Master Tobacco Settlement materialized in the year 2000. With this

significant point of leverage, leaders in Southside found they had a more

receptive audience in Blacksburg.

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Astutely, the regional FOTP leaders organized themselves and

garnered non-profit status, so that they might qualify as a recipient for

various grant funds. They also commissioned a study and strategic action

plan for the Danville/Pittsylvania county region, to spell out the challenges

the region faced and to recommend a set of actions to set the region on a

more positive economic course. Such a strategic action plan dovetails with

Goddard‟s (2007) report that some regions have been successful in coming

together around strategic plans that evaluate regional strengths,

weaknesses, opportunities, and threats then align university engagement

with a broad-based regional development plan.

The study‟s report, Learning.Working.Winning., did serve as a

mechanism to coalesce the region around public recognition of the region‟s

challenges as well as key strategies to address the challenges in ways that

included partnering with a research university. As the Southside study was

being conducted and subsequently discussed by a larger, hand-picked group

from the region, Virginia Tech was invited into the planning conversations.

What was clear by 2001 was that the regional leaders wanted two things

from Virginia Tech: to have a presence in Southside, and to assume a

leadership role in crafting a “game plan” to move the region to a higher tech

economic base.

The details of how the university would propose to assist the region in

transitioning its economy were entrusted to Virginia Tech. Regional leaders

felt that securing the agreement of Virginia Tech to partner was the major

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victory; what would happen beyond that was something that needed to be

defined along the way. According to one regional leader,

We really didn‟t have a choice. What Tech was bringing I was not
sure, but I knew we needed them. So my thought process was to let
it work its course and see where it goes…I just felt, and I think (City)
Council did, too, that it would work. We were really going on blind
faith.

Virginia Tech had a few conditions for partnering with the region. One

was that the leadership needed to commit to pulling the community together.

According to a regional leader, “I think that we were told that we needed to

deliver commitment both from the public sector and the private sector at the

local level, and we were successful in accomplishing that goal.” Second, the

work of the partnership needed to be carried on new money that the region

would take primary responsibility for securing. Again, the region delivered:

“We (provided finances) without creating financial obligations or

commitments on the part of Virginia Tech. We financed the building and we

essentially financed the operation of the Institute with funds derived locally.”

Third, the region would be open to participating in an experiment with the

university to test a new model of outreach: “We were going to be the

opportunity for them to have a different type of extension program - that is a

different model than they had had before.”

Although there was consternation in various pockets of the region‟s

population about the partnership with Virginia Tech, the Future of the

Piedmont leaders who had been frustrated time and time again at the lack of

action on a change agenda finally had wind in their sails. They had enlisted a

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major partner with a lot of cachet regionally and statewide. Money was

beginning to flow into the region to launch new initiatives proposed by

Virginia Tech. The train had left the station at last and passion was running

high. As early successes were achieved, an increasing number of people

became believers that the region really could turn the corner. A sense of

pride associated with being trailblazers began to surface.

So the risk-taking associated with the early regional leadership on

engagement was beginning feed on itself. Local leaders who had stuck their

necks out and put their reputations on the line by voting to funnel millions of

tobacco dollars to the partnership were proud to be associated with the effort

and beginning to see their region as a winner:

Well, when this got started and the wave started coming with this, (a
prominent citizen) got re-energized again, and I think a lot of people
have taken that same route. They‟ve been re-energized and they‟ve
started now to believe that we will benefit from this and we will be
unique. We started something that a lot of other communities could
look at as a model and pull things that would fit their time and locality
from what we‟ve done here. That‟s your pride.

Perhaps most significantly, the leaders of Southside knew they needed

some dramatic interventions to thrive, and possibly even to survive, in the

future and they knew they didn‟t have the expertise and answers to set their

ship on the right course. So, they decided to take a leap of faith and hope

that the relationship with Virginia Tech would produce changes that would

benefit their region over the long haul. They learned that it wasn‟t always

smooth sailing, but began to believe that their ship was on a better course.

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Look, I‟m going to tell you…it had its bumps in it, curves, and its
difficult situations. But without (Virginia Tech) this would have been a
difficult thing to pull off. We needed that – we needed those eyes and
those thoughts from the outside coming in that kept telling us, „Stay
with it. It‟ll work. Have faith in it.‟ And we did.

The Role of University Leadership at Virginia Tech

Institutions characterized by successful engagement have internal

“champions” who understand the value of partnering a university with a

community and can articulate the benefits to critical internal faculty and

administrative stakeholders. According to Brukardt et al. (2004),

Engagement champions answer „why.‟ They connect the often


unspoken and deeply felt culture and traditions of the academy to the
benefits of engagement. They „de-mystify‟ engagement by providing
the rationale for how engagement can distinguish the institution,
support faculty research, improve learning and enrich students. (p. 14)

Virginia Tech‟s leadership on the Southside initiative was driven

significantly by the passion and vision of a small leadership team from the

university who saw an opportunity to experiment with a different approach to

outreach: “We‟ve all come to know that universities are kind of profound

economic drivers, but the question is, „Does that have to be concentrated in

one spot as has been the tendency, at least at Virginia Tech?‟” They were

interested in how the university might bring a much broader set of assets

into play in interfacing with communities in other parts of the state.

According to Virginia Tech‟s vice provost for outreach at the time the

partnership was initiated, speaking about his own motivations as well as

those of the vice president of information technology,

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I think Erv and I were particularly interested in trying to help the
university perhaps reframe what it thought it could be in locations
external to the campus…I was more than lightly anxious to try to see if
we couldn‟t bring broader elements of the university into that linkage
out in the state.

Part of their agenda was not only to understand how the university

could have a more significant impact on a region, but also how, by engaging

more robustly, the university might change and benefit as a result of the

partnership.

I think all of us were not only interested in trying to see how a


university could be involved in this kind of economic transition…but I
think we were also interested in seeing how the university might
transform a bit in this process… So I think part of what we hoped to
get out of this as an institution was new insight into how we might
behave.

As in the UGA – Moultrie/Colquitt partnership, a strategic decision was

made to drive the university‟s interface to the region from within the region,

not from campus. The approach agreed to by the community leaders and

Virginia Tech was to place two university people on the ground in Danville, to

serve as liaisons between the community and Virginia Tech as well as to

implement the vision for the partnership. The people who were recruited into

the roles in Danville in 2001 were familiar with the Kellogg Commission‟s

1999 report on the future of the land grant university, Returning to Our

Roots, and saw the proposed Virginia Tech – Southside partnership as an

opportunity for the university to put into practice the “engagement” concept.

The regional leaders indicated that what they thought was needed in the

early days from Virginia Tech‟s local interface was “vision” and “flexibility”

and that they had benefited from these qualities in their first pair of leaders.
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“We were very fortunate to have a pair that came in that, in fact,

complemented the early development, and if you don‟t have strong

leadership in the beginning, again, it‟ll fall apart.”

Another important aspect to the university leadership, cited by a

member of the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors, was the support of the

president of the university. The breadth and depth of the partnership with

Southside was far beyond any that the university had previously

experienced. Not only was an enormous amount of time spent by university

people on various aspects of supporting the partnership, but the partnership

pushed on many structures, policies, and processes that could not have been

resolved without the commitment of the top leadership of the university. It

also brought faculty from different disciplines and colleges together. As a

Virginia Tech board member expressed,

You had to have a president of a university that said that he thought


that this was part of their mission… It probably helped the university
more in ways they never expected…(such as) when the team from
here would go up and would meet with all the different schools in one
room to talk about research and about projects. Then the schools
started working better amongst themselves on campus – something
they had not done well in the past… Each department in the university
is like a stovepipe and doesn‟t have any connection. The Institute
(Institute for Advanced Learning and Research) did a lot to bring – to
connect the pieces.

Engagement as Defined by Virginia Tech

Virginia Tech‟s aspiration for the institution‟s partnership with

Southside was to use this experience as a springboard for redefining what it

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meant to be a land-grant university in the context of 21st century challenges

and pressures:

This partnership presents a significant opportunity to reinvent the land


grant mission. Virginia Tech has, without doubt, stepped out of the
ivory tower and is learning first-hand lessons about how a major
research university can effectively serve communities and the
problems they face in the 21st century. (Virginia Tech - Southside
Virginia Partnership Case Statement, 2004).

From the perspective of those involved in the early stages of the partnership,

the university‟s engagement with Southside represented an opportunity to

align public need with institutional mission:

I think that Virginia Tech also saw it as an opportunity to recreate their


land-grant mission and so I think there was an incentive that wasn‟t
monetary. I think there was an alignment with mission and a sort of
timeliness with regard to Virginia Tech rethinking how its outreach and
engagement mission would be executed, the land-grant mission would
be executed.

One defining criteria for the partnership was the holistic scope,

designed to address both economic and community development needs.

Maurrasse (2001) suggests that university engagement implies partnership

efforts that involve many people across the institution and are supported as

high institutional priorities: “Institutional commitment to community

partnerships cannot be assessed through rhetoric alone. Commitment is

more than a handful of students and professors working with community-

based organizations. We can assess commitment through indicators of

institutional priority” (p. 6).

One Virginia Tech administrator described the breadth of the

university‟s partnership with Southside: “It‟s not just education, it‟s not just

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research, it‟s not just outreach. It truly is integrated and it attacks both the

economic and social systems of Southside Virginia.” The partnership went

far beyond the traditional Extension model. In the re-telling of a story about

the community‟s request for assistance to Virginia Tech‟s president, a Virginia

Tech administrator relayed the president‟s response that the university had a

cooperative extension presence in the region. The regional leader replied

that they needed “some other level of engagement.” What was required,

according to the leader, was no less than an “institutional commitment to a

region.”

The harsh reality of the situation was that the Southside region was

undergoing a dramatic economic downturn, in which the state of affairs in

the region would get worse before it had a chance to get better. Engagement

in this context forced the university into a different approach than they had

used previously: “In a region that is distressed – economically distressed,

socially distressed – the strategies have to be somewhat different. In this

context, the risks were greater, but rewards are greater.” Accepting

responsibility for being a steward of the region meant accepting responsibility

for addressing not only a host of issues but also designing a strategy to move

the region on a path to economic prosperity.

With one prong of its engagement strategy, the university decided to

extend selected research expertise from campus to stimulate the

development of new economic activities that would be more resilient to off-

shoring than routine production. Though led by Virginia Tech, this

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“distributed research” activity engaged the expertise of NASA, Research

Triangle Institute, the U.S. Department of Defense, Old Dominion University,

and private partners. It coupled applied research with commercial testing,

entrepreneurship support, and product development. For faculty, this called

upon far more than narrow research expertise; instead it involved them in a

host of business development issues, not unlike those an entrepreneur would

encounter. According to one faculty member, “There‟s a little bit of a

pioneering spirit in all of us.” Virginia Tech brought a huge dose of expertise

and credibility that, in turn, brought other partners on board. In assessing

the university‟s primary contributions to the partnership, one Virginia Tech

administrator said, “I think that the University has brought expertise, the

connections that go with expertise, and other organizations who have

stepped up to the table and have been significant partners.”

Another prong of the engagement strategy was focused on developing

the people of the region to prepare them to participate in a very different

economic structure. An administrator involved in shaping the partnership

said, “Everything we pushed … (was) that there needed to be an investment

in people, that the biggest problem was that the people down there needed

to be able to become participants in a very different kind of economy.”

Although the intellectual capital quotient was intended to be jump-started by

the in-migration of research faculty and graduate students to the region, the

core of the focus was on developing the people of the region. As one faculty

member said, “In the long run the real measure is will we make the lives of

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the people of Southside better? Are we really going to be a positive force in

making their lives better?” Another Virginia Tech faculty member said,

“There‟s a strong social science component, an educational component for

the outreach, and I think it cannot be (addressed) just by preaching at

people.”

A third prong of the engagement strategy concentrated on information

technology infrastructure development and application adoption. Virginia

Tech‟s Information Technology team had had significant community

engagement experience with the Electronic Village program that started as

an experiment in Blacksburg in 1991, then was adopted with the university‟s

assistance in hundreds of communities across the country. Virginia Tech‟s

philosophy was centered on the belief that they should leverage their

expertise in leading edge technologies for the benefit of underserved regions.

As the vice president of information technology suggested,

There are these emerging new technologies and technologies that are
viewed as potentially disruptive… and part of the university‟s role and
IT organization‟s role can be to figure out how to get regions and
communities into the game just a little bit ahead of someone else in
the same way that we got Blacksburg into the network world a little bit
ahead of some other communities.

He went on to indicate that some of the emerging technology areas that

Virginia Tech is positioning itself to assist communities with include: high

performance computing, cognitive radio technology, security and safety.

Virginia Tech learned in the Southside partnership that the university

would need to revisit many assumptions about its policies, processes, and

systems. According to one senior administrator, “The (partnership) required


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the institution, Virginia Tech, to rethink business practices, system

structures…and so it has challenged our capacity which, I think, has been

positive.” Others, particularly faculty members, point out that there is still

much work to do to align the campus in ways that are more synergistic with

supporting the extensive off-campus distributed research and education

activities.

Another challenge of engagement in this kind of partnership has been

managing expectations of a population which does not understand research,

the potential for research to feed economic growth, the importance of

developing people, and the relatively long timetable associated with creating

a very different, knowledge-based economy. As one administrator indicated,

The Virginia Tech engagement on this is all about a long-term


investment. It‟s about a twenty- or thirty-year return on investment.
I‟ve compared it to what they tried in the Research Triangle in North
Carolina. People rave about this now that it was so farsighted. But I
can remember when they first started. Ten years after they started
the investments in building up this Research Triangle concept there
were people saying, „Where‟s the payback on this?‟ …The fifteen- to
twenty- to twenty-five year timeframe is when it exploded.

The local citizens and politicians feel the daily pressure of a failing

economy and want quick fixes and tangible activities. But quick fixes and

new buildings are not going to build the most critical assets needed for long-

term economic competitiveness. A Virginia Tech interviewee expressed

frustration with the region‟s overemphasis on buildings as the expense of

developing the region‟s people,

You can show the building but it‟s very difficult to get the body politic
around the idea that the really important and long-term payback is

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investment in programs. It‟s investment in people, and you know, you
don‟t necessarily have something to show from that two years later.

Virginia Tech has committed itself to an engagement relationship with

Southside that has focused on putting the building blocks in place for building

toward long-term economic prosperity. “And so I believe that we‟ve

established the base for long-term very positive activity down there, and I

believe that community knows that.”

Structuring Engagement

As noted by Goddard (2007), once a region and a university decide to

enter into partnership with each other, important considerations revolve

around how that relationship should be structured:

Working in partnership for regional development is a dynamic process


which will alter all of the parties. Success requires: both sides to have
a sense that partnership is in their own organizational interest; the
capacity to commit to specific short-term decisions with a clear
product and delivery date and sustainability; institutional memory
supported by a modern knowledge management system that
transcends changes of personnel and policy orientation; and formal
arrangements for evaluation and programme enhancement. (p. 38)

In particular, the partners need to determine how they will set goals, how

they will secure the needed human and financial resources, how they will

measure success and be accountable to stakeholders, and how they will

establish a governance structure that will sustain the partnership. Presented

below is an overview of how these four structural supports were addressed

by the partnerships between the University of Georgia with Moultrie/Colquitt,

and Virginia Tech with Southside.


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Table 7.
University of Georgia and Moultrie/Colquitt Partnership Goal-Setting

University Goals Opportunities for Student Learning

Opportunities for Sponsored Research


Community-Driven Agenda

Involve Faculty who Have Something to Gain

Community Third-Party Facilitated Dialogue


Goals
Introduce New Information to Address Community Issues
Opportunity to Benefit from Student and Faculty
Intellectual Capital
Joint Goals Economic and Community Development Components
Deliberate, Sequenced, Inclusive Process

Monthly Revisiting of Goals


Maintain Flexibility

Goal-Setting in the University of Georgia – Moultrie/Colquitt Partnership

For each partner in the UGA-Moultrie/Colquitt relationship there were

important considerations that informed the goal-setting process. One

consideration from the university was that the partnership be open to goal

setting that would include both economic as well as community development

components. This sentiment was based on university professionals‟

understanding of what regions needed to be viable in a global economy.

According to one UGA administrator, “The only way to really position yourself

well…and compete in the global economy is to have a holistic approach to

improving all fronts of your economy.”

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Another important consideration from the university‟s perspective was

that both sides of the partnership agreed to share the responsibility to be

teachers as well as learners. The partnership was not uni-dimensional, with

the university as teacher and the region as learner. The region agreed to

serve as teacher to inform students as well as faculty. According to a UGA

administrator,

They (the community) were not just the recipient of knowledge, but
they were the teachers…We made it clear (that), „When we bring
students down they are not down here just so you get the benefit of
the faculty expertise and the benefit of the students‟ efforts. But they
are there to meet you and to learn from your wisdom and experience.
All of you are accomplished people. You know this community, you
know these issues. We want you to see yourself as a teacher.‟

The university also wanted to be sure that goal-setting would provide

opportunities for student learning through civic engagement, experiential

learning, and service-learning. UGA was cognizant of the requirements

associated with some of the most sought-after federal grants, that research

proposals include an outreach component. To the extent possible, the

university wanted goal-setting to open opportunities for partnering with

related research activities that could be proposed. A final goal-setting

consideration mentioned by the university was the need to go into the goal-

setting process with an openness and flexibility that would allow the

partnership to mold as the many unknowns of the situation became better

understood.

The region also had some needs it wanted to be addressed as the

partners came together to establish goals. People of Moultrie/Colquitt were

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interested in a UGA-facilitated community dialogue to bring people together

who ordinarily might not talk with each other about important community

issues. They were also interested in engaging the expertise of the broader

university with community issues:

I think it was the community‟s hope that adding them (UGA) to the
team might do a couple of things. It might stimulate discussion that
might not as readily take place among local units of influence and the
other was just to bring resources of the university to the community.

The goal-setting process was deliberate, sequenced, and inclusive.

The university was adamant that it be community-driven, and that UGA

representatives bear the responsibility for identifying appropriate resources

to assist the region in considering how to address its issues. Initially,

regional leaders were asked to talk about the major challenges they were

facing in conjunction with the Sanderson Foods operation start-up.

University representatives subsequently worked to identify UGA faculty

members, public service units, and service-learning projects that would lend

themselves best to the needs of the community. There was sensitivity to

ensuring that there was a way to meet needs of faculty being asked to

consider responding from the university:

I have never asked for a faculty member just to do something


benevolent to help that community. If I can‟t clearly see where there‟s
something in it for that faculty member, if I can‟t see that it fosters
their research goals or their tenure objectives or whatever…they‟ll
commit to doing something out of the good of their heart initially, but
that interest will wane.

Goals were revisited at monthly meetings between the community

leaders and Archway professional. In this forum, adjustments were made as

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new issues arose or new priorities were developed. According to a UGA

administrator,

It was a process of keeping folks together and communicating and


revisiting what needed to be done, what we said needed to be done.
Are we moving forward on these goals? Are we achieving these?
What else do we need to do to get this on-line? And I think those
monthly meetings of keeping those people in touch and
communicating helped to achieve (the goals) of the local community
and of the university.

Table 8.
Virginia Tech and Southside Partnership Goal-Setting

University Define a 21st Century Land-Grant Mission


Goal

Strategies Create a Base of Innovation in Region by Leveraging


Regional Assets for Research

Establish Unique Research in Region to Complement Campus


Strengths

Develop Technology Transfer and Entrepreneurship Capacity


in Region

Develop Regional STEM Capacity

Leverage Information Technology Infrastructure to Empower


Citizens and Strengthen Organizations

Community Transform the Region‟s Economy to a High Tech Base


Goal

Strategies Develop Regional Information Technology Infrastructure

Develop K-16 Teacher Capacity in Using Information


Technology in Teaching and Learning

Build a Statement Building, an Icon

Pursue a High Risk/High Reward Strategy

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Goal-Setting in the Virginia Tech – Southside Partnership

The goals for the Virginia Tech – Southside partnership were

established at several points over time, as greater clarity developed about

the needs, the ideal solutions, and the practical possibilities. At the outset,

community leaders wanted action and, from their consultant‟s report

determined that they wanted to put a priority on three activities that would

leverage the expertise of Virginia Tech: technology infrastructure, K-16

teacher development, and building a statement building. As one community

leader indicated,

We had identified three major things that we wanted to do being – all


of us being business people - more or less focused on – we like to
focus on things. We said the best outcomes of this were going to be if
we, one, could figure out a way to do a better fiber optic
connection…We also felt like the only way we could produce better
outcomes with our students was to have better input so we identified
the need to train our teachers in current technology…The third thing
was we felt we needed an icon…that was a statement about change,
was a statement about the future…a very futuristic building.

Community leaders did not want to run the risk of slowing down the

change process by involving a lot of people in decision-making. They felt as

if they‟d been down that road before and had come up empty-handed. After

they secured the commitment of a major research university, the leaders

were convinced that neither the public at large nor the local government

leaders would know how to think adequately about how to leverage the

partnership, so believed that goal-setting should be kept to a small group.

One leader said, “We need to deliver a message, but we certainly don‟t need

to let them ever set our agenda.” Another added, “I think we run the risk of

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shooting too low with input from constituencies who are not innately

visionary.”

Community leaders essentially wanted Virginia Tech to determine the

best ways to leverage the two physical assets – technology infrastructure

and iconic building – that the region was prepared to seek funding to

construct. At “the end of the day,” which was preferably sooner rather than

later, regional leaders wanted their community to be on the path to economic

prosperity. They were supportive of a strategy that was dependent on high

risk-taking, with the belief that that was the shortest path to high rewards.

As one regional leader said, “A lot of this was built on a game plan that, at

any given point, could have fallen apart totally. But it was a nervy game

plan.”

