Developing a progressive university/community connection: A shared conversation

Abstract

In engineering education there is fairly wide recognition of the value of community-based work for student engineers.  However, such interactions are often conflicted, spread between the fear that there might be some exploitation of the community for educational purposes, or perceptions of a lack of honest integration and participation by students, within their busy educational term-sessions.   How can we, as academics, play a role in developing more progressive university and community connections, with greater intention in the role that students and universities play?  In this shared conversation, four academics and a student participate in an online conversation over several months, developing a discourse that explores, and rather than proposing, and remains open to further exploration.