Book Review: Engaging Place, Engaging Practices: Urban History and Campus-Community Partnerships by Bachin, Robin F. and Howard, Amy L. (eds)

Abstract

Civic engagement and community-based learning create new opportunities for higher education to enliven student learning, transform communities, and enhance our collective understanding of democracy in place and over time. To that end, Bachin and Howard (eds.) Engaging Place, Engaging Practices explores various examples of the engaged urban university and the practices deployed by faculty to promote civic engagement. The collection’s chapters demonstrate how public history, as well as action-oriented research, can be effective learning vehicles that simultaneously reconcile the past to chart new collaborative futures (Howard & Byrum), excavate local histories (Souther), and create grassroots projects to enhance access to and increase the visibility of local resources (Bachin). The collection also has an example of how neighborhood histories can be deployed to increase everyday understandings of climate change and assess local impacts on residents (Hurley). In each of these examples, the authors and their students leverage new technologies and spatial approaches (GIS and StoryMaps) to empower and inform communities. Finally, using role playing, Gudis (Chapter 6) enlivens local histories and provides students with a powerful performative lens through which to understand and explore social change in place. The book’s most ambitious example of the impact urban universities can make on communities is Chapter 2: Toward Creating the Democratic, Engage Urban University by Harkavy, Hodges, Puckett, and Weeks. Drawing on the experience of the University of Pennsylvania, the chapter explores the capacity of universities to promote social change through gentrification, indifference (neglect or disregard), partial engagement, and full engagement (p. 43)— and they provide examples of how the institution has engaged in practices over time that corresponds to all four categories. And, as the authors demonstrate, universities need not simply be agents of gentrification or engage in policies that promote benign neglect. Rather, higher education can and must foster community-based partnerships that seek to “transform” neighborhoods, improve schools, and advance teaching, learning, research, and service (p. 55). To that end, the authors describe the creation and evolution of a community-focused university center in 1992, now known as the Netter Center for Community Partnerships, which oversees academic engagement programs, as well as Penn’s university assistant schools’ initiative. In nearly all the chapters, the authors demonstrate that sustained collaboration and committed university leadership are essential to ensure that the potential and power of urban universities can be leveraged to promote positive change. Although the Penn example underscores what can be done when institutions commit to urban engagement, the other chapters demonstrate how instructors and individual courses can make a difference in the lives of students and residents. As such, the collection provides examples at a variety of scales—from the block, neighborhood, city, and regional school-of “...colleges and universities [striving] to matter” (p. 1). In doing so, the editors make the case that the engaged university can and should do more to shape “inclusive, equitable, and sustainable” communities—and that universities need to assume a heightened leadership role in a post-COVID-19 world (p. 189). Of course, in the case of several of the example institutions, it is worth recognizing that the financial resources available to many institutions—particularly urban public institutions—are more limited than the more well-heeled experiences of private institutions backed by billion or multibillion dollar endowments (Richmond, Pennsylvania, and Miami). For that reason, the scale and scope of community engagement will vary by institution type, mission, and geography. As an applied scholar and academic administrator who is committed to community-based learning, engaged scholarship, and public service that advances local economic development opportunities, strengthens local industries, and promotes collaborative comprehensive Book Review