Regional leaders also understood that the only way they could secure

a significant commitment from Virginia Tech was if there was a significant

benefit in the partnership for the university. Two of the regional leaders

spoke to this point,

You‟ve got to find out why it‟s in the university‟s interest to be in the
partnership other than just asking them to be in it and them saying
yes. It‟s got to be a tangible value. Because otherwise, when you get
to all of the difficulties, it‟s not going to be a strong enough
relationship to make it work.

From the university side of the partnership, the original focus was to

generate a reasonable starting set of ideas, write some grant proposals for

the community leaders to submit, place a couple of people in the community

for a handful of years to implement the starting set of ideas, then depart with

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the expectation that the community would keep the momentum moving

forward. During the handful of years, programs would be implemented to

engage citizens of the region in taking charge of their own destiny through

preparing themselves to participate in a networked economy. Simply

speaking, it was a goal focused on installing temporary intellectual capital in

the region.

In phase two of the partnership, once the “temporary intellectual

capital” had arrived and assessed the situation, the determination was made

that no substantial long-term economic change could be expected to result

from a short-term regional relationship with Virginia Tech. The only hope –

and it was a long shot at that – for dramatic economic change would be

dependent on replicating the parts of the university that were most likely to

have a high tech economic spillover effect. So the development of a strategy

ensued that established goals to create a base of innovation in the region,

then coupled that with targeted investments in human capital development.

According to one of the Virginia Tech architects of the engagement strategy,

In a manufacturing-based economy or agriculture-based


economy…they don‟t have very much research and development, or
innovation capacity. You‟ve got to have to have research capacity.
The research capacity allows the region to begin to have regional
assets that could affect the job structure especially if it is aligned with
creating opportunities for the region economically… Once you begin to
affect the job structure, then you begin to move to a place where the
altered job structure will demand more of the workforce to have the
right kind of educational skills, which will accelerate and drive up the
need for full credit, college degree program, skilled workforce
programs, graduate programs, as well as outreach programs. And so I
think there‟s a need to have holistic programming.

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As this phase of goal-setting materialized, it became critically

important to understand what would be necessary to interest and invest the

Virginia Tech faculty. The prospect of new money for sponsored research

was a starting requirement. To support that research, state-of-the art

laboratory facilities, the opportunity to leverage unique regional assets, and

funding to support a regional research presence were deemed essential.

Goal-setting shifted to strategic decisions about what kinds of research could

best be supported in the region. According to a community leader, “I think

that the university and the locality need to jointly identify local regional

assets that make projects make sense.”

Virginia Tech faculty members felt that it was important to consider

how to create an intellectual environment that would be attractive to top

researchers:

Pick out some significant areas that you are going to emphasize and
go for them because you are going to be better off perhaps having
three or four people in one area than having three or four people in
four different areas – in terms of their just being satisfied and having
the kind of an intellectual atmosphere that you want to create at a
remote location like the Institute.

Virginia Tech faculty members also felt it was important to consider how the

research activities in Southside would interface with and complement the

university‟s research in Blacksburg:

There has to be some vision that, within the mechanical engineering


department, what area is going to be unique – in whatever
department, not just mechanical engineering. What‟s going to be
unique about this other site? You, know, what are they going to be
good at?

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In a third phase of goal-setting, it became apparent that significant

attention would need to be given to development, commercialization, and

entrepreneurial activities that could be associated with the research. Basic

research would not help the region turn its economy around. Applied

research needed to be extended in ways that would strengthen existing local

businesses, attract high tech operations from other places into the region,

and seed the development of new companies.

Much happened in a relatively short period of time. But with nearly

seven years of partnering under their belts, those at the core of the

partnership offered lessons learned about goal setting and what they would

do differently another time. Virginia Tech offered that the broader population

should be included by “engag(ing) very actively the various voices within the

community beyond just the political voices.” They also advised that the

program scope of the partnership should be defined at the outset:

I think there needs to be a basic starting level that‟s understood…that


we are going to do 20 faculty that are going to be focused on these
research areas and they are going to cost this much money and it‟s
going to take this kind of facility, and there‟s some sort of expectation
that over some period of time…that those resources are committed
upfront, so there‟s some rational planning.

Virginia Tech also offered that it would be important to understand the

roles of all partners at the outset, particularly the other academic partners.

In the Southside partnership, some institutions were nominal partners at the

outset, but did not participate in any program (research, education, or

outreach) planning or delivery. Other Virginia institutions of higher education

which were not among the original nominal partners became excited about
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the opportunities to contribute their assets and expertise and benefit from

the partnership. It was not always clear to all parties at Virginia Tech or in

the Southside region what the appropriate partnering expectations should be.

Finally, the need for establishing realistic goals was mentioned by

Virginia Tech. The university believed it had committed to come to the

region and do what universities do, which is not economic development per

se. Yet, community expectation seemed to be that the Virginia Tech

presence through the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research would in

and of itself transform the economy, and do so in a relatively brief period of

time. According to one Virginia Tech representative,

I think that (the goals) have been poorly defined in this partnership.
The expectations of the region, the community, I may be overstating
it, but essentially in a very short period of time want to go from having
one of the worst economies in the United States to having one of the
best economies in the United States. That may not be a realistic
expectation.

Table 9.
University of Georgia and Moultrie/Colquitt Partnership Resourcing

Human New Position Created – Regionally Embedded


Resources Engagement Facilitator

Expansion Plan – Creates Regional Issue Specialists

Financial Shared Start-Up Financing – 2/3 University, 1/3


Resources Community

Community Purchased University Fee-Based Services

Grants Sought by Both Partners

Chancellor‟s Office – Financing for Expansion

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Resourcing the University of Georgia – Moultrie/Colquitt Partnership

When the University of Georgia decided to initiate the Archway

partnering concept, they thought it would be important to leverage the

Extension organization without burdening it with new responsibilities. A

decision was made to create a new position with new resources to serve as

the point of interface between the community and the university. According

to an Extension administrator,

I think the number one concern our agents raised was that they were
already fully employed. They didn‟t need another job. They didn‟t
have time to take on additional responsibilities. I think if you look
back at those early documents one of the points that was made was if
we do this, it‟ll have to be with new resources – that we will not
piggyback on our existing resources and put additional responsibilities
on agents who are already overloaded.

The PSO and Extension leaders formulating the initiative concept

decided that it would be important for the partnering region to have some

“skin in the game” so decided upon a funding model that would split

responsibility for base program expenses between the university and region.

“We didn‟t ask for a lot of money, but the fact they put something in…makes

them feel like they have some ownership of the project.” UGA decided, for

the pilot Archway program, on a three-way split between PSO, Extension,

and the region with each of the three contributing $40,000. The region

decided to split its contribution between four communities – the school

system, the city, the county, and the hospital. “They are all putting in

$10,000 each and they can‟t believe what a bargain it is.”

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The base program funding pays the Archway professional‟s salary,

buys out time of a key campus academic partner, and covers travel expenses

for faculty and students to Moultrie/Colquitt. Facilities and administrative

support for the Archway professional are provided through the Moultrie

Extension office. The concept of the funding model is to have the partnership

leverage the base funds by seeking other sources of money for projects

associated with their work together. In the words of a UGA administrator,

In my opinion, these programs don‟t need to be overly or generously


funded, especially early on, because that makes them hungry and that
causes them to go out and look for and work hard to find alternative
resources. The resources and dollars usually follow the problems. So,
to me it makes (the partnership) more responsive to solving problems.

As the Moultrie/Colquitt – UGA partnership began to work on particular

issues, funding from other sources was identified to address particular needs

and projects. When the community wanted a study or other work to be

conducted by a self-supporting public service unit at UGA, the community

partner(s) most invested in the project typically came up with the money

needed. Grants were pursued and secured by regional entities for several of

the infrastructure projects. University partners also secured grants for

projects involving faculty and students. Determinations were made by the

parties involved on a project-by-project basis about who should take

responsibility for securing the funding.

On each side of the partnership, grant funds were obtained that could

not have been secured by one party without the collaboration the partnership

offered. Faculty members discovered that their probability of gaining grant

205
funding increased as a result of their in-depth knowledge of the community

context. “A lot of our faculty…have seen that knowing a community closely

gives you a tremendous advantage in grant writing because you can explain

the project in such detail with such clarity it really increases your odds.” The

close partnership of the university with the region has also stimulated other

faculty looking for a community partner on a grant to seek out opportunities

to partner with Moultrie/Colquitt. The Archway professional shared,

Probably the most interesting thing and probably the most wonderful
day of my (time in the partnership) was the day I had a call from a
college wanting to do a project in our community…they‟ll call and say,
„You know so many people in these communities. Do you have a good
place for me to do X?‟

The plan from the outset with the Moultire/Colquitt pilot Archway

program was to fund it for two years, then assess the viability of the model

and resourcing needs going forward. As the two-year period began to draw

to a close, word of the successes of the partnership was spreading to other

parts of the state resulting in requests from other communities in Georgia for

an Archway program. The project team on campus decided to apply for

follow-on funding from a discretionary pool controlled by the University of

Georgia System Chancellor. “The chancellor liked it and funded the project

for half a million dollars.” This money has been split between the PSO and

Extension offices and put into a jointly controlled account.

Since so much momentum had built in Moultrie/Colquitt and the

community was willing to continue to share the program expenses, the

decision was made to continue funding that Archway program and to begin to

206
look at expanding its footprint to serve the broader region. Other localities in

the region interested in partnering would be responsible for contributing

funds to support the added demand on the local Archway resource. The

team from PSO and Extension responsible for overseeing the Archway

program is in the process of talking with other possible Archway regions to

determine places of best fit.

In addition to placing an Archway professional in each of the selected

regions, UGA also plans to fund a specialist in each region focused on the

issue area deemed the highest priority by the region. For example, a second

Archway region has indicated that its rural community hospital is severely

stressed due to the health demographics in that region, and it is vital to the

region‟s economic health. So, the Archway program is funding a health

professional for two years to work with the community on social health

issues. This professional will be tied to the College of Public Health on the

Athens campus. Archway does not want to “own” the specialists that will be

deployed in the regions; rather it wants the corresponding academic units to

be responsible for them, including making decisions about how and if to fund

them beyond the initial two-year period.

We are basically providing… venture capital. We will…put this issue


area position out there, let it produce, let it seek grants to sustain
itself, but we don‟t want to own programs through Archway. Archway
was designed to be innovative and rapid-moving, and to deal with the
fact that a large institution cannot move as quickly as a smaller and
more agile institution. So, the last thing we want to do through
Archway is have 60, 70, 80 employees.

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Table 10.
Virginia Tech and Southside Partnership Resourcing

Human New Positions Created – Regionally Embedded


Resources Engagement Leaders

Additional Staff and Faculty Hired to Live and Work in


Southside

Financial 100% Community-Financed Direct Start-Up Costs


Resources

Matched In-Kind Contributions from Virginia Tech

Local Private Funds

Virginia Tobacco Commission Funds

Directed Federal Appropriations

State Line Item Funding

Competitive Grants

Resourcing the Virginia Tech – Southside Partnership

Just as the goals of the Virginia Tech – Southside partnership morphed

over time, so too did the resource concept. The early community interest

was primarily on building infrastructure and placing a pair of Virginia Tech

professionals in the region. Community leaders focused on securing $12

million for construction of an iconic building and $2 million for a regional fiber

optic backbone from the Virginia Tobacco Commission, $1 million in start-up

funding for a two-person Virginia Tech presence from local community

foundations. Virginia Tech‟s primary interest at the outset was on programs

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that would build community capacity, so university administrators focused on

securing federal funds that were targeted to various education programs.

During the subsequent five years, the focus shifted to securing

recurring annual operating dollars for the Institute building and staff and

developing a program concept that would maximize the building features and

spur regional economic transformation. Staff and faculty were added to

deliver on the program model, which included: research, commercial testing

services, business development supports, graduate programs, baccalaureate

degree completion programs, outreach programs, technology programs, and

conference center operations. In addition, administrative personnel were

added to support finance and building operations, marketing and public

relations. Each year for the first 6 years, the staffing level doubled. To

maximize regional impact and leverage regional assets, auxiliary facilities

were developed in other locations, adding another 67,000 square feet of

space.

Recurring operating funds were provided by the state, in a line item of

the state budget. By the 2007-08 academic year, the annual appropriation

was $6.3 million directly to the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research

(IALR). The argument presented to the state was that these dollars

represented a very modest investment that would allow the Southside region

to regain its economic footing and become a net contributor to the state

budget. Buildings were funded through Tobacco Commission, U.S. Economic

Development Administration, and private investor sources. Research labs

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and equipment were funded by Tobacco Commission and federal grants.

Research activities, academic programs, outreach programs, and business

support services were funded largely through grants from the federal

government and Tobacco Commission.

It had become clear that the greatest hope for the region to migrate

from a textile-manufacturing, tobacco growing primary economy to an

innovation-based economy would be to invest Virginia Tech program activity

in the region. According to a community leader, “I think the value of Tech

has been its reputation and its positioning as a major research university in

the nation, that has enabled this venture to get funding.” An administrator

associated with the project cautioned that Virginia Tech would only be

interested in developing program activities in Southside if they could be done

in a high quality manner. He indicated that it is important to provide new

funding at “a level that the campus feels like they can deliver the programs

in a quality manner because that‟s going to be very important to the faculty.

So this issue of a quality engagement requires a certain amount of scale.”

The research-related activities became the dominant focus of the

program activities and resource needs because they held the greatest

promise for developing new economic capacity. The ability of Virginia Tech

to develop research programs in the region, coupled with its research

reputation, was a giant contribution to the opportunity to secure funding for

the partnership. A critical ingredient in the success of the research program

was the base state funding for faculty. According to a Virginia Tech

210
administrator, “There‟s got to be base funding. I don‟t think these situations

can be soft-dollar funded if you‟re going to ask…high-quality university

employees – faculty or administrators – to essentially risk their careers to go

into an underdeveloped region.”

The state was willing to fund the engineering and science research

program activity with the understanding that the researchers would match

the base funding on somewhere between a 1:1 and a 5:1 return on those

dollars. One challenge faced by the scientists was the basic research nature

of large federal grants, the products of which were not likely to offer much

opportunity for immediate returns in building the region‟s economic base.

According to one scientist at the IALR in Southside,

A lot of these large-scale projects where you are applying to DOE or


NSF are so theoretical that they‟ll bring in big bucks but also they are
going to be very, very theoretical projects. They are not going to help
us with economic and community development in the region.

The opportunity for applied research grants was much smaller and seldom

enough to carry any lab technicians or other personnel, thus supplying

additional justification for base state dollars. One research lab director in

Southside indicated that he needed the state budget to “allow me to have a

core of one technician per PI (principal investigator) so at least everybody

has someone working on their projects in the lab while (the PI‟s) are doing

grant proposals.”

The program concept and associated resource model for the IALR in

Southside grew over time to be much greater in breadth and depth than the

original vision, largely because it fed on itself, creating a virtuous circle of


211
program development and resource availability. As explained by a Virginia

Tech administrator,

The university brought forward a program concept that was more


robust and perhaps wider ranging than what had originally been
conceived, particularly in the research area. It was received very well
by the political leadership of the region…and efforts were made to fund
some of those original requests. As those became funded, it re-
energized the university faculty to commit more.

As the faculty committed more, the funders were that much more

enthusiastic about the model and its potential to benefit not only the

Southside region, but also the state by attracting more research investments.

Table 11.
University of Georgia and Moultrie/Colquitt Partnership
Accountability

Community Measures of Ability to Complete Project-Based Activities


Success Associated with Community-Defined Priorities

University Measures of Increased Viability of Extension, Increased


Success Relevance of University to State

State Demonstrations of Support of University System Office, as


Success Evidenced by New Funding to Extend Archway
Concept

Ripple Effect Requests for Archway Partnerships from Other


Demonstrations of Regions of State
Success

Heightened Visibility of Region and University

212
Accountability in the University of Georgia – Moultrie/Colquitt Partnership

Success in the University of Georgia – Moultrie/Colquitt partnership

was assessed through four lenses: the community‟s perspective, the

university‟s perspective, the state‟s perspective, and the ripple effect. Since

the focus of the Archway program was on a community-driven agenda, most

of those involved looked first to the community‟s measures of success to

assess the overall success of the partnership. “Having the community

articulate the value they see and documenting that is how we‟ve (quantified

success) so far.” The community, in turn, turned its attention to the

progress associated with various projects tackled by the partnership. On the

biggest issues, land use and wastewater capacity expansion, progress was

quite tangible. Land use decisions that had been avoided for years were

made. Local citizens voted to approve a $30 million special sales tax to fund

the wastewater system expansion.

Smaller projects returned value based on the quality of the information

provided to the community and the extent to which the reports “provide a

road map that the community can follow” to achieve their project goals.

Typically, the entity for whom the project was intended was the group to

whom UGA experts were accountable. Even though undergraduate students

were the source of some of the project reports back to the community, the

community seemed to be grateful to have the benefit of their views. A

faculty member supervising one student project relayed his conversation with

community members:

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„These are very talented young people, very bright, very motivated,
but they are twenty-two years old, okay? So they don‟t have the life
experience that you guys have who have been involved with this, and
so bear in mind what you‟re getting. It‟s not costing you anything,
you are not hiring McKinsey to do this.‟ But you know, I think they
have been tremendous – the community – in the way they‟ve reacted
to this.

Beyond individual project successes, most of the accountability

occurred through anecdotes and stories. People in the region and at the

university referred to community and economic development as the focus of

the partnership, but there was not a sense that broad measures of economic

indicators needed to be tracked and linked to the work of the partnership.

Perhaps since the expectation was set at the beginning that the engagement

would last for two years, expectations for larger, longer-term improvements

were not associated with it. In the end, the key measure of success was the

community‟s interest in continuing to fund the program beyond the pilot

stage. “The bottom line is, will they refund us?...The ultimate measure is,

you take four community partners,…none of them with a lot of wealth. Did

they see enough tangible, measurable, objective value to put cash back in?”

From the university‟s perspective, two measures of success were

offered. Extension saw its stock rise dramatically, even though its field

agents in Moultrie/Colquitt had already been highly valued. The visibility of a

broader swath of the community to Extension and appreciation of the value

of Extension was deemed very beneficial to that organization.

214
Now that the community has a greater understanding of what the
Extension office was traditionally doing, a better appreciation for what
we could do…our own agents watch(ed) what was happening and
realiz(ed) the potential for the project and what it could do for
extension. (It) has been phenomenal.

A second indicator of success within the university was getting the attention

and support of top administrators, who came to understand the value coming

back to the university. “Another success was getting the administration to

understand what we were accomplishing and how effective it was. We were

fulfilling a need and it was a reciprocal relationship for the university.”

At the state level, it was felt that success could be measured through

the eyes of the state higher education system as well as through the eyes of

the state‟s political leaders. Since the chancellor of the system office had

awarded the Archway program special new money, there was a sense that

the program was seen as valuable through the higher education system lens.

An endorsement of the concept through line item state funding would be

further evidence of the perceived public value of the program. According to

one UGA administrator,

Success will be when we get the Archway process institutionalized at


the state level. That is, (state policymakers) begin to see and
understand and expect the Archway Partnership to meet their public
policy aspirations…to enhance Georgia‟s economic development, to
extend the university system resources to people, to meet strategic
demands…And the way to do that is to take the resources at the state
level. That would be a true measure of success.

Success of the partnership was also being measured by “ripple

effects.” One ripple effect previously mentioned has been the interest

expressed by other regions of the state in establishing Archway partnerships.

215
Another ripple effect has been the heightened visibility of the region

throughout the state and the benefits that flow from it. One example offered

was related to the work that had occurred in the community related to

historic preservation:

I know I heard in the office the other day that a non-profit that does
training in the state is thinking about doing training in Moultrie for all
the preservation commissions in Georgia, and I think those kinds of
things never get included in the success list of the partnership, but I
really think they are a result of a focus that the partnership places on
a particular community.

Table 12.
Virginia Tech and Southside Partnership Accountability

Community Measures New Products, New Jobs, New Companies


of Success

Broad Social and Economic Impacts

University Measures of New Money for Research, Expanded Laboratory


Success Facilities, New Faculty Lines, Additional Graduate
Students, Scholarly Publications

Program Impacts Associated with Research and


Education Activities

State Demonstrations Support of Governor and State Legislature, as


of Success Evidenced by Line Item Funding for Institute for
Advanced Learning and Research (IALR)

State Funding to Replicate Parts of the IALR Model


in Other Regions

Ripple Effect Requests for IALR-Like Partnerships from Other


Demonstrations of Regions of State
Success

State, Macro-Regional, National Recognition

216
Accountability in the Virginia Tech – Southside Partnership

Measures of success and accountability in the Virginia Tech –

Southside partnership evolved with the morphing goals and expanding

resources. From a straightforward perspective, people on both the university

side and community side of the partnership felt that the partnership was a

success. According to a Virginia Tech spokesperson,

It‟s been a successful project in large part because I think the


community has maintained good faith with regard to delivering on
both funding and local political support. I think the university has
delivered on unique programs and the credibility to bring them off both
financially and also in terms of implementation.

From the community perspective,

I couldn‟t tell you what this place (Institute) was going to do. I can
tell you what we dreamed for it to do, and I think we passed that. Oh
sure, there‟s more to come, but I think we very quickly, once the
doors to this facility opened, we took a quantum leap…Very seldom do
you go around the state of Virginia that people don‟t envy a little about
what has happened here.

The partnership did not establish specific outcome expectations, so the

measures of success offered by university partners and community partners

spanned a wide range. Some measured success in conjunction with

particular program area impacts; others looked for broad economic and

social impacts. A community leader expressed,

The community may have certain goals and the university may have
certain goals. They may not necessarily have the same goals all the
time. They also should have some common goals, and so there is
probably a need for each of the partners to look at the combined
(needs of) the partnership.

217
Partners also expressed that it had been important in this partnership to be

open to possibilities and not establish expectations on the front side that

were too rigid.

Virginia Tech was most interested in the research program at the IALR

and indicated that the university would measure success by “new research

dollars, graduate students, articles, expanded lab facilities, that otherwise we

might not have had, (and) a recommitment to what it means to be a land-

grant university.” There was also a strong sense among university leaders

that broad economic and social development success in the partnership

should be measured over the long-term, not the short term. Yet, there was

a concern that the “economic development mindset” would look at success

only through how many jobs were created in a twelve-month period. “And

the Virginia Tech engagement on this is all about a long-term investment.”

Faculty members associate with the partnership tended to focus on

narrower program goals. Tenure track faculty at the IALR were measuring

success by the number of graduate students per semester they were able to

attract to Southside, citing the ideal number per faculty member as “six or

seven;” the level of sponsored research funding they were able to secure

annually (“400-500,000”); the ability to attract “more projects to work on;”

and the hopefully not elusive tenure. Non-tenure track faculty in Southside

were more oriented toward product development and economic

development: “Certainly to me the goal and the way we were engaged is are

we going to get products out there? Are we going to contribute new jobs in

218
the region?” Among this group there was a strong sense that the norms of

academic research would not suffice in the unique environment in Southside.

“No one downtown is going to give a hoot if you publish ten papers a year…If

we don‟t generate products, we don‟t generate new jobs or opportunities for

this region, we are going to be a failure.”

Community leaders were most interested in broad economic change.

Well, success is defined by – in our case – this is an economic


development revitalization project so you define it by - ultimately by
what have you done to create a new economy? That comes in things
like a company coming here because of this, a company expanding
here because of this, and…in the research we are doing here, what
have we done here that has created an intellectual property? How do
you – in other words, it‟s nice having the grants, the federal grants to
do the research, but they are here today and gone tomorrow…all of
the things that we‟ve got here, I mean all of the intellect coming into
this building is good, but it can‟t be sustained without outside success.

Community members, for the most part, wanted to focus expectations

for the partnership in 2007 on broad economic measures of success – mostly

centered on job growth. One community leader offered,

In our case – change in the economy. I think you begin to measure


what you‟ve accomplished with that – what jobs have been created,
what businesses have been brought in, what expansions or what
people have come in who bring intellectual capital.

There was considerable concern about losing “board rooms” in the region,

which had the effect of diminishing support to the arts, charities, and a host

of other community mainstays. So, ideally, the partnership would, in the

long term, have the effect of creating or attracting company headquarters,

especially those in the Fortune 500. Another community measure of success

219
was the change in the region being a net consumer of state tax dollars to

being a net contributor.

Indeed, the partnership seemed to have experienced a staged set of

successes over time, as cited by community and university leaders. Stages

of success offered included: developing a plan, establishing a new

institution, securing funding, building and equipping facilities, hiring talented

staff and faculty, and developing programs that filled the “gaps” in the

community‟s readiness to compete in the global economy. External

validation has come in many forms, including state and national awards.

One of the most valued external validations has been from the state, which

believed enough in the model to commit funds in other communities to

replicate the model in some form. As expressed by a VT leader,

There is a strong perception of early success here. I think a good


example of how the state has responded to that is at least funding a
couple or thee other R&D centers that…(are), to some degree, based
upon that model…the other part is rarely does a month go by that I‟m
not approached by some local community interest group who (is)
saying, what can you do for us?

220
Table 13.
University of Georgia and Moultrie/Colquitt Partnership Governance

Community Executive Committee, Steering Committee, Working


Governance Structures Groups

University Governance University-Wide Outreach Committee, Service


Structures Learning Office, Public Service & Outreach and
Cooperative Extension Archway Project Office

Linking Pins Between Regionally Embedded Archway Professional,


Community and Campus-Based Archway Program Coordinator,
University Extension Strategic Initiatives Director

Formalized Master Partnership Agreement Signed at


Agreements Partnership Outset

Signed Agreements for Some Project Activities

Governance of the University of Georgia – Moultrie/Colquitt Partnership

The governance approach taken by the University of Georgia in its

Archway partnership with Moultrie/Colquitt was to structure it around a few

core elements and allow the rest to be shaped to the needs of the

partnership as it developed. As one university administrator commented,

You just have to be flexible and respond to the needs and let it evolve
to what makes sense. That‟s really the key….You‟ve got to let the box
evolve to whatever shape it needs to be…Let the structure revolve
around the needs.

The core elements of the partnership‟s governance included: community

committees, university working groups, linking people between the

community and the university, and written agreements between the

partners. Within the community, two committees were established with

formal responsibilities to the partnership. Community members determined

221
the composition and membership of the committees. According to a UGA

spokesperson,

We have ensured that it‟s a grassroots effort. So, our structure in the
community is such that the community determines who sits on our
committees and they – it‟s not like we handpick who sits there so they
can tell us what we want to hear in terms of what we‟re to do.

The university encouraged the community to select people for the

committees who would be prepared to spend the time and effort needed:

We‟ve told communities, „As you identify the people to sit on (the
committees), don‟t put people on there as figureheads. Don‟t put
them on there as people who are nice to list on your letterhead. Put
people on there who can come to every meeting and who are engaged
enough with the community that they take this seriously enough that
they are going to be an active part of the project.‟

The Executive Committee is a group of nine people, composed

primarily of the community leaders who initiated the partnership. The

Archway Coordinator also participates on this committee, as does

Cooperative Extension. This committee establishes priorities for the

partnership by tracking progress on outstanding projects, vetting new project

requests, managing urgencies by deciding where and how to include them in

the priority list, discussing issues that the community is facing, and providing

strategic leadership for the future of the partnership. This group meets

monthly with the Archway Coordinator. They interface with faculty and

students who are partnering with the community by meeting with

researchers or students to provide them with background and contextual

information.

222
The Executive Committee is complemented by a Steering Committee,

composed of roughly 30 members with niche areas of interest. They

represent a broader cross-section of the community, so have added a

diversity of perspectives as well as expertise in particular areas. Members of

the Steering Committee participate in Issue Work Groups, which are

composed of up to fifteen people, including citizen volunteers, local staff and

expertise, and UGA experts. Issue Work Groups tackle priority challenges,

such as child care or water, with facilitation provided by the Archway

Coordinator.

At the university, governance of the partnership is managed in two

layers. One layer consists of a small set of players in PSO and Extension who

have direct responsibility for the Archway program. Day-to-day issues are

managed by a three-person team consisting of the Archway Program

Coordinator, the Extension Strategic Initiatives Director, and the Associate

Vice President of Public Service and Outreach. The group interfaces with the

Associate Dean of Extension and Vice President of PSO for budget

expenditure approvals, and project status updates. The VP PSO convenes a

university committee on outreach and engagement which includes

representatives from all of the public service units, cooperative extension,

and all of the colleges. This new university-wide group meets monthly and

has become a major vehicle through which the Archway team interfaces with

the broader university. The other entity with whom the Archway team

interfaces to the university is a service-learning interest group. From that

223
has surfaced a number of possibilities for linking students to needs of the

community.

The linking structure that has been established between the

community and university is centered on three people: the Archway

Professional, the Archway Program Coordinator, and the Extension Strategic

Initiatives Director. The Archway Professional lives in Moultrie and facilitates

the work of the community committees. The Archway Professional is

responsible to the Archway Program Coordinator, who is based in Athens but

spends a projected eighty percent of his time away from Athens, interfacing

with Archway Professionals and issues, and developing new partnerships.

The Director of Strategic Initiatives conversely spends eighty percent of his

time on campus, facilitating Archway project interfaces with campus

participants, and the remaining twenty percent out at the Archway or

proposed Archway sites, interfacing with Extension people.

Although each of these people is critical to the success of the program,

much thought has gone into the kind of traits needed in the Archway

Professional position, since this was a big key to the success the

Moultrie/Colquitt partnership has enjoyed to date. “We‟re looking for a very

special person in this role, particularly when you look at how they fit in the

community.” Although the UGA leadership believes that a track record of

economic and community development experience is important for those

aspiring to Archway Professional roles, preference is given to candidates who

have strong facilitation skills. “Certainly a person that has very strong

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people skills and is passionate about getting involved in that community,” is

important according to one UGA administrator. It‟s also important to have

someone who can “facilitate discussion and draw people out”, on sometimes

very difficult, complex issues in a roomful of people with opposing opinions.

The Archway partnership is anchored by a memorandum of

understanding (MOU) signed by the two partners which outlines basic

responsibilities of each partner, including financial contributions. It is

modeled after the MOU that UGA Extension uses in its relationship with every

county in the state, since counties contribute financially and otherwise to the

UGA Extension presence in their counties. The MOU also provides opt out

clauses for partners who decide they no longer want to participate. In

addition to the blanket MOU, the partnership has relied on agreements with a

narrower scope to outline responsibilities for specific projects. For example,

the College of Business student service-learning partnership with the

Moultrie/Colquitt community arts center was anchored by an agreement

which specified the scope of work committed to by the students and their

advisor.

As the Archway program matures and expands, discussion has ensued

regarding the appropriate geographic footprint for the regional side of the

partnership. In Moultrie/Colquitt, the Archway Professional has facilitated a

number of conversations with the Executive Committee regarding expansion

of the partnership to include neighboring counties. Moultrie/Colquitt leaders

have come to understand that the future of their smaller region is

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inextricably tied to the well-being of the larger region, since workforce and

retail consumers are drawn from a radius of communities around

Moultrie/Colquitt:

The initial thought was, have a landing party, get into


Moultrie/Colquitt, do some good things, show the surrounding
communities what can be accomplished…Grow organically from there
into more of a regional footprint by taking on projects where there‟s
mutual benefit.

The bottom line, however, was to allow the region to self-define, not

make an abstract decision in Athens about what the region should be. One

of the UGA people involved with planning the Archway model said,

I‟ve watched these regional attempts and usually someone from the
state capitol identifies from on high what a region is…That‟s disastrous
because you pick counties and communities that are close to each
other but who may not work well together on all issues and then
you‟re going to force somebody from (Archway) to go down there and
try to bring these people together and make them work together.

As the Archway program expands to other regions, flexibility in

establishing a governance structure is assumed by UGA administrators to be

a key consideration. The thinking is that each regional partnership will need

to be shaped according to the needs of that particular situation rather than

UGA coming in with a “cookie cutter” approach:

Each one of them is going to look different and the measures of


success are going to be different. I think we can‟t set up real rigid
guidelines for how these people will be funded and what projects
they‟ll work on…I think we‟ve got to be willing to take some risks and
we‟ve got to remain flexible.

A final note about the governance of the Moultrie/Colquitt Archway

partnership beyond the pilot period reflects the broadening of community

perspective that some attribute to the Archway program. Several people


226
from the university remarked on the homogeneity of the community

leadership group, particularly as represented on the Executive Committee.

As conversations with that group turned to composition of the Executive

Committee post-pilot, nobody from the original group wanted to opt out but

they did want to add new members to increase the diversity of the group:

Out of their own work they decided they needed to be more diverse.
They needed more, they needed a young professional, not just the
older folks in town who had historically (constituted) the leadership
structure. And they reached out and identified more African
Americans and more females, and so it has come about without being
a major cataclysmic decision.

Table 14.
Virginia Tech and Southside Partnership Governance

Community Regional Stewarding Institution: Institute for


Governance Structures Advanced Learning and Research – Board,
Administration, Advisory Committees
Self-Selected Leadership Group: Future of the
Piedmont Board
University Governance Southside Implementation Team
Structures
Linking Pins Between Regionally Embedded University Administrators (3):
Community and Outreach, Information Technology/Graduate School,
University Research
IALR Board Member – VT Associate Vice Provost for
Outreach
VT Board Member – Southside Community Leader
and Future of the Piedmont Board Member
Formalized Master Partnership Agreement Signed Five Years
Agreements into the Partnership
Task Orders for Focused Aspects of Partnership
Began to be Formulated in the Partnership‟s Sixth
Year

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Governance of the Virginia Tech – Southside Partnership

If there was a truism about the Virginia Tech – Southside partnership

it was that form followed function. From the outset of the relationship, the

partners were more focused on defining what they would do together than

necessarily how their partnership should be governed. A white paper that

Virginia Tech authored about what activities the university proposed to

partner on in the region, coupled with a gentleman‟s agreement about roles

of the partners and responsibilities for funding, governed the early work of

the partnership. In 2002, the first formal governance elements were

installed. A financing arrangement to construct the proposed Institute for

Advanced Learning and Research (IALR) facility was finalized. Legislation to

recognize the IALR as a new state entity was passed by the Virginia General

Assembly. A governing board for the IALR was appointed.

Throughout the formation of the partnership to the time when the

IALR Board of Trustees was in place, the private citizens group, Future of the

Piedmont (FOTP), functioned as a de facto community board for the

partnership. The FOTP Board consisted of seven members, all well-

connected local businessmen, who were committed to the future of the

region. They continued to negotiate the relationship with Virginia Tech

primarily through telephone conversations and personal visits. Much of the

direct interface flowed through one FOTP member, who was a Virginia Tech

alum.

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The IALR Board, as specified in the legislative bill that created the

institution, consisted of nine members – representing the primary entities

who were founding partners: Future of the Piedmont, City of Danville,

Pittsylvania County, Virginia Tech, Averett University, Danville Community

College, and three appointments by the Governor, the Senate, and the

House, respectively. As the programmatic activity of the IALR grew and the

need for sponsorship to receive state funds increased, it was decided that the

IALR should serve a larger regional footprint, encompassing a total of six

counties and two cities. Since the original nine IALR Board members were

drawn solely from Danville and Pittsylvania County, legislation was passed by

the General Assembly to expand the board to a total of fifteen members.

The additional six members were appointed, two each, by the Governor,

Senate, and House from the newly added jurisdictions.

The IALR Board meets quarterly in meetings that are open to the

public, under Virginia‟s sunshine laws. After a year or more of deciding it

needed to become better versed on the strategic operations of the IALR, the

Board decided to create a committee structure and assign all board members

to one of the committees: Resources, Programs and Services, Institutional

Advancement, and Executive/Strategic Planning. Subsequently, a Research

Committee was added. In addition to the Board Committees, various

program areas constituted advisory councils, which included representatives

from the various partner organizations involved with a particular program

area. For example, the Academic Council included representatives from the

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eight K-12 school systems in Southside, the three community colleges in the

IALR footprint, and the senior institutions with whom the IALR had academic

program development and delivery relationships, including Virginia Tech,

University of Virginia, Old Dominion University, Longwood University, and

Averett University.

Approximately eighteen months after Virginia Tech located staff

members in Danville, Virginia Tech created a regular meeting forum on

campus to coordinate the various activities of individual faculty members and

departments involved with the partnership. This group, the Southside

Implementation Team, was convened by the Associate Vice Provost for

Outreach and International Affairs on a quarterly basis. Consisting of some

forty members, this group typically met to hear updates from the Virginia

Tech administrators in Danville and to brief each other on their recent

activities. In the early years, this group hosted various groups and

representatives from Southside to provide an overview of Virginia Tech‟s

work in the region.

Virginia Tech‟s two “on the ground” administrators in Danville served

as the nominal linking structure between the region and the university. Their

job was to manage the implementation of the projects already committed

prior to their arrival, and to plan and implement a strategy to further engage

the university in ways that would assist the region to transform its economy.

In part because they were a husband-and-wife team and in part because

their areas of focus reflected the engagement of different parts of the

230
university, they reported to different Virginia Tech people. One reported to

the Vice Provost for Outreach and International Affairs; the other to the Vice

President of Information Technology.

After the formation of the IALR, the IALR Board formally recognized

the pair under its governance structure, as Executive Director and Senior

Director, respectively. Money flowed through the IALR to Virginia Tech to

pay their salaries and support their operations. Virginia Tech‟s administrative

expertise and infrastructure was leveraged to support the operations of the

IALR in the early period. Because the partnership was so nascent at the

start, there was an unwritten assumption that if the partnership did not

succeed, if the money did not continue to flow, or if the partnership ran its

course, the two Virginia Tech administrators would be absorbed on the

Blacksburg campus by the university. After the dot com crash, there was a

sudden significant shortfall in the state‟s budget, which led to a decision by

Virginia Tech‟s top administration that subsequent staff hired at the IALR in

Danville would not be Virginia Tech employees. At that juncture in late 2002,

the IALR faced into the daunting task of creating its own administrative and

financial infrastructure.

Subsequent staff members at the IALR were hired as IALR employees.

Faculty members, however, were hired under varying arrangements.

Virginia Tech had agreed informally to establish research operations at the

IALR, pursuant to funding procured by the IALR. Expert researchers were

needed to staff these new applied research operations, coupled with

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commercial contract services. Because the concept was very new, because

the philosophy of those involved was that it was important to do whatever

was needed to get top-notch scientists, and because the research entities

were conceived by entrepreneurial faculty members in varying Virginia Tech

departments, flexibility in structuring the researchers‟ appointments was

embraced by all involved. As a result, some faculty members were hired as

Virginia Tech research faculty, some as Virginia Tech tenure-track faculty,

and some as IALR research faculty. In the past year, a research director was

hired at the IALR and came on board as a tenured Virginia Tech faculty

member. His reporting line is to Virginia Tech‟s Vice President of Research

with a dotted line to the Executive Director of the IALR.

From Virginia Tech‟s perspective the operation at the IALR is still a

work in progress, still an “experiment.” As significant streams of money

began to flow into the IALR for Virginia Tech-led research activities, pressure

built to formalize the unwritten partnership agreement between the

university and the region. After months of extensive conversations, a master

agreement between Virginia Tech and the IALR was agreed upon and signed.

Subsequently, sub-agreements or “task orders” outlining particular

relationships within the partnership were drafted.

Challenges remain. The governance structure is messy, resembling a

matrix organization in many respects. The benefit of the matrix structure is

that it provides both partners with a sense of ownership in the institution

which serves as an umbrella for much of the partnership. In reflecting upon

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the structure of the IALR‟s governance, a community leader analyzed the

options:

The two extremes would be the institution is an off-campus part of the


university. It is a true extension facility with no local ownership. The
other extreme would be that it is a totally locally owned and operated
institution, which purchases services from the university. The unique
thing about IALR may be that it is a hybrid of those two extremes that
we call for lack of a better word…matrix organization. It is a unique
blending of university presence and almost ownership with local
presence and almost ownership. There is shared ownership of this
institution and I think that‟s been pretty effective.

Faculty members at the IALR have mixed feelings about the

governance structure. One feels that it‟s “incredibly confusing. I have no

idea how to explain it to people.” Another expresses concern about the

inherent conflict of tenure-track appointments in terms of the focus of the

reward structure being somewhat at odds with the economic and community

development focus of the IALR:

My gut feeling is that I think all of the faculty here should have been
IALR faculty as opposed to Virginia Tech faculty. I think that would
make it much more of a connection with the local community. We
would be able to do a lot more interaction with the community because
of that.

Another area of concern expressed is the ongoing role and relationship

of the Future of the Piedmont with the IALR and Virginia Tech. Some

characterize the FOTP as a “shadow board” which has and exercises more

influence with Virginia Tech, with the Southside community, and with state

political leadership than the IALR Board. One Virginia Tech administrator

offered the opinion that there should be regular dialogue between the three

entities:

233
I‟m certainly prepared to support the notion that there should be
regular, ongoing dialogue amongst the leadership of the Institute, the
senior people at Virginia Tech who are involved in the project, and I
think because the Future of the Piedmont is such a key player in all of
this that those three groups ought to have ongoing dialogue in
perhaps a little different way than it‟s happening now.

Embedded in the concern about the governance of the partnership are

questions regarding Virginia Tech‟s ability to effectively manage the

complicated structure on their end of the partnership. With senior IALR

leadership not only having dual reporting lines but reporting into different

university departments and offices that, in turn have no common reporting

line except to the president, everyone is not clear that the partnership has

the kind of support or visibility that it should have to sustain it successfully.

A Virginia Tech official offered,

I would like to see the university give this entire effort a little more
attention than I perceive there is right now. I guess when you get
something up and running and it‟s doing well - I wouldn‟t say
spectacularly well, but it‟s doing very well – it‟s easier to go on to the
next thing. And I‟m not sure that the university is anywhere near
finished there. So, I hope the university and its leadership realizes
that.

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Chapter 6

UNIVERSITY-REGIONAL ENGAGEMENT
THROUGH A STATE POLICY LENS

In spite of the potential power of state policy to affect the extent to


which institutions direct their attention to state and regional priorities,
this power is seldom wielded effectively. State policy has long been
focused on building institutional capacity, not on ensuring that this
considerable capacity is utilized to achieve priority state purposes.
(Jones, 2005)

Georgia: Background on State Investments in University/


Economic Development Engagement Strategies

In the early 1980s, a group of Georgia business leaders came together

to strategize about how to increase the economic viability of their state.

Subsequently, McKinsey & Company was commissioned to conduct a study

which presented a strategy to leverage the state‟s research universities for

economic development. Then-governor Joe Frank Harris was able to put

money into a few programs, but not enough ultimately to have the desired

effects. So, in 1989 the same group of business executives pulled the

presidents of the state‟s research universities together to craft a plan that

could be taken to the incoming governor.

Zell Miller was elected governor in 1990 and “immediately saw the

value of higher education partnerships” according to a state leader

interviewed. He appointed Stephen Portch as chancellor of the University of

Georgia system, who established a number of programs designed to increase

the state‟s research and business attraction capacities. Major programs


235
established included the Georgia Research Alliance, an independent non-

profit agency that works with the state‟s top six research universities to

increase their research capacity; the Eminent Scholars Program, which

provides a special pool of funds to assist research universities in recruiting

top scientists; the Intellectual Capital Partnership Program (ICAPP), connects

the intellectual resources of Georgia's public colleges and universities to the

state's business community for access to the latest research and business

advice; and Yamacraw, an initiative to foster the development of a cluster of

businesses involved in high-bandwidth communications in part by

investments in research faculty with telecommunications expertise.

The Georgia Research Alliance, Eminent Scholars Program, and ICAPP

all survived two subsequent governors and a change of political party

leadership. Each continues to play a valued role in assisting the state‟s office

of economic development attract and develop high tech industry to Georgia.

To this asset base current governor Sonny Purdue has added Centers of

Innovation throughout the state which “draw on the natural strengths of

regions” to create a focal point for matching university expertise with

industrial recruitment, and entrepreneurship development in specified

economic sectors. The Centers of Innovation concept, initiated at Georgia

Tech under president Wayne Clough, a vice chairman of the Council on

Competitiveness, brings together university research with an emphasis on

commercialization, venture capital, and entrepreneurship development.

236
In addition to significant investments in university research and

initiatives designed to bring that research out into the state‟s business

community over the last seventeen years, Georgia also worked to expand

access to higher education degree programs in less economically robust

areas of the state. In the 1980s and 1990s, Georgia upgraded several of its

state higher education institutions in the southern parts of the state, notably

Georgia Southern University and Valdosta State University. State

investments in these institutions were designed to “make sure their array of

programs was enhanced,” according to Tom Daniel, Senior Vice Chancellor

for External Affairs with the University System of Georgia.

Virginia: Background on State Investments in University/


Economic Development Engagement Strategies

During the same period of time that business leaders in Georgia were

considering strategies to enhance the competitiveness of their state, Virginia

was looking at how it could be more attractive to high tech businesses. In

1985, the Center for Innovative Technology (CIT) was created to enhance

the research and technology transfer activities of Virginia universities. In

addition, The Virginia Research & Technology Advisory Commission (VRTAC)

was created to advise the governor on appropriate research and technology

strategies for the Commonwealth. It was charged with providing policy

recommendations to enhance the competitiveness of research institutions

and technology-based commercial endeavors within the Commonwealth. In

2005, Governor Mark Warner, proposed to invest $550 million in university


237
research and development, which was subsequently approved by the state

legislature.

Meanwhile, back in 2003, the state legislature created the Council on

Virginia‟s Future, to facilitate the development of a long-term vision for the

Commonwealth, the “Roadmap for Virginia‟s Future” and to periodically

assess progress toward long-term goals. This council, composed of public

and private leaders from across the Commonwealth, advises the governor on

key challenges and opportunities. It provides a forum that “transcends

election cycles, partisanship, limited organizational boundaries, and short-

term thinking” according to the council‟s website. Early work of the Council

set a high priority on strengthening the state‟s economy by focusing on

education strategies.

Meanwhile, attention to increasing access to higher education

programs across the state in 1984 led to investments in Old Dominion

University‟s Teletechnet program which provided baccalaureate degree

completion via satellite-delivered upper division coursework to students at

community colleges throughout the state. Beyond Teletechnet, a number of

higher education centers were established through a combination of state,

local, and higher education investments. These centers extended degree

programs of Virginia‟s state universities beyond their campuses using face-

to-face as well as technology-mediated instructional strategies.

In the last six or seven years, Virginia has begun to experiment with

establishing university-affiliated research and education centers in

238
economically distressed regions of the state. The initial model funded was

the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research (IALR) in Danville, Virginia

which houses research and development activities led by Virginia Tech, and

offers access to STEM undergraduate and graduate degree programs from

several Virginia institutions of higher education. Aspects of the IALR model

are beginning to be replicated in other regions of the state.

Current State Perspectives on University-Regional Engagement


in Georgia and Virginia

Public institutions of higher education, particularly land-grant

universities are accountable to the citizens of the states in which the

institutions are located. The question is, for what are they accountable?

What is the “public good” to be served by these institutions? What is the

purpose of the state funding supporting public institutions? Has state

funding been directed to a public good mission? Should the role of higher

education simply be to educate students so they can be productive workers

and contributing citizens, or should the assets of public higher education be

engaged to “fuel innovation and change the course of the state‟s future” as

leaders in North Dakota decided (Melle et al., 2006)? Senior administrators

at the University of Georgia interviewed were very attuned to the need to

demonstrate the benefit of research discoveries and knowledge creation in

the lives of citizens, and “not just (conduct) research for research sake.”

239
What can and should universities contribute to the state?

When interviewed, Aneesh Chopra, Virginia‟s Secretary of Technology,

said he believed universities offer three strategic levers to states looking to

impact economic development, particularly in rural areas. These levers

include research activity, broadband technology infrastructure deployment,

and human capital development. He indicated that universities could

conceivably be involved in all three domains, but at a minimum should take

primary responsibility for one of the three in an economically distressed

region. To these three roles of higher education in regional development,

Mike Cassidy, Executive Director of the Georgia Research Alliance, added the

important role of universities as conveners.

Where should the money come from?

Yet, as higher education has become increasingly seen as a private,

rather than a public, good (Longanecker, 2005), funding for higher education

has been viewed as completely separate and apart from funding for economic

development. Universities are expected take their funding and do what

higher education institutions do; meanwhile, those with responsibility for the

state‟s economic development take their money and do a lot of what they‟ve

always done.

Expecting universities to engage their assets and expertise with

economically distressed regions in a systematic, pervasive way will take

more than policy rhetoric; it will require financial mechanisms that are

240
directly linked to policy agendas (Jones, 2005). Given the many pressures

on state budgets, the question that arises is where the money should come

from to fund university-regional engagement. Dan LaVista, Executive

Director of the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia, cautioned that

base adequacy support for higher education (which impacts faculty salaries),

at least in Virginia, is significantly below the desirable (and in Virginia, the

legislated) level. That suggests that carving money out of higher education‟s

pie slice is unlikely to gain much support.

A senior university administrator interviewed suggested that most

states seem to have a lot of money in the “economic development space”

which might be put to very good use if targeted to engage university

technical and educational expertise with communities and regions. The

problem, however, with this approach is that such funding tends to be

heavily weighted toward short-term, tangible expenditures rather than long-

term strategic investments:

The real problem is that the federal and state economic development
cash flow is structured to build buildings. That‟s safe. You can show
the building, but it‟s very difficult to get the body politic around the
idea that the really important and long-term payback is investment in
programs, investment in people…and you don‟t necessarily have
something to show from that two years later.

Economic development strategies have not yet shifted from the old

economy to the new economy. As Jones and Kelly (2004) point out, “While

physical capital drives industrial economies, it is human capital that drives

economies in the information age” (pg. 1).

241
How should university contributions be linked to the state’s
economic development plan?

If there should be a relationship between university contributions and

a state‟s economic development plan, what should that relationship be? Tom

Daniel suggested that the appropriate role for higher education was

supporting economic development activities led by others, not assuming

direct responsibility for economic development. Aneesh Chopra talked about

the chicken-and-egg conundrum that currently exists with regard to linking

higher education contributions to the state‟s economic development plan.

Should it be the responsibility of universities to inform the state‟s economic

development professionals about the industry partnerships they‟ve

cultivated, then let the economic developers mine those relationships to

increase the state‟s economic growth? Or should the state‟s economic

developers set targets for growth and then work with universities to cultivate

relationships with those employers and sectors? He said,

We now, in today‟s environment, don‟t have either of the two


questions being asked or answered. In the future we would hope that
those would both be answered and that there may be a mixture of
both when it comes to overall strategy.

Beyond cultivating relationships with industry to foster a state‟s

economic growth, there is a critical need to invest in the development of

human capital. As Mazzeo et al. (2006) state, “In the globally competitive

economy of the 21st century, state economies in large part will thrive or

decline based on how well they cultivate and retain „knowledge workers‟:

individuals who possess postsecondary educational credentials” (p. 1). Dan

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LaVista pointed out the link between economic development and the

increasing inequalities in American society stemming from the disparity in the

health and earnings between those with postsecondary education and those

without. He said,

I think unless we do a little bit more to bring in these students that are
in the lower (socioeconomic) sectors…(we‟re) only just going to
continue to provide a cleavage between those who have and those
who don‟t have… So, again, I think it‟s very hard to isolate economic
development and research in rural communities without, in my mind,
looking at these larger trends that I think are troubling.

Art Dunning, Vice President for Public Service and Outreach at the

University of Georgia, pointed out his state‟s challenges to develop “the best

and the brightest” when the fastest growing parts of the state‟s population

are minority populations – predominantly Hispanic and Black. A challenge he

believes universities and the state must face together is how to develop more

talent, and how to cultivate interest in science, technology, engineering, and

math among these minority populations. Mike Cassidy talked about a

program at Georgia Tech which partners its engineering school with

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in 3+2 curriculum

articulations. According to Thernstrom and Thernstrom (2007), students

attending HBCUs choose math and science majors in much higher

percentages than they do in historically white schools. Perhaps such

articulation arrangements are one key to encouraging minority students to

pursue STEM fields of study.

243
What roles should various entities play?

If state policy is established to link universities to regional

development, the question that must be addressed is how to structure that

policy. Drabenstott and Henderson (2006), in their policy work on rural

economies, indicated that the starting point for such a discussion should be

for each region to assess the “economic niche where it stands the best

chance of ongoing successes” (p. 4). An alternative approach, suggested by

Aneesh Chopra, is for the governor and legislature to determine the industry

clusters that a state should target then direct investments in research to

those clusters.

Once target sectors are identified, engagement needs to be initiated.

The question then turns to who should take responsibility for matching

universities with regional needs should emanate. Mike Cassidy indicated

that, in Georgia‟s experience, it had been easier to get universities to come

together and cooperate than local governments. Further, universities

seemed to be the hubs around which other entities were comfortable

entering into dialogue about regional growth and other issues: “So in a lot of

cases, universities can be drivers that get other parties to the table.” He

believed the higher education system office should provide resources and

policy incentives to its universities to encourage engagement, but that actual

matchmaking between regional economic strategies and universities should

be made locally.

244
An approach that the University of Georgia has taken with its Archway

Partnership Program is to collaborate with the state‟s Department of

Community Affairs (DCA) on its Communities of Opportunity initiative. This

initiative is “a collaborative, locally-driven community development strategy

focused on enhancing the economic vitality of rural Georgia communities”

according to the DCA website. The university‟s role is to begin to piggyback

on efforts already initiated by communities working with DCA to develop

economic viability strategies. In this example, the university is following the

lead of the state/region to shape economic and community development

strategies by supplementing with on-the-ground facilitation and expert

consultation assistance.

What policies in Georgia and Virginia directly incentivize university


engagement in economically distressed regions?

In terms of tangible state policies to link universities with regional

economic development in Georgia and Virginia, work is clearly just beginning.

Senior leaders in Georgia indicated their lack of awareness of any direct

policy links – financial or otherwise - between universities and state

economic development goals. Indirectly, Georgia funds particular higher

education activities that are designed to contribute to the state‟s overall

economic development, including the Georgia Research Alliance, the Eminent

Scholars Program, and the relatively new Centers of Innovation program.

In Virginia, the state‟s 2006 Higher Education Restructuring Act

included a provision for institutions desiring more autonomy from state


245
bureaucracy which requires engagement with economically distressed

regions. This approach begins to link institutional accountability for

outcomes to state funding. As Dan LaVista explained, “The whole concept of

restructuring, as you know, is a move from pre-approval to post-audit review

of performance.” Each year when Virginia public colleges and universities

submit their budget requests to the state, they must also report on how they

are addressing the accountability measures in the Higher Education

Restructuring Act.

What investments should state dollars fund and where should the
investments be made?

Linking higher education funding to accountability for state goals,

including contributions to the economically distressed regions, is only part of

the funding solution, however. Significantly more money will be needed to

substantially engage research universities in regional development.

Engagement strategies in economically troubled regions will need to go

beyond the development of human capital through increased access to

education. Concentrating only on developing potential without

simultaneously creating mechanisms to anchor talent in a region will lead to

accelerated “brain drain” because better educated people will move to places

where employers are hiring and paying for professionals with advanced

credentials. Strategies to partner regions with research universities in order

to create a new highly skilled employment base might focus on developing

innovation capacity in the region through research and development.


246
According to Virginia Tech‟s Tim Franklin, who held primary responsibility for

establishing university research and development operations at the IALR in

Southside Virginia, “The research capacity allows the region to begin to have

regional assets that could affect the job structure especially if it is aligned

with creating opportunities for the region economically.”

Studies have shown that the impact of research expenditures occurs

within a commuting distance of where the money was spent (Kirchhoff et al.,

2002). This regional spillover effect (Arbo & Benneworth, 2007) suggests

that research investments at university campuses are unlikely to impact

regions that are farther than a commuting distance from those campuses.

Since the innovation economy is dependent on new ideas stemming from

intellectual capital, regions without concentrations of intellectual capital are

at a significant disadvantage. Market forces work against self correction:

higher skilled jobs go to where the talent is, new firms develop where the

talent is (Armington & Acs, 2002), and wealth is created in those places.

Since more than half of the United States‟ sustained economic growth in the

last fifty years was attributable to the five percent of the population with

science, engineering, and advanced technology degrees (BEST, 2003),

innovation is clearly linked not just to college-educated people, but

particularly to those with expertise in STEM fields.

Therefore, a critical need for economically disadvantaged regions is to

create intellectual hubs of college-educated people, with a particular focus on

scientists, engineers, and advanced degree technologists. By establishing a

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base of research and development activities in these regions, universities can

assist in building critical infrastructure that will position the regions to

compete more effectively in a global, innovation economy. This strategy is

dependent on attracting highly talented faculty and graduate students to

economically precarious regions. Substantial investments in research

infrastructure and world-class scientific and engineering talent are necessary.

Such investments would not be made, as Duderstadt (2005) argues, in

existing campus environments, but rather, in economically distressed

regions. Political will, particularly among legislators associated with needy

regions, to direct money to regions rather than to universities may be

greater. As Aneesh Chopra pointed out,

There‟s greater political pressure to address the rural community


challenge than there is to promote additional investments in higher
education generally… So in that context, to the extent that
universities can position themselves as enablers of rural economic
development, they‟ll find themselves currying political favor.

Public policy that directs money to regions can be structured to link

that funding to university engagement. Regions essentially sub-contract with

universities to establish research and development, as well as related

educational programs, locally. One mechanism for managing the funds and

sub-contracting relationship is via a regional stewarding institution, such as

the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research in Southside Virginia.

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What leadership and governance structures should be considered?

A key challenge that must be navigated, according to Aneesh Chopra,

is the fact that most regions don‟t necessarily know what assets and

resources research universities can bring to bear, or how to access them.

This suggests that universities may need to assume greater leadership roles

in regional partnering. In the experience of Mike Cassidy, public-private

leadership and governance structures are best suited to the challenge of

driving broad-based agendas that link state growth goals to university

contributions. He pointed to the effectiveness of his own board at the

Georgia Research Alliance, which is comprised of Georgia corporate chief

executive officers and research university presidents. He said, “You bring

them (university presidents) together with top corporate and civic leadership

and you have a very powerful model. I think that can be done on a local

basis as well.”

The elements of Cassidy‟s leadership and governance recommendation

for establishing effective university engagement strategies that target state

needs dovetails with Davies‟ (2006) thoughts on where to begin when setting

a public agenda for higher education:

But in the end, success depends on the vision and action of political
and education leaders within the state. Without the involvement and
skill of high-level leaders in initiating and sustaining change over
several years, progress is unlikely. For many states, the first step is to
find a policy entrepreneur or a leadership group that can focus
statewide attention upon the needs of state residents for higher
education and other related services, such as economic development.
(p. 20)

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Chapter 7

PROGRESS, POSSIBILITIES, AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Is distributed regional engagement an idea whose time has come?

Evidence points to the need and opportunity for much more significant

involvement universities in regional economic and social challenges. The

data demonstrate that several land-grant institutions are exploring more

comprehensive strategies of engagement, but have few roadmaps or models

to guide them. Local, state, and federal policymakers have a strong interest

in economic competitiveness but little concept about how universities might

be engaged effectively in partnerships that would boost regions that are

being left behind.

This dissertation has presented information on how several land-grant

universities are approaching distributed regional engagement and how two

regions are partnering with their respective land-grant institutions to advance

the well-being of citizens and communities in those regions. Implications for

state policy to stimulate and support holistic engagement models have been

explored. In this final chapter I offer an analysis of the distributed regional

engagement efforts associated with six institutions, general thoughts about

advancing this particular form of engagement, a new way for universities to

think about shaping their engagement strategies, and a model to

demonstrate how public policy can be an accelerator of regional engagement.

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I finish the chapter with a set of conclusions, suggestions for leaders and

policymakers, and recommendations for further research.

Characterizing Distributed Regional Engagement at Six Institutions

Evidence (or lack thereof) suggests that distributed regional

engagement is a relatively new, but growing phenomenon. Institutions of

higher education currently experimenting with this form of engagement are

the pioneers. What might we learn from them, particularly as we consider

the widely varying forms of engagement across these innovators? An

analysis of the six land-grant institutions practicing distributed engagement

in this study provides an opportunity to examine the similarities and

differences between the various approaches as well as to identify particular

strengths of each. This section considers the source of leadership for

engagement within the university; the engagement agenda; the roles of

faculty, students, and outreach and cooperative extension personnel; the role

of regional partners; funding models; and strengths of each distributed

regional engagement approach.

Each of the universities practicing distributed regional engagement

involves university expertise across multiple departments and disciplines and

has visibility at the senior level of the institution. Top level institutional

visibility, however, does not equate with top-level leadership and ownership

(see Table 15). Based on the limited data gathered, it appears that the

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higher the university leadership for distributed regional engagement, the

more significant the institutional effort and impact.

Table 15.
University Leadership

Institution Leadership for Regional Engagement

Michigan State University (MSU) Assistant Provost for University


Outreach and Engagement
Purdue University President, Vice Provost for
Engagement
University of Georgia (UGA) Vice President of Public Service &
Outreach, Associate Dean of
Extension
University of Minnesota (UMN) Faculty associated with the Institute
for Sustainable Agriculture
University of Missouri (MU) Extension Staff

Virginia Tech (VT) Vice Provost for Outreach and


International Affairs, Vice President of
Information Technology

At one end of the university leadership continuum is the University of

Missouri‟s Extension Community Economic & Entrepreneurial Development

(ExCEED) program. ExCEED is led by staff members in the Extension

organization. This engagement approach involves university expertise across

Extension-affiliated departments, but is mostly a staff-driven programmatic

effort. Faculty and expertise from other parts of the university which could

be relevant, such as business and economics, are absent. Most of the work

of the partnership is done by citizens in the community with narrow

injections of university expertise to address targeted topics.

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Next on the continuum is the University of Minnesota‟s Rural

Sustainable Development Partnerships program which was initiated by

faculty members in agricultural and natural resources disciplines. Similar to

the ExCEED program, this distributed regional engagement model is

constrained to a specific program approach. Although the range of expertise

from the university is limited to the disciplines associated with the founding

academic colleges and Extension organization, the level of involvement by

faculty and students seems to be greater that in the ExCEED program.

In the middle of the continuum are Michigan State, University of

Georgia, and Virginia Tech. Each of these institutions benefits from

leadership at the vice provost or vice president level and has been successful

in engaging faculty across many colleges as well as staff (outreach,

extension, other) in regional development. As a result, these regional

engagement approaches address a wider breath of community issues and

opportunities, and thus have greater impact. The varying backgrounds of

the vice provosts or vice presidents has shaped the emphasis on engagement

in each of these institutions in different ways. At MSU, faculty scholarship is

at the center. At UGA, collaboration between Public Service and Extension

has defined the structure of the university‟s approach. At VT, information

technology has played heavily into an outreach strategy in Southside.

At the far end of the continuum is Purdue, which is engaged in more

regions, more state issues, and more economic development partnerships

than any of the other institutions. Presidential leadership on statewide

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engagement has meant that signals have been sent externally and internally

indicating that the university is intimately interested in partnering to meet

the state‟s needs. Purdue has partnered proactively and reactively with

regions and regional issues across the state. The breadth of its engagement,

however, appears to have limited the depth of its engagement in any one

place, at least at the present time.

Table 16.
The Engagement Agenda

Partnership Engagement Agenda

Michigan State – Jackson, MI Community capacity building

Purdue – Indiana (various) Technology-driven business


development
University of Georgia – Archway Regional development priorities
Partnerships, GA
University of Minnesota – Five Sustainable development through
Regional Sustainable Development civic engagement
Partnerships, MN
University of Missouri – Five Local asset-based economic
Extension Community Economic & development
Entrepreneurial Development regional
partnerships, MO
Virginia Tech – Southside, VA Innovation economy infrastructure
development

The focus of engagement, or the engagement agenda, has differed

across the six institutional approaches (see Table 16). In two models, the

region established a vision and the university led on strategy and tactic

development. In two others, the university set the basic terms of

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engagement and the region defined its goals, strategies and tactics within

that framework. In one, the region developed goals related to particular

issues, and the university brought appropriate expertise to bear. And in the

final model, the university began by bringing expertise to bear on regionally-

defined issues then worked with the region over time to establish an

infrastructure for partnering.

Purdue and Virginia Tech approached distributed regional engagement

by taking a somewhat vague regional vision or aspiration and fleshing out a

strategy and contributing tactical elements where they had appropriate

expertise and resources to bear. In both of these models, the regions

wanted to increase their economic competitiveness through the development

of high tech assets that played to regional strengths. The universities

responded by suggesting strategies to assist the region in achieving its vision

and contributing relevant resources.

In contrast, the University of Minnesota and the University of Missouri

determined in advance the terms on which they were prepared to engage,

based on the origination of support within the university. As a result, they

framed program approaches to engagement, then empowered citizens in the

partnering regions to determine what they wanted to accomplish through the

partnership and how they would work with the university to achieve these

ends.

The University of Georgia and Michigan State University initiated their

engagements by partnering with regions to address specific issues associated

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with current community challenges. The universities assumed responsibility

for match-making between various community organizations and institutional

expertise. Michigan State worked over time to establish a partnering

infrastructure that would secure a relationship commitment between the

community and university and allow various needs and players on both sides

of the partnership to enter and exit as their respective needs were met. The

University of Georgia seems to be headed in a similar direction.

The six universities included in this study engaged faculty, students,

and staff in various ways throughout their distributed regional partnerships

(see Table 17). No single institution employed all role opportunities, and the

only particular university role that was employed by all institutions was

offering outreach programs and services in the region. Each role had a place

in advancing regional development. So, every institution has the opportunity

to learn about roles they didn‟t assume from other institutions who

successfully did.

It is difficult to argue that Research I institutions that do not engage in

faculty-led research-based activities in a region are robustly engaged as

universities. That is not to say that the partnerships are not valuable. The

value, however, likely leans determinedly toward the region and has little

opportunity to contribute to the university in a significant way.

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Table 17.
University Roles in Regional Partnerships

University MSU Purdue UGA UMN MU VT


Roles
Campus-based x x x x
faculty conduct
research
Regionally- x
based faculty
conduct
research
Research by x x x
campus-based
graduate
students
Research by x
regionally-
based graduate
students
Service- x x x
learning by
undergraduates
Academic x x
programs in
region
Outreach x x x x x x
programs and
services in
region
Outreach staff x x
liaison
embedded in
region
Integration of x x x x x
Extension
personnel and
activities
Business x x x
development
support
infrastructure
activities
IT x
infrastructure
established
Leadership x x x x x
development in
region
Social services x x x
support system
enhancement
in region

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Research that is conducted by visiting faculty and students (Michigan

State, Purdue, University of Minnesota) can address particular regional issues

and faculty research interests, benefitting the involved regional organizations

and university faculty and students. Somewhat in contrast, research that is

conducted by faculty and students resident in the region (Virginia Tech),

contributes to the development of new regional assets and permanent

intellectual infrastructure.

Within a limited scope, distributed regional engagement strategies

linked teaching and learning associated with academic programs to a broader

regional development strategy. Student learning was linked to regional

engagement from the perspective of involving on-campus students in

regional course-related learning activities at MSU, UGA, and UMN. This

enriched student learning, often placing students in environments that were

foreign to their life experience, and contributed to broadening regional

perspectives on issue resolution. Alternatively, student learning

opportunities in two models were targeted at resident youth and adults by

offering local opportunities to academic credentialing in disciplines related to

a broader economic strategy for the region (Purdue, VT).

Outreach and extension are the historic interfaces between land-grant

universities and communities. The interesting question in regional

development contexts is how effectively these organizations are positioned to

integrate their expertise within a broader regional strategy. Two institutions

in the study, University of Georgia and Virginia Tech, chose to embed one or

258
more outreach personnel in the partnering regions to serve in an interface

capacity back to their respective universities. One might argue that this

function could be theoretically served by a re-envisioned extension presence

in regions, but that has not occurred in these institutions. Another

interesting question is how well the existing extension presence in a region is

integrated into a broader regional development strategy. Such integration in

the institutions studied ranged from high integration in at the University of

Missouri, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Georgia to

moderate at Michigan State University and Purdue University to very little at

Virginia Tech.

Various regional “infrastructures” are required to position a region for

competitiveness. These include business development support, information

technology capacity, effective leadership, and robust social services. The

focus of university expertise in developing or enhancing each of these kinds

of infrastructure varied across institutional engagement models. Purdue,

Missouri, and Virginia Tech were each attuned to the need to assist regional

partners in creating a support system to nurture new businesses. Virginia

Tech, alone among the six universities studied, focused on regional

technology infrastructure development. Nearly all the universities studied

contributed to regional leadership development, typically targeted to

particular populations (such as minority groups, or community services

organizations). Finally, Michigan State University, the University of Georgia,

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and Virginia Tech focused attention on strengthening social services

infrastructure.

Striking the right balance with community partners is perhaps one of

the most challenging aspects of engagement. How the engagement agenda

is shaped, how the right players are brought to the partnering table, and how

the necessary resources are secured are all critical questions that must be

addressed. The role of regional partners (Table 18) is shaped in large part

by the way in which the university approaches partnering. Therefore, we in

higher education have an opportunity and a responsibility to consider our

needs and expectations then communicate effectively with regional partners

to shape partnering roles accordingly.

The University of Missouri and the University of Minnesota determined

that they wanted to engage with regions in their states through a

programmatic interface that they shaped and took responsibility to seed

fund. Their respective regional partners then worked within that

programmatic framework to determine what they wanted to accomplish, how

to engage university expertise, how to develop community support, what

resources would be needed, how to secure additional resources beyond the

seed funds, and how to spend the money. In this model, community

partners were empowered to call upon the university for assistance, but only

within the confines of the program parameters.

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Table 18.
Role of Regional Partners

Region(s) Role of Regional Partner

Jackson, Michigan Identify community goals and vision,


ensure appropriate community
people at involved to meet goals,
identify opportunities to engage
university expertise, develop self-
sufficiency
Indiana (various) Identify site for technology park
presence, develop economic vision,
identify sector strategy and related
workforce needs, partner with
university to establish business
incubator and related academic
offerings
Moultrie/Colquitt, Georgia Through executive committee,
identify priorities, involve
community, interface with university
personnel to inform choices and
develop options, make decisions
Minnesota (5 RSDP regions) Through citizen boards, create vision,
cultivate community support, and
direct budget expenditures to
subcontract with university for
various research, education and
outreach activities
Missouri (5 ExCEED regions) Organize regional coalitions, develop
project goals, allocate grant funds to
secure university expertise, conduct
activities
Southside, Virginia Develop vision, secure university
commitment, partner with university
to secure funding, provide facilities to
house university presence

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In sharp contrast, Purdue and Virginia Tech decided that they were

interested in engaging with regions to facilitate the development of a high-

tech economic base. In these engagements, the regional partners took

responsibility for developing a vision or articulating an aspiration associated

with creating a new economic base, secured critical resources to facilitate a

physical university presence in their regions, and left a lot of discretion to

their university partners to determine what they would contribute and how

that would be accomplished. This model runs the risk of creating unrealistic

expectations about what impacts the university in and of itself can

accomplish that will re-position the region economically. It also assumes

that the decisions of leaders who work to bring the university into their

regions will either be accepted by the grassroots of the community, or that

their acceptance doesn‟t matter – either of which are dangerous positions for

the university to face.

In-between the program model (UMN and MU) and the create-a-high-

tech-economy model (Purdue and VT) was the let‟s-meet-in-the-middle

model that was employed by Michigan State University. This model offered

an incremental approach to broad-based change by tackling particular issues

where there was a match between regional need and faculty scholarship

interest. A relationship was established such that entities associated with

either side of the partnership could initiate a partnering project. So, the role

of regional partners was to determine what they wanted to accomplish,

dialogue with appropriate university players about partnering, and decide

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together how to secure resources and assign responsibilities. Over time, a

trust relationship was built such that the partners began to work toward a

goal of community self-sufficiency. The disadvantage of this model is that

community change is incremental, both in terms of breadth as well as

timeframe. Interventions are dependent on the willingness and ability of

individual faculty members to contribute.

The University of Georgia approach might be characterized as high

regional empowerment. In this model, the university sets the stage by

pushing the region to identify its top issues, to organize a leadership group,

to engage community members in dialogue about issues and options, and to

make decisions about how to accomplish goals. The university‟s role is to

facilitate community conversation, seed fund the relationship, and procure

relevant expertise wherever it might be found. The downside of this model is

that the issues and solutions selected by the region are more informed by

current local perspectives than by new paradigms. Another concern is that,

unlike the MSU model, faculty interests are not at the center of the

partnering agenda, so deep faculty engagement may be more of a challenge.

The funding models employed by the partnerships (Table 19) offer

important insights to public policy decisions. In three of the six engagement

models, state money was appropriated for the specific purpose of supporting

a university-regional partnership. Two states, Minnesota and Virginia, sent

money directly to the regions and allowed them to essentially sub-contract

expertise. This approach put money in the regions and had the effect of

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Table 19.
Funding Models

Partnership Source of Funds

Michigan State – Jackson, MI Competitive grants secured by community


organizations and faculty members,
respectively, to fund focused collaborative
activities; roughly $7M total has flowed into
the partnership
Purdue – Indiana (various) Local contributions of land, Purdue Research
Foundation investments in technology park
facilities, local responsibility for funding
university engagement activities in region
University of Georgia – Archway Partnerships, University, through special Board of Regents
GA allocation, funds 2/3rds of an embedded 1-2
person university presence in region and
incidental expenses of partnership; region
funds 1/3 of same; roughly $120-150K per
partnership annually is spent on embedded
presence and incidental expenses; grants
secured by community organizations and
faculty members, respectively, to fund
specific partnership activities;
University of Minnesota – Five Regional State Legislature allocates $200K per region
Sustainable Development Partnerships, MN annually directly to each of the five regions;
regions are expected to contribute matching
funds; university supports its interface out of
its Extension budget
University of Missouri – Five Extension University Extension has funded partnerships
Community Economic & Entrepreneurial through seed grants from its base budget;
Development regional partnerships, MO grants to regions average $56K annually;
regions obtain matching funds
Virginia Tech – Southside, VA Roughly $80M has flowed into partnership
through a combination of VA Tobacco
Commission funds (facilities and research
equipment, seed administrative funding,
limited research, seed educational programs),
state line item appropriation (approximately
$6M annually for staffing and operations),
federal directed and competitive funds
(research programs, outreach programs),
local private funds (start-up funds,
furnishings and technology).

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with their university partners for research, programs, services, and other

pulling the universities into those regions to spend the money. Where the

scale of money was most significant (Virginia), the scale of university

commitment was greatest, and thus the highest opportunity for

transformative impacts.

In Georgia, the money for partnering was appropriated inside the

higher education system, and went to the university. It might be argued that

money from the Georgia legislature to the regions at a higher order of

investment would pull the university into the region in more significant ways

than is currently the case.

The states of Michigan and Missouri have not made direct investments

in university-regional engagement. The engagement that is occurring is

driven completely by those institutions‟ commitment to external partnering

and their willingness to carve seed funds out of their own budgets to

stimulate relationship development. Again, one might ask how much more

could be accomplished if the needy regions in those states received direct

appropriations for the specific purpose of partnering.

Another point related to several of these engagement models is the

responsibility placed on regions to secure funds to support the work of the

partnership. In the Virginia Tech and Purdue approaches, the region

assumed significant responsibility for funding the relationship and directed

investments to create a regional facility to house a university presence. In

the University of Georgia and University of Missouri approaches, the region

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was required to commit to matching university-provided funds before the

work of the partnership begins. By requiring regional investments in

partnering, a message is sent to regions that they have a responsibility to

shape the work of the partnership at the outset and to remain committed to

the partnership through the difficult times.

Table 20.
Strengths of Engagement Approach

Institution Strengths

Michigan State University (MSU) Engagement infrastructure, faculty


scholarship, regional self-sufficiency
Purdue University Presidential leadership, statewide
partnerships & relationships
University of Georgia (UGA) Engagement agenda driven by
regional leaders; student service
learning in regions; collaboration with
state agencies and other higher
education institutions
University of Minnesota (UMN) Local empowerment for university
research, education, and outreach
investments in region; development
of citizen leaders
University of Missouri (MU) Stimulating rural economic self-
sufficiency, entrepreneurship
development and support
Virginia Tech (VT) Holistic program model for regional
development; attraction of financial
investments; embedded faculty,
graduate students, and staff in region

Each of these pioneering distributed regional engagement efforts has

notable strengths that commend it to others as a model (see Table 20).

Michigan State University‟s notion of establishing a partnering infrastructure


266
built on a relationship of trust between the region and the university which

facilitates the coming and going of various individuals and organizations is

notable. Likewise, MSU‟s focus on involving faculty in regional issues

through a focus on scholarship offers important considerations for engaging

the heart of the academic enterprise. The work that MSU has done in

Jackson, Michigan to assist that community in achieving self-sufficiency

begins to outline an “end game” that builds the long-term capacity of a

region.

Purdue University has set an example of how to become a valued and

trusted partner with the state as it tackles broad economic development

challenges and agendas. While a president cannot alone make engagement

happen, he or she can set a tone and position the institution to put a high

priority on engagement. Rather than worry about being asked to do things

that are not easy to do, Purdue has proactively asked communities across

Indiana about their challenges and how the university can help. Between its

relationships with key state government and business leaders, as well as with

community leaders in regions spanning Indiana, Purdue has positioned itself

as a champion of the public good.

The University of Georgia has implemented a very effective model of

third party facilitated dialogue in communities that empowers communities to

take a big picture look at their issues through prioritization, defining

component elements, learning about options, and engaging the community in

determining courses of action. UGA has considered how students can help

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communities address particular issues and has effectively employed service-

learning opportunities to pull students (and faculty) into regional

engagement. By putting regional interests at the center of their engagement

relationship, UGA has laudably accepted responsibility for connecting

appropriate expertise to the region even if that expertise exists outside the

university.

The University of Minnesota has developed a very successful program

model for regional engagement in large part because of its focus on local

empowerment. Because the state sends special funds to the regions so they

can partner with the university, core resources are available for regions to

engage university expertise. In addition, the program model is structured to

develop citizen leaders through a formalized regional board structure.

Citizen boards practice what the university calls “in-reach” by reaching into

the university for the expertise and type of engagement appropriate to

address regional goals.

The University of Missouri is focused on the critical and compelling

issue of rural economic viability. The university has cleverly offered seed

funds to multijurisdictional coalitions that come together of their own volition

to address rural self-sufficiency. The program‟s focus on stimulating and

supporting entrepreneurship focuses people on creating a locally owned

economic engine that allows wealth to stay in the region.

Virginia Tech has piloted a model of “distributed research” that

establishes scientific laboratories in a region, places scientists there to

268
conduct applied research linked to local needs and opportunities, and builds

programs, services, and infrastructure supports around that applied research.

In this way, the seeds of a new employment base in the region are sewn

while a workforce with related competencies is simultaneously developed.

This model attracts increasing financial investments as more regional assets

are created, and attracts an increasing talent base as regional intellectual

capital is built.

The work of distributed regional engagement is difficult. There are not

many guideposts to help universities or regions chart a straightforward path.

Understanding what is working and why is important to the expansion of this

concept. Each of the six pioneers included in this study offers important

lessons about leadership for regional engagement, roles of university and

regional personnel, agenda-setting, financing mechanisms, and notable

aspects of their work. To the extent that this analysis is helpful to others

who choose to engage in distributed regional partnerships, it may shorten

the planning period and improve the odds of success.

Advancing Distributed Regional Engagement

The preceding section in this chapter looked at distributed engagement

from the perspective of higher education institutions. This section considers

a broader view on challenges identified through the research which need to

be addressed by researchers and practitioners to move distributed regional

engagement from the back room to a prominent focus. The analysis


269
considers issues associated with needs and assets of regions and universities

(potential for engagement), the role of leaders and culture in initiating

university-regional partnerships (facilitating engagement), policies associated

with the formalization of partnerships (structuring engagement), and

implications for state policy development.

Potential for Engagement

While there is considerable discussion in the economics literature (Arbo

& Benneworth, 2007.; Drabenstott, 2005; Henton et al., 2002; Porter, et al.,

2004) about the growing importance of regions in the economic

competitiveness equation, that concept is poorly grasped by communities

and is only marginally understood by university outreach and engagement

professionals. Given the difficulty in identifying U. S. examples of regional

university engagement occurring beyond an extended radius of campuses, it

seems clear that little attention has been focused by the academy on holistic

regional development. Absent education about regionalism and incentives to

operationalize it, adoption can be expected to be slow.

While economists (Drabenstott, 2005; Florida, 2002; Porter, 2001,

Reich, 2006) and an increasing number of higher education professionals

(Bardo & Evans, 2006; Duderstadt, 2005; Jackson, 2002) have noted the

shifting economic tide to an innovation-based economy, that understanding

has not completely permeated many communities. Communities without a

lot of intellectual capital, particularly those in rural regions, do not have a

270
clear understanding of the competencies (Bardo & Evans, 2006) they will

need to be competitive in a global economy. Educating community and

regional leaders about the competencies they will need to develop to be

resilient and prosperous is a valuable role that universities can play.

As the University of Georgia and Virginia Tech discovered, partnering

with non-local needy regions has the possibility of conferring great benefit to

the university partners. Oftentimes, needy communities approach

universities for help, but fail to look for or find university needs that they can

meet through a partnering arrangement. Universities may partner half-

heartedly out of a sense of obligation, and fail to identify ways in which the

partnership can meet their own needs. Such imbalance flies in the face of

literature about the basis of sound partnerships, which indicates that each

party expects to contribute as well as benefit from the relationship (Vidal et

al., 2002). This suggests that more emphasis needs to be placed on

identifying university needs (e.g., increased favor with state legislators,

increased research capacity) as well as on identifying regional assets (e.g.,

physical assets, political capital, sources of funds) that can tapped to benefit

the university.

If universities are going to be involved externally with communities,

through research, public service, and student service-learning, there is an

opportunity to align the goals of the university faculty and staff capable of

delivering these programs and services with the needs of a region rather

than just pursuing a scattershot approach. The University of Georgia did this

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through its Archway Partnership Program. Keys to the success of their

approach were starting by understanding the region‟s needs and instituting a

strong linking structure to match those needs with university interests. This

approach supports Lester‟s (2005) advice that universities should “align their

own contributions with what is actually happening in the local community” (p.

3).

As the Virginia Tech–Southside partnership has shown, it is possible

and desirable to align the goals of faculty with regional economic strategies

to build new economic capacity. The key in this model is to identify regional

assets that not only become a springboard for economic development but

also serve as a magnet for sponsored research. Because sponsored research

has come to dominate the focus of large U.S. universities (Votruba, 2005),

the best strategy for regions to pursue to engage universities is to target the

research enterprise of the academy. Once the university research linchpin is

in place, as the Virginia Tech–Southside model has shown, many other

university contributions can be aligned to complement the research strategy.

Commercial contracting and entrepreneurship development can be aligned

with the research activities to support the development of economic sectors,

educational programs can be aligned with the economic sectors to support

the development of a prepared workforce, and a spectrum of outreach

program offerings can be aligned with workforce competency development

through linkages with K-14 curricula and standalone learning opportunities.

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Facilitating Engagement

A critical need in regions as well as in universities is the emergence of

leaders who understand the value of partnering with the other entity

(universities with regions, regions with universities) and the relationship

between assets they can contribute and needs they can meet through the

partnership. In the University of Georgia–Moultrie/Colquitt and Virginia Tech

–Southside partnerships, leaders in both the regional and university

environments who understood this dynamic stepped forward. University

leaders who established successful regional partnerships also understood the

importance of ensuring consistency between institutional mission and goals

of the partnership (Vidal et al., 2002). Outreach and engagement leaders at

the institutions studied clearly were able to shape their institutions‟

engagement in ways that complemented and reinforced the mission of the

universities.

In the two partnerships studied in-depth, community-based leadership

was a central consideration and a point of pride associated with the success

of the partnership. These experiences are consistent with the literature on

university-community partnerships which suggest that success is more

common when leadership emanates from the community (Corrigan, 2000;

Lester, 2005; Maurrasse, 2001; Wilson, 2004). However, communities do not

necessarily know exactly what they need, so there is a need for university

participants in regional partnerships to offer guidance, perspective, and

potential strategies for community consideration.

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According to Weerts (2005), effective two-way relationships between

universities and communities diminish social and cultural barriers between

the partners and build organizational capacity for partnering. The University

of Georgia seemed to do an exceptional job of building capacity for

partnering in ways that support Weerts‟ thesis and should be considered by

others initiating university-regional partnerships. The facilitation work of the

Archway Team in the community and on campus helped the community

shape its approaches to the university and the university to shape its

interface with the community so that the needs of all could be met

effectively. Through the scheduling of visits back and forth between

community members and faculty members to each others‟ home

environments, mysteries about the other partner were diminished and

comfort levels increased.

If universities are truly to be “stewards of place,” as called for by

AASCU (2002), they need to consider the holistic ramification of that label by

addressing the economic and community wellbeing (Jones, 2005; Ramaley,

2007) of a place. The implications of this mean understanding that single

point interventions and a disjointed set of projects in a region do not

constitute “stewardship.” It is only possible to address the complexity of

issues in disadvantaged regions through university engagement that extends

across many levels on many dimensions.

Stewardship of place as it applies to university partnerships with

economically disadvantaged regions seems to call for universities to go

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beyond responding to regionally identified needs by assisting regions to

develop strategies for economic competitiveness. Regions cannot be

expected to know what they don‟t know. Universities serious about regional

engagement have a responsibility to understand the dynamics associated

with increasing globalization and to work with their regional partners on ways

to create competitive advantage.

Reindl (2005) suggests that stewardship of place is the

institutionalization of engagement. Regions may be able to solve the

problems of today with the influx of temporary intellectual capital from

universities. But they are not likely to develop sustainable innovation

economy competency without a long-term university partnership. This

principle points to the need for universities to consider how they can and are

prepared to create long-term relationships with regions that install

permanent university-led intellectual capital there.

Structuring Engagement

In both the University of Georgia and Virginia Tech partnerships,

successful, holistic regional engagement turned out to be more of an art than

a science. Community and university participants in both partnerships spoke

to the need for flexibility in goal-setting. The take-away lesson seemed to be

that it was important to outline the basic framework for the work of the

partnership and let the detail be defined with all partners at the table as the

relationship evolved, which UGA did particularly well.

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Hand-in-hand with goal-setting is the need to identify viable measures

of progress toward goals. Jones (2005) suggests that consideration should

be given to accountability measures that are both activity-oriented as well as

outcomes-driven, since community and economic development engagement

is necessarily complex. Such an accountability structure allows partners and

their stakeholders to gauge incremental progress as well as long-term goal

attainment. In the UGA–Moultrie/Colquitt partnership, short-term success

was measured by project activity completion. In the Virginia Tech–

Southside partnership, short-term success was measured by program

participation, funding secured, and infrastructure developed. Difficulties

arise when partners don‟t have a common perspective on measures of

success, and when unrealistic expectations about the timetable for long-term

success are held by partners. Both of these difficulties plagued the Virginia

Tech–Southside partnership.

The University of Georgia and Michigan State both spoke to the

importance of codifying expectations of their partnerships with communities

early in the partnerships. These simple agreements spell out basic roles and

responsibilities of the partners, including assumptions associated with

resourcing the partnership. Agreements also frame time commitments,

allowing partners to set an initial course, then take corrective action or make

a decision to end the partnership at the end of the time frame. Without

written agreements, expectations regarding roles and responsibilities can

shift, and open-ended commitments prevent rational stock-taking.

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An important element of the Virginia Tech and University of Georgia

distributed regional partnerships was the designation of a person or persons

to facilitate the linkages between the regions and campuses. In the

University of Georgia model, because the focus of the partnership was on

facilitating community dialogue to identify and address key economic and

community development issues then matching those with university

expertise, hiring a linking person with excellent group facilitation skills

became paramount. In the Virginia Tech model, because the focus of the

partnership was on university definition and implementation of critical

transformation elements, hiring someone with strong visioning capability was

critical.

Wilson (2004) and Reindl (2005) have stated that the

institutionalization of engagement is not episodic, it is based in a long-term

relationship. Creating a regular forum for all key stakeholders to prioritize

and track progress is a primary mechanism employed by the University of

Georgia to develop a base for its partnership with Moultrie/Colquitt. Without

a common forum to center the partnership, it becomes extremely difficult to

keep all stakeholders on the same page with regard to setting priorities for

shared activity as well as assuming shared responsibility for successes and

failures. These difficulties can undermine the partnership over time,

destroying the opportunity for an institutionalized relationship.

Sometimes a community-based entity takes responsibility for

managing a university-community partnership (Corrigan, 2000). This

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occurred in the Virginia Tech engagement model which created a new

regional entity to serve as a focal point for the receipt of funds for the

partnership and accountability for the expenditure of those funds. As an

extension, the regional entity also came to be responsible, in the eyes of the

original partners, for the progress and success of the partnership. This

structure may have worked well if all partners had committed to the regional

entity as a forum to set priorities, track progress, and measure success.

However, key individuals in the community and in the university failed to

come together in this – or any – common forum. As a result, widely varying

expectations developed and a narrowed sense of responsibility prevailed,

frustrating many involved in the partnership.

Whether the money for regional infrastructure to house university

personnel and activities comes from the state or not, a question in

university-regional partnerships will be who should assume primary

responsibility for securing funding and owning the infrastructure. The

examples of Moultrie (GA), Danville (VA), and Detroit (MI) in this research

study all point to communities successfully attracting a land-grant university

presence by assuming responsibility for facility development. In Moultrie, as

in numerous other communities, county governments have been significant

or sole providers of facilities for university Extension personnel. Local policy

that is innovative and entrepreneurial in creating the conditions for university

engagement assists a region in moving from being a net consumer of public

dollars to a net contributor (Goddard, 1997).

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A final consideration for universities related to structuring engagement

is the alignment of the faculty reward structure with engagement activities.

The Virginia Tech engagement experience in Southside points to the need for

universities to examine promotion and tenure expectations and the role of

engagement in those expectations. Faculties unwilling to alter traditional

emphases on scholarship and publications may be well-served to consider

only tenured or research faculty for roles associated with significant regional

engagement. Alternatively, faculties with a broader perspective on

promotion and tenure will have wider latitude of choices about who and how

to engage with regions. Since program prestige is critical to attracting top

faculty and graduate students (Ostriker & Kuh), ranking criteria that

emphasize research expenditures and assignable research space over

publications will better support regional engagement.

State Policy Implications

If regionalism is important, the question that emerges is how should

be regions be defined and by whom? State policymakers should give careful

consideration to jurisdictional affinities that make sense in an economic

context to the extent that they determine regional boundaries in a policy

context. Such a strategy should be predicated on the ability of communities

to find synergy and strength from partnering with neighboring communities.

Synergy comes from the ability of jurisdictions to complement each others‟

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assets and create competitive advantage (Drabenstott, 2005), as Southside

Virginia and Southwest Georgia are beginning to do.

If, as Drabenstott (2005) suggests, the health of the nation is the sum

of the health of its regions, it is not enough for state policy to focus on the

continued development of its most successful regions. Rather, state

policymakers need to focus attention on developing the prosperity of all

regions of the state. A key to this is aligning state economic strategies with

regional economic strategies. Every region has particular assets it can

capitalize on to build a competitive economic strategy. In southwest

Georgia, it is diversified agriculture. In Southside Virginia, it is a unique

racetrack, agricultural assets, and a concentration of polymers companies.

To the extent that state economic strategies include elements that recognize

regional strengths, policies can be developed that build the capacity of the

regions.

The current focus on university contributions to regional development

concentrates on the provision of education programs and business support

services. With greatly increased access to education through electronic

program delivery, many universities are developing and expanding online

course offerings to meet a wide range of workforce and educational needs.

Increased revenue pressures on universities have led also to the

development of consulting services for businesses and the management of

business incubators. However, universities have not typically employed the

greatest assets they could contribute to regional innovation economy

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capacity development (BEST, 2004; National Governors Association, 2002a;

SSTI, 2006) – a research-based innovation engine, science and engineering

undergraduate degree programs, and advanced information technology

infrastructure planning expertise. This is an issue ripe for policy

interventions.

States looking to develop economic capacity should consider that

university research is a very highly correlated contributor to economic growth

(Purcell & Mundy, 2003; SSTI, 2006) and that the impact of research

investments is felt within a commuting distance of where that money is spent

(Kirchoff, 2003). This would suggest that states should look to invest their

economic development dollars not in shell buildings in industrial parks, but in

research and education infrastructure to house distributed university

research and education in regional centers throughout the state. The Virginia

Tech–Southside partnership, housed at the Institute for Advanced Learning

and Research serves as an example of this model.

In particular, states should consider investing in targeted applied

research and complementary business development support service

infrastructure. This strategy is in line with the advocacy position of the

National Governors Association to support university engagement that is

targeted to specific economic priorities (Davies, 2006). States have an

opportunity to consider how funding they prioritize for research can

complement federal basic research funding. Investing in applied research

has a much shorter pay-back than investing in basic research and can be

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used to stimulate regional research activities that are linked to economic

development strategies.

If, as Jones (2005) suggests, the engagement of universities with the

economic and community development needs of states is dependent on

public policy incentives, state policymakers need to focus attention on

creating the appropriate incentives. The key is defining a win-win

opportunity (Maurrasse, 2001). Both the University of Georgia and Virginia

Tech were able to find the win-win on their own, but the question of how

many more examples of holistic regional engagement would exist if state

policymakers aligned resource incentives for universities with state economic

competitiveness goals should be asked.

A New Paradigm for Engagement

Building on Arbo and Benneworth‟s (2007) conceptualization of first

and second wave engagement approaches to regional development, by

considering the qualitative data gathered in this research process I offer a set

of characteristics that seem to define these two waves as they relate to

regional engagement. If second wave engagement is differentiated from first

wave engagement by “transformatory” effects, what are the differences

between first and second wave engagements that create such transformatory

effects? These differences are defined in the following section as

characteristics associated with five aspects of engagement: the approach to

engagement, roles and relationships, research implications, education

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implications, and public service implications. The attributes listed are

generalizations, versus absolutes and every engagement likely includes (and

perhaps needs) both first wave and second wave characteristics.

Table 21.
Regional Engagement Typology: Approach to Engagement

Characteristics First Wave Engagement Second Wave


Engagement
Target Symptoms Cause

Scope What is Desired

Regional Goal Catching Up Competitive Advantage

Type of Intervention Programmatic, Issue Thematic, Geographic

Strategy Selection Mass Custom

University Scale of Effort Departmental Institutional

Resources Finite Additive

Outcome Goal Deliver Empower

Benefits Micro Macro

Examining universities‟ approach to engagement (Table 21) offers

distinctions between first wave and second wave forms of partnering. First

wave engagement tends to target the symptoms associated with a troubled

regional economy and social structure. The focus is on addressing “what is”

by framing solutions in the context of fixing problems. Efforts are directed

toward helping a region “catch up” with state or national norms. Specific

issues are identified by regions or university researchers and specific


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interventions are applied to address those issues. Much of the focus is on

university experts providing information to educate regional stakeholders

about how to improve or correct a problem area. In contrast, second wave

engagement targets the cause of economic distress. Solutions are framed in

the context of a desired future state that builds on a combination of regional

strengths and university expertise to create competitive advantage.

As noted in Chapter Four, first wave engagement tends to be

programmatic- or issue-oriented. Engagement is focused on the delivery of a

particular program or programs from the university to the community, or on

addressing a narrowly-defined community issue through the application of

university expertise. In second wave engagement, the orientation is around

a broader thematic focus or geographic region.

In first wave engagements, universities often employ a generic

strategy based upon the university‟s expertise, interests, or perceived

market opportunities. Such strategies are formulated at the university, and

at best, customized to the particular needs of a community. In second wave

engagement, strategies are conceived in partnership with community players

and are tailored to the particular environment of the community.

The university‟s scale of effort in first wave engagement tends to be

departmental, involving one or a small number of departments which

interface with a community organization (i.e. social services agency) or

participant group (i.e. farmers) affiliated by a common interest. In contrast,

second wave engagements are characterized by university institutional

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engagement, involving many departments and leaders, and impacting

university policies and structures.

Resources in a first wave partnership tend to be limited in their scope

and duration. Often, a grant funds a partnering activity and when the grant

money has been spent, the engagement terminates. Alternatively, second

wave partnerships are characterized by multiplying resources, where the

value generated by the partnership from the initial intellectual capital and

funding begins to generate additional investments of people and money.

First wave and second wave engagements differ in terms of the

outcome goals to which partners‟ expectations are set. First wave

engagement is characterized by the university partner doing something or

providing something to the community partner. Metaphorically, the

university is “catching fish” for the community. Alternatively, second wave

engagement is characterized by a focus on the university empowering the

community to shape its own future. It is, metaphorically, “teaching the

community to fish.”

Benefits in first wave engagements flow primarily to particular faculty

members or service units at the university who have been the primary

engagement actors. They may reap such rewards as grant money,

scholarship opportunities, or fee-for-service revenue. Within the community,

first wave engagement partners primarily benefitting are the program

participants or individual community organizations directly participating in

the engagement activity. In contrast, second wave engagements tend to

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benefit not only the particular faculty members and service units involved,

but the institution as a whole, in terms of increased political capital,

institutional prestige, or similar institutional benefits. Benefits on the

community side of a second wave partnership flow beyond individual people

and organizations to strengthen the community in fundamental ways. These

benefits may relate to broad-based economic and social indicators or

increased market competitiveness.

A second set of differences between first and second wave approaches

to engagement is associated with roles and relationships (Table 22).

Relationships in first wave approaches are best described as one-way, where

the focus is on the university providing information or expertise to the

community. This is often thought of as extending the university (extension),

reaching out from the university (outreach), or disseminating knowledge

from university experts (knowledge transfer). In contrast, second wave

approaches are characterized by two-way, reciprocal relationships between

the university and community, wherein each values and benefits from the

contributions of the other. In first-wave engagement partnership, the

university typically functions as teacher and the community as learner,

whereas in second wave partnerships each partner – the university and the

community, respectively – alternately plays the role of teacher and learner.

Through the interchange of role relationships, a two-way reciprocal

partnership is established.

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Table 22.
Regional Engagement Typology: Roles and Relationships

Characteristics First Wave Engagement Second Wave


Engagement
Relationships One-way Two-way
Primary University Role Driver Facilitator
Primary Community Facilitator Driver
Role
Scope Original Players Partnering
Infrastructure
Disciplinary Expertise Disciplinary Silos Cross-Disciplinary
Regional Interface Individual Regional Regional Stewards
Actors
University Interface Entrepreneurial Faculty Engagement Champions
or Public Service Unit
Players
University Coordination Disconnected Faculty Coordinated University
and Service Unit Efforts Efforts

University and community roles tend to be somewhat different

between first wave and second wave engagements. In first wave

engagements, universities are most often in the driver role, defining the

terms and content of the engagement while community actors are facilitating

the university‟s activities. Conversely, in second wave engagements,

universities play a facilitator role and encourage the community partners to

drive the engagement by defining issues, setting priorities, and making

decisions. In all likelihood, both partners will both lead and facilitate in an

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engagement, but the predominant roles assumed by each are different in the

two waves.

The scope of engagement differs between first wave and second wave

partnerships. First wave engagements are characterized by a scope of

involvement that is limited to the original university and community players.

When the program delivery is complete, service is rendered, or issue is

addressed, the engagement concludes. In contrast, second wave

engagements are characterized by the development of a partnering

infrastructure that allows individuals and organizations in the university and

in the community to come and go as their particular activities are addressed.

The infrastructure transcends the particular individuals who may have

initiated the engagement to create a sustained relationship between the

university and the community.

Because second wave engagements typically tackle a more complex,

inter-related set of issues than first wave engagements, cross-disciplinary

efforts and activities are prevalent. This contrasts with the generally silo-

based disciplinary activity of first wave partnerships where multiple

disciplines may be involved but operate in separate spheres. The multi-

disciplinary nature of second wave engagements involves cross-conversation

and problem-solving between university personnel with different areas of

expertise that frequently results in novel discoveries, activities, or programs.

In first wave engagement, the principal regional interface is a set of

regional actors typically acting in response to personal or organizational

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interests. Critical to second wave engagement is the presence and

leadership of regional stewards, whose priority is the long-term well-being of

the region. On the university side of the equation, the principal actors in first

wave engagement are entrepreneurial faculty members or public service unit

representatives. Their efforts are typically disconnected from each other if

they are occurring in the same geographic region. In contrast, university

engagement champions are critical to second wave engagement and serve to

integrate many parts of the university in partnership with the region and

garner the support of top university leadership for holistic engagement.

There are a number of implications for shaping the role of university-

led research in first wave versus second wave engagement (Table 23). In

the former, faculty research interests typically drive the regional research

that is conducted, whereas in the latter, the research agenda is shaped by

regional opportunities and needs, as identified by the community players.

External funding that is secured for research in first wave engagement flows

to the university‟s campus, where overhead is distributed, and funds are

managed. In second wave engagement, external sponsored funding flows

directly to the region where it is invested and managed.

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Table 23.
Regional Engagement Typology: Research Implications

Characteristics First Wave Engagement Second Wave

Engagement

Driven By Faculty Interest Regional Opportunities


and Assets
External Sponsored Campus Region
Funding Destination
Conducted By Campus-Based Faculty Regionally Located

Faculty

Predominant Disciplines Social Science Engineering and Others

Primary Outcome Goal Scholarship, New Regional Assets

Publications

Role of Graduate Travel to Region to Live in Region While


Students Conduct Research Conducting Research
Role of Regional Entities Social Service Businesses: Tap
Providers: Tap Research Expertise to
Research Expertise to Develop New Product
Address Population Niches
Liabilities
Role of Regional Promote Role of Utilize Recruiting
Economic Developers Interventions in Strategy that Leverages
Strengthening Research Assets
Population

University-led research in first wave engagement is conducted by

campus-based faculty who travel to the region to gather data and interact

with stakeholders, but otherwise work on the university campus. In contrast,

second wave research is conducted by resident faculty in the region, where

they contribute intellectual capital in a broader sense to the region through

formal and informal interactions with many community entities. They may

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serve on local non-profit boards, speak to civic organizations, participate in

youth mentoring activities, and be part of regional knowledge-based

networks. In addition, they may have family members – spouses and

children, and perhaps even parents – who add to the intellectual capital base

of the region.

Since first wave engagement is predominantly focused on what is and

fixing existing problems, many of the faculty members attracted to

community-based research are in the social sciences. Health, education, and

welfare issues are typically the focus of first wave university-based research

activities. Alternatively, because second wave engagement is focused on

creating a future desired state and competitive advantage in a technology-

dominated marketplace, engineering and other disciplines – particularly

technology and science – will likely have a prominent role in a regional

research agenda.

University faculty members involved in first wave engagements are

predominantly concerned about research agendas that permit them to

contribute to scholarship in their disciplines and generate possibilities for

academic journal publications. In contrast, faculty members involved in

second wave engagement know they need to create new regional assets with

their research, including new products or capabilities, which will immediately

add value to the region‟s economic base. This distinction certainly has an

impact on promotion and tenure expectations for regionally-based faculty.

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Many university-led research agendas include significant roles for

graduate students. In first wave engagements, graduate students travel

back and forth between campus and the region to conduct their research.

Conversely, graduate students in second wave engagements reside in the

region during the course of their research activities thus adding temporarily

to the intellectual capital base of the region. Smart regions engage resident

graduate students in the life of the community, creating relationships and

amenities that incent graduate students to remain in the region after

completing their degree.

The regional entities most affected by first wave research are social

service providers. They typically use the research interventions to

understand and address liabilities related to the well-being of people in their

communities. Regional economic developers can and should promote the

population-strengthening interventions to prospective businesses (i.e. an

improving K-12 system, increasing healthiness of citizens). Second wave

research activities are directed at strengthening and developing the economic

base of the region by seeding innovations that will stimulate private sector

investments. The regional entities best positioned to leverage the research-

based innovations are local businesses who can tap the university expertise

to develop new product niches. Economic developers can and should

leverage the university research by designing a business recruitment

strategy that highlights and exploits the research assets.

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Table 24.
Regional Engagement Typology: Education Implications

Characteristics First Wave Engagement Second Wave


Engagement
Role of Undergraduates Students Learn About Students Actively
Regional Issues from Engage with Regions on
Faculty Experiences Issues and Solutions
Regional Workforce Targeted to Existing Targeted to Desired
Development Employers Future Employers
Regional Workforce Skills Certification Post-Secondary
Credentialing Credentialing
Regional Stand-Alone, Non- Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship Credit Program Components Integrated
Development Offerings into Regionally Offered
Degree Programs
Baccalaureate Degree High Demand Programs Engineering and Other
Offerings in Region High Need Low Demand
Programs
K-12 Linkages to Senior Various Outreach STEM Capacity
Institution Regional Programs Development and
Curricular Offerings College Readiness
through Outreach
Programs and
Integrated Curriculum
Pathways
Community College Articulation Agreements Articulation Agreements
Linkages to Senior in High Demand and Local Availability of
Institution Regional Program Areas Engineering and other
Offerings STEM-Related Degree
Programs

Regional engagement has education implications both for students on

the university‟s campus as well as for people living in the region and the

educational institutions resident there (Table 24). Undergraduate students

on campus benefit from first wave engagement through the incorporation of

real issues and case studies in course curricula that stems from faculty

interfaces with a region. In second wave engagement, undergraduate


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students themselves are actively involved with issues in regions, typically

through service learning activities that focus students on learning about

regional issues and offering potential solutions.

Within the region, the development of the workforce in first wave

engagement is generally targeted to existing employers and focuses on skill

development and certification that matches a particular employer‟s needs.

Federal funding to aid displaced workers or state money associated with

incentives to locate a particular employer in a region by tailoring workforce

training to the company‟s needs frequently drive first wave workforce

development. Conversely, second wave engagement is directed to the

development of a desired future workforce, and involves post-secondary

credentialing.

Both first and second wave engagements may include a focus on

regional entrepreneurship development. However, first wave strategies

typically involve stand-alone, non-credit program offerings on

entrepreneurship topics. These programs are utilized by citizens who are or

desire to become entrepreneurs, to sharpen their knowledge about such

topics as business plan development, marketing strategy, and capital access.

In contract, second wave strategies embed entrepreneurship topics in the

curricula of degree programs offered regionally, so that a student studying to

become an engineer, for example, learns not only engineering skills but also

the application of business development principles in engineering fields.

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As regions look to develop their human capital, the availability of

baccalaureate degree programs locally becomes an important opportunity.

Generally in first wave engagement, higher education partners are willing to

negotiate on the provision of high demand programs, such as education,

nursing, and business. The relative cost to provide these programs is small

and high demand ensures that adequate tuition dollars will be captured to

recover the provisioning costs. The challenge of second wave engagement is

the provision of high need, low demand programs, such as engineering and

science, which also are generally more expensive to offer due to the need for

laboratories and directed hands-on learning activities. Until a sufficient base

of new employment opportunities in the region for scientists and engineers

develops, enrollments will be small. Therefore, using strategies to aggregate

demand, such as hybrid course delivery methods, may make sense.

Linkages to K-12 education in first wave engagement often takes the

form of outreach programs that target students of particular ages or teachers

teaching at particular levels to develop specific skill sets. At the community

college level in first wave engagement, articulation agreements are

developed to allow students to flow seamlessly from associate to

baccalaureate degree tracks, generally in high demand program areas.

Second wave K-12 and community college engagement puts a particular

emphasis on developing seamless STEM curricular pathways from high school

through baccalaureate completion.

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Table 25.
Regional Engagement Typology: Public Service Implications

Characteristics First Wave Engagement Second Wave


Engagement
University Role Provide Discreet Incorporate Services into
Services Comprehensive Regional
Strategy
University Players Outreach and Public Includes Non-Outreach
Service Units Administrative
Departments
Regional Role Contract For Discreet Incorporate Services into
Services Provision Comprehensive Regional
Strategy
Regional Physical Spec Buildings, Water, Fiber Optic and Wireless
Infrastructure Sewer Communication
Development Focus Infrastructure
Regional Service Social Safety Net Gaps Business Development
Infrastructure Support System
Development Focus
Regional Leadership Leadership Regional Stewardship
Development Focus Development
University Outcome Revenue Generation or Integrate Public Service
Goal Fulfilling Public as Part of a Holistic
Mandate Engagement
Portfolio/Stewardship
Portfolio

University regional engagement activities can take the form of

research, education, or public service. Public service engagement in land-

grant institutions occurs through Extension organizations, Outreach or Public

Service units that are typically housed in an administrative division and

sometimes within academic colleges, and academic faculty members who

offer their expertise to external entities. In this broad arena, public service

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can take many forms. The above categorization (Table 25) attempts to

select some of the more critical aspects of regional development that would

be addressed through a public service interface.

The university‟s role in first wave public services engagement is to

provide discreet services and programs to regions. These might include

technical assistance, studies, or contract programs. The university entities

providing these programs and services most often are Extension agents,

Outreach units, and public service affiliates of academic colleges. In

contrast, services and programs provided by the university in second wave

engagement incorporate public service offerings into a comprehensive

regional strategy. The university actors in second wave public service

engagement include not only the entities involved in first wave public service

engagement, but also other administrative departments. These departments

may have specialized expertise needed by the region, such as information

technology or multicultural affairs, and is offered in the spirit of serving the

land-grant mission.

On the regional side of the equation, first wave engagement generally

targets discreet university-provided public services which may or may not be

offered on a contract basis. As with the university role in second wave

engagement, regions in second wave partnerships incorporate university-

provided services into a comprehensive regional strategy. Regions may be

particularly focused on university-provided services in three domains:

physical infrastructure, service infrastructure, and leadership development.

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How public service engagement is shaped in each of these domains differs

from first wave to second wave engagement.

In first wave engagement, regions are focused on perpetuating the

development strategies of the past so see the development of spec buildings,

water, and sewer infrastructure as critical ingredients for attracting new

employers. Universities may provide consulting services in conjunction with

the development of these additional infrastructure components. From a

services perspective, regions in first wave engagement are focused on

service infrastructure improvements that target gaps in social safety nets.

Universities may offer consultation or programs to address the gaps in a

particular region. Leadership development is a priority in first wave

engagement, and university partners may offer various capacity-building

programs in distressed regions.

In second wave engagement, physical infrastructure development is

particularly focused on fiber optic and high speed wireless provisioning

because many high wage companies depend on reliable electronic

connectivity to globally distributed markets and suppliers. University

expertise and relationships with network providers can be tremendously

beneficial to communities with little advanced networking technology

expertise. Regional services infrastructure development in second wave

engagement is principally focused on creating business development support

services and systems. Many land-grant research universities have

experience with technology transfer, business incubators, and corporate

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research parks that lend themselves to application in regions interested in

incubating and growing new high tech businesses. Regional leadership

development in second wave engagement is centered on the emergence of

regional stewards who negotiate regional transformation strategies with their

university partners.

Universities providing public services in first wave engagements

generally do so because of a public mandate, as with Cooperative Extension,

or in response to the university‟s need to generate alternative revenue

streams through fee-for-service offerings. In contrast, universities involved

in second wave engagements integrate the public service offerings as part of

a holistic engagement portfolio.

In sum, first wave regional partnerships can best be understood as a

collection of separate interventions to make incremental improvements to the

current environment, the successes of which are measured on the individual

outcomes of the engagement activities. In second wave partnerships, a

coordinated set of strategies designed to transform the region‟s economic

base is employed, resulting in the whole of the engagement being greater

than the sum of the parts. Through a richer interweaving of relationships,

second wave engagements generate energy, resources, discoveries, and

benefits of their own accord which enrich the partners will beyond the

original stated partnering expectations.

A relevant question is whether we should consider if and how first

wave engagements might lead to second wave engagements. Is it wise to

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build a foundation for partnering with one or more first wave engagements

between a university and region, then migrate to second wave engagement?

Or are the dynamics of the two waves so different that it is best to go into

regional engagement with the end in mind and play to the relevant strategy

accordingly?

Public Policy as an Accelerator of Engagement

There is an adage which says that if you don‟t know where you‟re

going, any road will lead you there. This adage captures the essence of the

current policy environment with respect to university–regional engagement.

University faculty and staff are working within the systems and structures

that reward them, in many cases trying desperately to align these well-worn

systems with fairly amorphous and complex economic and social problems.

The net result too often, though, is widely disbursed and narrowly focused

engagement activity which has little impact on addressing broad public

issues. I believe that universities want their impacts to add up to more, that

regions would welcome university partnerships that helped to make truly

significant differences, and that governments seek to leverage their assets to

address the public good. The problem is that we haven‟t defined what we

want to accomplish and put in place the policy mechanisms to move us

there.

Once we have a sense as to where we‟re going, we can figure out how

to take the essence of university strengths and shape them to the challenges

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at hand. We can also provide guidance to citizens and communities about

how to orient and organize themselves to maximize their opportunities for

success. Perhaps most importantly, we can direct public resources to provide

incentives for universities to engage in meaningful and substantive ways with

the challenges of thriving in a fast-paced, globally intertwined, and highly

dynamic ecosphere.

In the first wave engagement model, an entity with a need seeks to

partner with another entity to meet that need. In universities, such needs

are frequently associated with faculty members seeking research grant

funding that requires a community partner who meets certain grant-affiliated

criteria. While the community partner may be happy to oblige and derive

some value from the university intervention, the focus of the work associated

with the grant activity may not be a priority need for the community.

Conversely, a community may seek assistance from a university to address a

need, such as conducting a study or providing expert-based information. The

university, typically through a public service/outreach/extension unit is

generally happy to oblige and derives some value under the auspices of its

public service mission. The problem with the first wave model is that the

engagement is particular to a very limited issue and typically is accomplished

with finite resources, such as a grant or fee-for-service. Such a model is

beset with sustainability constraints, both from the standpoint of limited

resources to fund partnering activities and the ability to maintain the interest

of the partner over time.

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Alternatively, second wave engagement partnerships involve a set of

dynamics that are mutually reinforcing. All partners derive broad-scale

benefits. Government policy can significantly accelerate the engagement of

partners and scale of outcomes by targeting partnership activities that

address complex economic and social systems. Further federal and state

government policy that fuels the development of new university assets in the

region will enable a sustained, virtuous engagement circle (Figure 2). These

dynamics are explained in the following paragraphs.

If engagement is a two-way street, a partnership in which both entities

contribute to and benefit from the relationship, a precondition of engagement

is the existence of needs that have the possibility of being met by the

partner, as well as assets that can potentially benefit the partner. So, a first

step in engagement is the identification of a potentially cross-matching set of

needs and assets between a region and an institution of higher education. If,

for example, a region needs to establish a base of technical innovation, an

undergraduate liberal arts institution is unlikely to be a viable partner.

Similarly, if a region‟s greatest asset is an agricultural base, partnering with

a private urban university is unlikely to be a good fit. Where regions have a

wide range of needs, they may find value in partnering with several

institutions of higher education whose strengths and interests vary.

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Once a potentially cross-matching set of needs and assets is identified,

facilitators of engagement must be present. Regional leaders who have a

strong sense of responsibility to, or stewardship of, their region understand

the value of partnering with a university to address high priority regional

needs. University leaders who have a deep commitment to engagement and

understand the institutional value of holistic partnering with regions are

willing to work across their institutions to involve appropriate resources. The

region and university cultures embrace, at some level, the concept of

partnering and engagement. Thus through the leaders and the supporting

environments for partnering, boundaries are spanned between the region

and the university opening the door to engagement.

The addition of significant state and/or federal resources to a

partnership allows the asset base of the partnership to be increased,

sustaining the interest of and benefits to the partners. Federal resources are

used to develop laboratories or purchase specialized equipment – all of which

are housed in the region. These additions to the regional asset base increase

the region‟s opportunity to meet university needs for increased laboratory

space or provide access to unique equipment for university-led research. As

these university needs are met, the asset base of the university is increased,

thus expanding the opportunity to meet regional needs associated with

developing a base of innovation and competitive edge. Similarly, state

resources are used to fund new faculty lines for regionally-based faculty

members. More faculty members conducting more research associated with

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developing a locus of innovation in the region increase the opportunity to

meet regional needs, which in turn increase the region‟s assets and

attractiveness for partnering. The increased value produced by the

partnership makes it more attractive for additional funding. The effect of

these federal and state investments is to accelerate engagement by closing

the partnering loop with increased incentives for sustaining and expanding

the partnership.

Significant investments are important to accelerate the partnership,

but policies to govern the partnership are also critical. Identification of goals

to be addressed through the partnership, accountability to those goals,

responsibilities for resourcing the partnership, and a strong governance

structure are policy elements that need to be considered. Leaders from the

region and the university play central roles in developing the engagement

policy structure. State governments providing recurring funding to a

partnership have an opportunity to influence what goals are set, how

accountability will be addressed, and a governance structure that will balance

the interests of regions and universities with the state‟s interests. Thus,

partnership policy structures reflect the inputs of regional stewards,

university engagement leaders, and state policy levers.

A virtuous engagement circle is created through the addition of each of

the preceding ingredients to a university-regional partnership: cross-

matching of assets and needs, leadership in spanning regional/university

cultural boundaries, significant external investments from the state or federal

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governments or other large investors, and a policy structure that sustains the

partnership over time. This virtuous engagement circle provides benefits to

the region, to the university, and to the state, creating a win-win-win

scenario.

Case Discussion

In both the Georgia and Virginia cases, it was clear that each

partnership had identified cross-matching assets and needs early in the

relationships. Also in each situation, strong leaders emerged from the

universities and regions, respectively, and were bolstered by cultures that

were supportive of broad-scale, engagement partnering. Differences in the

two partnerships begin to emerge in the investment infusions and

governance structures of the two partnerships which can inform each other

as well as other distributed regional engagement partnerships.

The Virginia Tech – Southside partnership, the older and perhaps more

mature of the two case study partnerships, saw the investment of millions of

dollars over a seven-year period. These investments came primarily from

federal, state, and Virginia Tobacco Commission sources in the form of one-

time as well as recurring funds. The circle in Figure 2 depicting the

acceleration of engagement as a consequence of the external investments

represents an important dynamic of the partnership. Initial investments

from the Tobacco Commission created new assets (a building and core

university-affiliated personnel) for engagement, which attracted additional

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federal investments (in laboratories and specialized equipment), which

established a rationale for recurring state funding for scientists. With each

infusion of funding, the asset base of the partnership grew, multiplying

benefits to the respective partners.

A critical point is that the assets created were physically associated

with the Southside region, not the university‟s Blacksburg campus. Funding

that flows directly to campus, even in the face of the best of intentions to

benefit a region, has little opportunity to do so. Between federally approved

indirect levels associated with sponsored funding at 40-50% for major

research universities, needs for funding to increase campus assets, and the

geography of distance as a deterrent, regions are unlikely to see many new

assets benefiting them that are associated with money sent to universities.

The Virginia Tech–Southside partnership experienced this dynamic with more

than $7 million of federal funding directed to a particular partnership

research activity where the money went to campus. Four years later when

the money was gone, more than two dozen graduate students on campus

had had assistantships funded but never visited Southside, and a truckload of

specialized equipment that was purchased with the federal funds for the

partnership research activity sat in Blacksburg.

The University of Georgia–Moultrie/Colquitt partnership has seen the

beginning of external investment, in this case, via the Georgia Board of

Regents. New money from the Regents will allow a limited increase to the

asset base of the partnership through the addition of an issue specialist. The

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rest of the money, however, will seed other UGA-regional partnerships. A

challenge for the UGA–Moultrie/Colquitt partnership is the creation of

additional assets in the region and the attraction of external funds to do so.

Building the partnership asset base in the region will strengthen the

university‟s commitment to the relationship, increase the subsequent

accomplishments of the partnership, and position the partners to attract

additional investments.

In the end, the goal of regional-university partnerships should be to

stimulate and catalyze private sector investments in a regional economy. A

university presence alone in an economically distressed region can have an

important direct impact, but the emphasis in a market-based economy

should be on attracting private industry investments to the region. The

application of state and federal funds to establish core high-value assets in a

region, I would argue, are wise and appropriate uses of public dollars. Spend

public money where there is an absent private market, but do so in a way

that will begin to seed the development of private investments.

State and federal policymakers concerned about U.S. competitiveness

in a global economy have an opportunity to leverage their public universities

in ways that can establish a new foundation for regional prosperity. By

committing public dollars to university engagement in regions, they can

strengthen regions as well as universities, accelerating such partnering

activities and resultant benefits. State money budgeted for economic

development to fund construction of shell buildings and one-time relocation

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employer incentives might be redirected to university engagement in regions.

Alternatively, states can raise taxes with the expectation that investments in

university-regional partnerships will have a greater return than cost to the

state. Targeted federal funding in the form of grants could strengthen the

links between research and a host of related activities including: technology

transfer, entrepreneurship, broadband infrastructure deployment, and human

capital development.

Ideally, state and federal funds will be leveraged with investments

from other sources. A comment that has been made by several familiar with

the Virginia Tech–Southside partnership is that it could not be replicated

because of the unique investment opportunity that was available through the

Virginia Tobacco Commission. I would challenge that assumption from two

perspectives. First, every successful partnership does not have to start with

a $20 million building. The facility that houses the main operations of the

Institute for Advanced Learning and Research has certainly been a boon for

the Southside region and has added an important dimension of credibility to

the region‟s stated aspiration to develop a high tech economy. However, I

believe that continuous investment in high-value smaller scale assets can

initiate the acceleration effect described earlier.

Second, I believe that there are a range of significant private funding

sources that could be tapped. With the emergence of a new breed of

philanthropists interested in funding social entrepreneurship, where “the

emphasis is on social returns, not on economic returns” (Hafner, 2006, p. 2),

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it seems highly likely that an increasing number of venture philanthropists

(Zinko, 2007) will emerge. This new breed of philanthropists may want to

invest in communities to which they have some connection in ways that will

significantly move the community forward. Examples of venture

philanthropist-initiated community-university partnerships have been

developing in New Mexico, North Carolina, and Indiana.

Another possibility for raising private funds to establish university–

community partnership assets is attracting a real estate investor into the

venture. Such a partnership might be established as a joint venture (Worth,

2002) in which the community, university, and investor hold a financial

stake. In this scenario, the real estate investor may build a facility that

houses the activities of the partnership with the expectation that elements of

the partnership will either directly provide a revenue stream or spin-off

ventures will generate revenue, a percentage of which could be funneled

back to the investor. Much more work could be done to understand the

private financing options and successes in other partnerships which could be

applied to university-regional partnerships.

Turning from financing strategies to partnership policy structures, the

Georgia and Virginia cases offer a number of valuable lessons. Based on my

opportunity to learn about each partnership‟s governance structure, I believe

the Georgia entities have built a solid base upon which to expand their

partnership while the Virginia partnership may run aground because of

weaknesses in its governance structure. The engagement leaders at the

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University of Georgia and the regional stewards of Moultrie/Colquitt appear to

have set realistic goals for their partnership, have assumed shared

responsibility for accountability in the partnership against the stated goals,

and have established a functional governance structure that includes leaders

of major local public and private organizations.

With that said, I believe the partnership should begin to establish a

ten-to-twenty year vision for the region that considers how to increase the

economic standards of southwest Georgia by developing a base of innovation

and increasing the educational levels of the population. Linking this vision to

existing regional strengths and partnering with university expertise to create

competitive advantage will be important. Drawing the state into this

partnership by demonstrating how increased regional prosperity benefits the

state of Georgia through increasing the tax base of southwest Georgia is a

strategy that should be considered. The state, in turn will want to consider

how to structure accountability for state investments that balance short-term

measures of success with long-term measures of prosperity.

The governance structure for the UGA-Moultrie/Colquitt partnership

seems to be on solid footing. Regional stewards should be credited with not

only taking responsibility for establishing the partnership with UGA but also

for recognizing the value of diversifying the representation of the executive

decision-making group. This will allow them to move the regional

development agenda forward in ways that engage the grassroots of the

community as active participants. Challenges ahead for governance will be

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how to effectively involve leaders from adjacent counties as the partnership

expands to serve a larger regional footprint. As the state engages through

providing substantial funding to the partnership, it will want to consider how

to build on the strength of the current governance structure as it adds its

own representation.

The Virginia Tech–Southside partnership is in a state of transition at

this writing, as the search for new leadership at the Institute for Advanced

Learning and Research is underway. University and regional leaders would

be wise to come together with the new IALR leadership to outline short and

long-term goals for the partnership as well as to set expectations regarding

associated measures of success and accountability to stakeholders. The

state‟s leadership should also become more actively involved in considering

how investments it is making in the IALR as well as in other Southside higher

education centers are complementary and together create a cohesive

investment in a regional development strategy.

Regional, university, and state stakeholders in the Virginia Tech–

Southside partnership should take a hard look at the governance structure,

which is perhaps the most problematic element in the partnership. The array

of formal and informal links between the Southside and Virginia Tech is

overly complex and at times, highly dysfunctional. Virginia Tech has several

points of presence in the region which, at best, are loosely connected at the

university and not at all in the region. The region has yet to unite around a

development strategy and to clearly articulate the role of Virginia Tech (and

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other universities) in that strategy. The IALR, while the most significant

partnering effort between Virginia Tech and Southside, does not have a

board structure that maximizes the engagement of local public and private

organizational leaders. Instead, the IALR finds itself too often in the

crosshairs of an intra-regional power struggle, making it extraordinarily

difficult to move decisively and effectively forward. Regional stewards,

instead of working through the IALR Board, prefer to construct their own

communication channels between IALR-affiliated personnel and Virginia Tech.

State policymakers should consider how to link state investments in

Southside to a more coordinated and regional governance structure as it

relates to partnering with higher education institutions.

Conclusions

This dissertation research examined university engagement with

regions geographically distant from campus through the perspective of

university contributions, regional contributions and state policy implications.

Embedded in chapters four, five, and six are many thoughts, considerations,

and suggestions related to establishing and sustaining distributed regional

engagement partnerships. The following lessons are the major take-aways

from the findings.

1. Transformative engagement cannot be based only on regional

needs and university assets. It must also be grounded in

identifying and valuing university needs and regional assets.

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Engagement as defined by the Kellogg Commission‟s Returning to our

Roots (1999) is a two-way street. It is about more than universities

supplying expertise to address regional issues, however collaborative the

exchange. Engagement presupposes that regions also contribute to

universities. Through this two-way exchange both entities are transformed

and strengthened. Transformative engagement allows regions to

significantly improve their economic base, their community‟s quality of life,

and their citizens‟ ability to develop their full potential. Transformative

engagement also facilitates changes and adaptations in universities that

increase their relevancy, focus their work, and open new opportunities.

It is simplistic and arrogant to suggest that regions have a lot to learn

from universities without also acknowledging that universities have a lot to

learn from regions. Similarly, it is naïve or disingenuous to say that a

university is or should be engaged with an external community for the

benefit of that community without also recognizing how the engagement

partnership can meet needs of the university. Yet, too often these

assumptions about one-way flows of needs from regions and conversely,

benefits from universities, are the framework for engagement discussions.

Deep, sustained engagement is incredibly hard work. Universities will

not make the necessary commitments over time to partnerships with regions

if there are not substantial benefits accruing to the universities. Individual

faculty members and student groups may come and go over the course of a

partnership as their individual needs are met, but if larger institutional needs

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are not factored into the partnership it is unlikely that the relationship will be

sustained long enough to alter downward spiraling dynamics in a region.

Regions cannot expect higher education institutions to commit time

and resources to address regional issues without taking responsibility for

identifying what they might offer to universities that would return substantial

value. Most universities do not believe they have excess capacity that could

be directed strictly to altruistic ends. Regions serious about engaging with

universities must be prepared to seek resources and provide local leadership

over a prolonged period of time to sustain such partnerships.

2. Engagement strategies designed to transform regions require

the leadership of regional stewards.

Universities, or even states, cannot be expected to assume primary

responsibility for the well-being of a region. The people who are most

invested in a region - those who live, work, raise their families, and hope to

leave a legacy for future generations – are best suited to the task of regional

leadership. They know the history, the politics and personalities, and have

the most to gain from ensuring the prosperous future of their communities.

Regions that do not have citizens who are ready to assume leadership in

guiding their communities on the arduous and uncharted path to a different

future cannot expect outsiders to provide substantial assistance.

Such regional stewards must be prepared to assume a wide range of

responsibilities. To be effective, they must be willing to initiate and sustain

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collaborative and supportive relationships with university partners. In these

relationships, regional stewards should be responsible to the channels of

communication established early in the partnership, not using back doors to

pursue independent agendas or strategies. Regional stewards accept

responsibility for establishing priorities for the work of the partnership,

tracking the partnership‟s progress, and making choices associated with

solution options.

Because securing resources is an important and inevitable need of

engagement partnerships, community leaders must be prepared to play a

significant role identifying and seeking funding. Funding and broad-based

support depend on constant advocacy, both within and beyond the region.

So, regional leaders must be willing to commit time and effort to relentlessly

communicating with community constituents as well as through networks

that extend beyond the region about the value of the partnership. Regional

leaders will also take responsibility for working with university partners to

report progress to key stakeholders.

Partnerships focused on developing economic competitiveness are

well-served by regional stewards who work to build local consensus around

the economic niches that will be most viable for the region into the future.

This work involves the identification of regional assets that will support these

strategies and enlisting the engagement of individuals and organizations

associated with those assets. In addition to cataloging physical assets,

regional stewards should identify financial assets and shore up political

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connections that could be tapped to fund various aspects of the engagement

partnership. Finally, effective regional leaders will ensure that options are

considered and decisions are made in an inclusive way, so that community

support is maximized and all parts of the community are prepared to assume

responsibility for the future of the region.

3. University engagement that is intended to position regions for

economic competitiveness must include strategies that focus

on talent retention as well as innovation infrastructure

development.

Universities engaging with economically distressed regions toward a

goal of impacting the long-term well-being of those regions have a

responsibility to bring information to those regions about the critical

ingredients needed for economic competitiveness and to help the regions set

their priorities accordingly. Engagement strategies that begin by prioritizing

individual faculty research interests in communities, however well-intended,

are unlikely to result in the fundamental building blocks most needed by the

regions. Such strategies run the risk of tinkering at the margins and leaving

the region feeling exploited.

Talent is a critical building block in 21st century economic

competitiveness (Council on Competitiveness, 2005; Drabenstott, 2005;

Florida, 2002). So, one essential strategy is focusing on talent development,

a task to which higher education is well-suited. In regions where the

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economy is in a downward spiral, the past and the present cannot be used to

plan for the future. Educational strategies that are based on surveys of

current employer needs whose employment sectors are in decline may help

to justify program offerings today but do little to position a region for future

success. Competitiveness strategies must consider what products and

services a region can offer to external consumers, to bring new money into

the region. This constitutes the region‟s “primary” economy and is

responsible for wealth generation. In the innovation economy, a

disproportionate share of the innovators who are at the root of wealth

generation are scientists, engineers, and technologists (BEST, 2004). So,

substantial consideration should be given to educational strategies that are

STEM-focused.

In contrast, “secondary economies” re-circulate the dollars already in a

region, providing services to residents. K-12 schools, community hospitals,

and local banks are examples of secondary economy establishments. As

important as they are and as desperately as they are needed, particularly in

rural communities, postsecondary educational programs that focus

exclusively on producing teachers, nurses, and MBAs lack substantial

equation-changing talent production components.

Talent attraction is another critical strategy that must be considered.

If regions cannot become a destination location for talent, they will not be

able to compete effectively. Strategies that consider importing college-

educated technologists, engineers, and scientists will build momentum more

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quickly than those that depend solely on developing talent from within.

University engagement approaches generally focus on bringing temporary

intellectual capital to a community or region – faculty conducting research,

students involved in service-learning, or administrators providing specialized

expertise. While this temporary intellectual capital can make tremendous

contributions to a region, competing effectively in the global economy

ultimately requires permanent intellectual capital.

Intellectual capital is anchored in a place by cutting-edge employment

opportunities. So, another critical strategy regions must pursue is the

development of an infrastructure that will facilitate the development and

attraction of innovation economy jobs. The kinds of innovation infrastructure

universities are best positioned to assist a region in creating are research and

development activities, along with information technology deployment.

Research and development linked to regional assets and economic

development strategies can serve to spawn new companies; a means to

assist local small and medium sized firms create new product niches through

affordable, outsourced research and development services; and an attractor

for established corporate research and development operations that desire

greater synergy with world-class scientists. Information technology

infrastructure is a necessary ingredient for private sector global economy

participation as well as for scientists collaborating with colleagues at other

locations. Where information technology expertise exists in abundance,

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there is opportunity to develop and attract a myriad of digital-dependent

enterprises.

Engagement partnerships that situate permanent scientific and

technological intellectual capital in a region have greater opportunities to

change the course of a region‟s future than partnerships that provide advice

on the front end and depend on the region to sustain research and

technology efforts independent of universities. Such partnerships offer

substantial benefits to research universities, because they enlarge the

research footprint of universities, which in turn, attracts more sponsored

funding, enhances university rankings, attracts higher caliber faculty and

more graduate students. The great concern, however, is how to attract top-

notch talent to economically distressed regions.

The experience of the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research

(IALR) in Danville, Virginia offers an opportunity to examine how such a

talent attraction strategy is possible. A pervasive characteristic of those who

came to work at the IALR was unbridled passion for the mission of the

institution. Many came because they were excited about being pioneers and

having the freedom to chart uncharted territory. The environment offered

nearly unbounded opportunities to blend creativity, intellect, and expertise

to address complex challenges. For faculty, it was an ideal place for those

interested in a research environment that was not profit-driven nor tenure-

driven, who wanted to see the results of their work in action, and who

wanted the chance to share their passion for science with kids, politicians,

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and the “man on the street.” Some moved to Southside Virginia from other

places. Others who came already lived in the region because of family

circumstances and, with the IALR, had an opportunity to develop themselves

professionally in ways that extended well beyond other employment

opportunities in the region.

4. In shaping state policy that directs money for engagement,

scale and targets matter.

University engagement that is focused on investing permanent

intellectual capital in a region and creating a base of innovation there cannot

be successful without substantial sustained funding. World-class talent will

not re-locate to an economically distressed region on one-time money. Nor

will scientists, engineers, and technologists re-locate to an economically

distressed region if it does not have above average, and preferably excellent,

laboratory and technology infrastructure. All of that costs money. Regional

stewards and policymakers need to come together and assess the tradeoffs

between investing in shell buildings, sewers, and corporate relocation

incentives as opposed to laboratories, fiber optic connectivity, and scientists.

Regional stewards need to hold policymakers accountable to long-term

capacity development, and not allow high political payoff, short-term actions

to carry the day.

State policy that directs money for engagement to regions, rather than

to universities, will be more politically palatable as well as more effective in

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achieving desired outcomes. The needs of rural areas to reinvent their

economies in the face of globalization command a more sympathetic ear

from policymakers than the needs of universities with multimillion dollar

endowments to increase their research capacity. With no guarantees that

additional funding directed to universities will actually be spent in needy

regions, policymakers have the opportunity to draw universities to distressed

regions by committing the money to regions and letting universities come to

it. Such a policy structure has the opportunity to benefit regions through

strategic investments that are place-bound, to benefit universities through

investments in additional laboratory infrastructure and faculty lines (albeit,

off campus), and to benefit the states themselves by becoming more

attractive to high tech companies and by increasing the self-sufficiency of

poorer regions.

In addition to targeting public funds to needy regions for the purpose

of engaging with university partners, policymakers should give strong

consideration to creating incentives for universities to offer STEM programs in

these regions. STEM postsecondary programs are not easy or inexpensive to

offer, particularly in off-campus settings. They will not be easily sustained

through tuition revenue alone, since demand for these programs in places

without much experience with scientists and engineers is low. Strategies to

offer STEM degree programs, particularly at the undergraduate level, through

mixed method delivery mechanisms that combine hands-on laboratory

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experiences with technology-mediated content coursework may offer the

greatest promise for scale and affordability.

5. Beware of the engagement accountability trap that is

associated with regional development: Job creation is not the

mission of universities.

Economic development professionals, citizens, policymakers and

regional leaders have been conditioned to judge economic success by job

creation. A healthy region, in this view, not only offers jobs for everyone but

continues to increase the number of jobs in a region from one year to the

next. There is nothing particularly wrong with this measure of economic

well-being as long as university partners working with regions to build long-

term economic capacity are not expected to deliver short-term job creation.

University partners, regional stewards, and policymakers should be clear that

university contributions to build innovation capacity through research-related

activities and to develop talent through education programs can have very

positive long-term impacts on the economy of a region, but will do little to

satisfy short-term needs to create jobs for unemployed factory workers.

Instead, university partners must work with regional leaders to

establish reasonable expectations for the role of university contributions to

the partnership. Then they must agree on strategies to measure short-term

success and long-term success. Short-term successes might be associated

with project completion, or issue resolution, as in the case of the University

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of Georgia Archway partnership in Moultrie/Colquitt. Or they might be the

acquisition of funding, the development of research and technology

infrastructure, the hiring of scientists and other college-educated talent as in

the case of the Virginia Tech partnership in Southside Virginia. Mid-term

results in a Virginia Tech-type model might be measured by research

expenditures, student enrollments, and private sector interactions. Long-

term results could be measured by the college-educated talent in the region,

the number of new company starts, and the number of private sector jobs.

The caveat in accountability is that many factors play into success,

only some of which are directly influenced by university contributions.

Regional leaders and citizens should understand that they have critical

responsibilities in transforming their communities and empowering their

people. Engagement is not about a knight on a white horse (in the form of a

research university partner) riding into town and single-handedly saving the

day. It is about a team effort to bring internal and external expertise and

resources together to address a set of very complex and intertwined issues.

6. Governance structures must include top public and private

leaders, who are prepared to exercise decision-making

authority within their respective organizations or communities,

and who accept responsibility for the work of the partnership.

Governance structures can make or break a partnership. They must

include not only representatives from each of the partnering entities, but also

324
must include people with the ability to direct the activities, players, and

resources within their respective organizations necessary to accomplishing

the goals of the partnership. On the regional side of the partnership,

representatives must have significant private sector interests at stake that

are dependent on the long-term viability and health of the region. Regional

representation should also include local, non-elected government, education,

and non-profit leaders who have the authority to commit resources, set

priorities that their constituents will embrace, and shoulder responsibility for

partnership accountability.

On the university side of the partnership, the representative(s) in the

governance structure have to have direct or delegated authority for the parts

of the university engaged in the region. Without such authority, the

partnership can be put at risk by internal university tensions and conflict

about whether and how to commit resources, shape policies, or accept

responsibility for outcomes. Strong consideration should be given to placing

one or more university intermediaries in the region to manage the day-to-

day activities and interfaces of the partnership.

Universities and regions involved in resource-intensive partnerships

should consider the establishment of a regional stewarding institution, as a

focal point for managing the funds associated with the partnership and being

the forum through which partners interact to set priorities and implement

activities. Governance of the regional stewarding institution would consist of

the top university and regional leaders as described above.

325
Recommendations

The following section presents recommendations for each of the

study‟s primary audiences: regions, universities, and states.

Recommendations for Regions

1. Take advantage of opportunities to learn about the competitive value

of regions in the global economy.

2. Look for opportunities to collaborate across municipal jurisdictions on

projects that have an opportunity to benefit all.

3. Inventory the region‟s assets – physical, financial, political – and

identify possibilities for developing or expanding economic activity in

one or more sectors.

4. Learn about core competencies regions need to compete effectively

in an innovation-based economy.

5. Identify or develop leaders who value partnering and who are willing

to initiate a relationship with a research-based university that will

build on regional assets to expand economic and community

capacity.

6. Be open to learning about the university partner‟s environment,

strengths, and challenges as well as open to teaching the university

partner about the region‟s environment, strengths, and challenges.

7. Understand that economic and community development are linked so

concentrate partnership efforts in both domains.


326
8. Focus partnering efforts not just on addressing the needs of today,

but on developing strategies to create competitive advantage in the

future.

9. Seriously consider how to partner with a research university in ways

that will install permanent university-affiliated intellectual capital in

the region.

10. Educate your university partner about the region‟s needs; be open to

opportunities to learn from faculty, students, and staff as well as

from experts at other universities and agencies; be prepared to

assume ultimate responsibility for making decisions based on

information from external experts.

11. Work with your university partner on aligning economic and

workforce development strategies by creating synergistic research,

commercial contracting, entrepreneurship, and K-16 education

programs.

12. Be prepared to identify broad goals for the region‟s partnership with

a university, and allow enough flexibility in goal-setting for detailed

agendas to develop as opportunities and needs are better understood

by all partners.

13. Consider how to finance and develop physical infrastructure in the

region that will attract a university partner and support the desired

activities of the partnership.

327
14. Work with the university partner to develop long-term economic and

community development impact goals for the partnership as well as

short-term activity-based measures to gauge incremental progress.

15. Identify the primary role to be played by the regional/university

linking person and seek someone with characteristics that align with

role expectations to fill the position.

16. Capture the essence of the partnership‟s focus, roles and

responsibilities of the partners in a written agreement that is signed

by both partners before significant work of the partnership ensues.

17. Establish a forum for regular dialogue among all key stakeholders to

set priorities, assess progress, adjust course, and assume

responsibility for outcomes.

Recommendations for Universities

1. Encourage engagement professionals to learn about the role of

regionalism in the global economy so they can provide effective

leadership to the university‟s work with communities.

2. Look for ways to educate community partners about the benefits of

regionalism. Help them to identify projects that cross municipal

jurisdictions and have the opportunity to benefit multiple

communities.

3. Carefully consider what needs the university might meet by engaging

in a regional partnership – political goodwill, increased opportunities

328
for research, opportunities for students to have structured “real

world” learning – and ensure that these needs are addressed by

regional partnerships.

4. Educate community and regional leaders about innovation economy

competencies.

5. Investigate how research, STEM undergraduate programs, and

information technology expertise can be extended from the

university into regional partnerships in ways that benefit the

university as well as the region.

6. Identify and nurture leaders in the university who understand the

value of partnering with regions and can connect the dots between

university needs and regional assets. Focus these leaders on how

the regional engagement partnerships can reinforce the mission of

the university.

7. Facilitate community-led engagement by allowing regional leaders to

frame the engagement content focus based on their region‟s needs,

rather than allowing faculty members to frame the engagement

content focus based on their research agendas. Provide guidance,

perspective, and potential strategies for consideration by regional

leaders.

8. Work to break down social and cultural barriers between university

and community members by creating forums for people to get to

know each other and to understand each others‟ perspectives.

329
9. Shape partnering goals to address the community and economic

wellbeing of a region in a holistic manner, not as a disjointed set of

projects.

10. Go beyond responding to the expressed needs of regions to assist

regions in developing strategies that will provide them with

competitive economic advantage.

11. Realize that disadvantaged and destitute regions need more than a

temporary infusion of intellectual capital. Plan a strategy to invest

permanent university-affiliated intellectual capital in the region.

12. Institute a strong linking structure that embeds a university presence

in the region with a responsibility to connect to related university

resources.

13. Investigate how faculty research agendas can be reinforced through

regional engagement that embeds a university research-affiliated

entity in the region. Align regional university-affiliated degree

programs with the research strategy. Develop commercial

contracting and entrepreneurship activities that are affiliated with the

research. Work with regional partners to encourage the alignment of

workforce training and K-14 education with university-affiliated

degree programs.

14. Be prepared to work with regional partners to outline the broad goals

of the partnership but ensure enough flexibility to shape detailed

objectives as needs and opportunities are better understood.

330
15. Educate faculty about the benefits of regional engagement so they

can understand the trade-offs between traditional promotion and

tenure guidelines and the recognition of engagement in promotion

and tenure decisions. Help department chairs understand the

expectations associated with regional engagement roles so they can

shape faculty appointments accordingly.

16. Work with the regional partner to develop long-term economic and

community development impact goals for the partnership as well as

short-term activity-based measures to gauge incremental progress.

17. Identify the primary role to be played by the regional/university

linking person and seek someone with characteristics that align with

role expectations to fill the position.

18. Capture the essence of the partnership‟s focus, roles and

responsibilities of the partners in a written agreement that is signed

by both partners before significant work of the partnership ensues.

19. Establish a forum for regular dialogue among all key stakeholders to

set priorities, assess progress, adjust course, and assume

responsibility for outcomes.

Recommendations for States

1. Consider policies to incentivize regional cooperation across municipal

jurisdictions, particularly as it relates to the engagement of

university assets and resources.

331
2. Allow regions to self-define based on common interests and

challenges.

3. Develop policies that play to the needs of universities as well as to

regions so that each has a reason to invest in partnering.

4. Use the bully pulpit of state leadership to talk about innovation

economy competitiveness and the competencies regions will need to

prosper.

5. Develop policies that encourage the universities to distribute

research, STEM undergraduate degree programs, and information

technology expertise to economically distressed or disadvantaged

regions.

6. Consider policies that invest universities in regions over a long period

of time through sustained base resourcing for partnering activities.

7. Align state economic development strategies with regional economic

development strategies.

8. Instead of funding shell buildings, fund infrastructure that will invest

a university presence in a region through research laboratories and

multi-media classrooms. Instead of putting so much money toward

company location incentives, invest some of that money in

entrepreneurship support systems.

9. Strongly consider funding applied university research that dovetails

with business interests in the state as well as regional economic

sector strategies.

332
10. Set expectations for university–regional partnerships to establish

both long-term as well as short-term measures of success. Tie

annual funding of partnerships to the achievement of short-term

goals.

Suggestions for Further Study

Many gaps exist in shedding light on university regional partnerships,

particularly those that are not in regions where university campuses are

located. Although there has been an increased university focus on external

partnering since the work of the Kellogg Commission in 1999, and related

work by other higher education organizations and informal associations, very

few examples of distributed regional engagement were found to exist which

extended beyond traditional cooperative extension and university outreach

activities. As a result few models exist and virtually no literature addresses

this particular subject.

If regionalism is important, the question that emerges is how regions

should be defined and by whom. Most entities with statewide responsibility

(such as workforce investment boards, community college systems, planning

districts) have defined for themselves regional boundaries that suit their

particular purposes or staffing. However, these various regional designations

usually don‟t match between one agency and the next. The universities in

this study that were working with regions encompassing multiple jurisdictions

seemed to be experiencing success with a strategy of allowing the regions to

333
self-define. More research is needed to understand how to define regions

effectively and systematically within and between states.

Most literature that exists on university-regional engagement is written

from the perspective of universities. Very little addresses regional

perspectives or offers guidance to regions about how to think about and

engage in partnerships with large research universities. The qualities and

responsibilities of regional leaders in engagement partnerships is not

addressed beyond a minimal level. How regional leaders should think about

positioning their communities for innovation economy competitiveness is not

well documented. Study of engagement partnerships from a regional

perspective is needed to understand the assumptions and challenges

associated with university partnering; citizen and leaders‟ understanding of

regionalism, globalism, and strategies to be viable and competitive

economically; interrelationships and sequencing of economic development,

workforce development, and community development; and effective

mechanisms for developing and attracting talent and innovation assets. In

all of these domains, more research and practical tools are needed.

Within universities, additional research is needed to clearly define and

articulate appropriate roles of faculty and staff in distributed regional

engagement. If university personnel are to be housed and operate in

regionally-based facilities, what kind of appointments should they have? To

whom should they report? For what should they be accountable? The IALR

offers a starting point for investigating the roles and responsibilities of faculty

334
and staff since it includes a people with a wide-ranging mix of appointments

types. Research could look at which configurations were most effective in

the context of the partnership and most satisfying to the individuals involved.

An area which needs further study is looking at the kinds of university

research that are best suited to advance the economic and social fortunes of

distressed regions. Evidence from the IALR model as well as from

considerable work associated with OECD suggests that university research, to

have an economic impact, must be not only much more applied than bench

research, but also linked with translational supports that connect it directly

with local business. Investigating the types of research and the translational

supports needed in the context of distributed university research could offer

universities, regions, and policymakers valuable information about how to

shape regionally-based research agendas.

Much national conversation has focused on the need to increase STEM

capacity. Scattered university-offered outreach programs are finding their

way to distressed regions, but there seems to be little cohesive thinking

about how to deliver comprehensive for-credit higher education STEM

programs. This is particularly a challenge given the laboratory and hands-on

learning experiences that accompany such programs. Research that looks at

how STEM programs, particularly at the undergraduate level, are being

delivered to geographically disbursed students is needed.

Universities engaging in holistic, transformative regional engagement

will find that internal changes are needed to adjust university policies,

335
processes, and structures. A sampling of the issues that will need to be

addressed include the “ownership” of research overhead when universities

are conducting that research in regionally-funded laboratories, the capture of

tuition dollars for courses that are regionally facilitated, the appropriate

involvement of university administrative staff experts in addressing regional

issues, and the structures that will best facilitate interdisciplinary university

work in a region. Study is needed to map these issues and identify relative

effectiveness of alternatives options.

The role of public funds in fueling university engagement with

economically distressed regions is needed. Few examples of effective state

public policy approaches to incentivize university-regional partnerships exist.

Economists and scholars have outlined a number of recommendations for

federal or national policy approaches which offer jumping off points for state

policymakers. More work is needed to research state and federal policy

solutions that consider possible approaches to goal-setting that would meet

state, regional, and university needs; resource strategies that would

maximize the value of public contributions to university-regional

partnerships; accountability expectations that include short-term as well as

long-term measures of success; and governance structures that provide

authority as well as flexibility.

336
Appendix A

INTERVIEW TOPICS

Stage One Interview Topics

Role and background of interviewee

External pressures facing the university to be involved in economic and


community development across the state

Challenges faced by the university with regard to distributed


engagement

How to create awareness and motivation among faculty

The role of cooperative extension in university economic and


community engagement

Primary distributed regional partnerships in which the university is


involved

University motivations for becoming involved in distributed regional


partnerships

Distinguishing characteristics of primary or model regional partnership


program associated with the university

Goals of the model regional partnership

Tangible benefits to university and to faculty from distributed regional


partnerships

Definition and critical factors for success in the model regional


partnership

Funding associated with the model regional partnership

State policymaker expectations regarding distributed engagement


partnerships

Definition of the modern land-grant mission

337
Stage Two Interview Topics

Role of interviewee with respect to the partnership

History of the partnership

Key people associated with the partnership

Goals for the partnership

Resources associated with the partnership

Accountability for the partnership

Leadership and governance associated with the partnership

Lessons learned

Stage Three Interview Topics

Role and background

History of the state research universities‟ involvement in economic


development

Defining and serving the state‟s “public good” through the state‟s
higher education institutions

Political pressure to strengthen economically weak regions

Focus on strengthening state‟s STEM base

Strategies for resourcing university-regional partnerships

Links between higher education accountability and state goals

Leadership responsibility for regional and workforce strategies, and


connecting universities – particularly land grant institutions – to these
strategies

Ideal governance structures for university-regional partnerships

338
Appendix B

DOCUMENTS

Types of Documentation

Brochures and public information about the engagement partnerships

Memorandums of Understanding

News articles about the partnerships

Community organization leadership

Case statements about the engagement partnerships

University mission statements and strategic plans

Presidential addresses referencing land-grant mission

University portrayals of outreach and engagement, and economic


development activities

Region history, demographic information

Partnership development history and accomplishments documentation

Organization charts

State strategic plans

State research-based economic development reports

339
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