Building a university-community partnership to promote high school graduation and beyond
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2016-02-01
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<jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-heading">Purpose</jats:title><jats:p>– The purpose of this paper is to describe a new conceptual model integrating research, university-community partnerships, and an innovative undergraduate team approach to more effectively and efficiently address social problems while enhancing university-community relations and providing valuable learning experiences for students.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-heading">Design/methodology/approach</jats:title><jats:p>– The paper describes the rationale for, and the key components, steps, and activities involved in piloting the conceptual model of university-community engagement. The model integrates research, community engagement, and undergraduate development and education along with ongoing evaluation by the relevant stakeholders.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-heading">Findings</jats:title><jats:p>– As illustrated in a brief case study presentation, the model has significant promise in meeting several university and community objectives simultaneously. Specifically, it focusses on community needs by addressing a mutually agreed upon social issue, it builds and strengthens university-community relationships as a partnership of equals, and it promotes undergraduate development and learning in a way that integrates knowledge and service to society. Specific outcomes in each area are summarized.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-heading">Practical implications</jats:title><jats:p>– This approach is a viable option for university and college professors interested in synthesizing several important foci: research, developing and sustaining university-community partnerships, and undergraduate development and learning.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-heading">Originality/value</jats:title><jats:p>– The initial experience with the model indicates that it is an efficient and effective means for colleges and universities to simultaneously meet the goals of education, individual and collective citizenship, community engagement, and research productivity.</jats:p></jats:sec>
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Brewster, Ann B, Paul Pisani, Max Ramseyer and Jack Wise (2016). Building a university-community partnership to promote high school graduation and beyond. Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, 8(1). pp. 44–58. 10.1108/jarhe-10-2014-0093 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/35551.
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Ann Brewster
Ann Brewster is an intervention scientist whose research examines adolescent development as a dynamic, reciprocal process in which young people both shape and are shaped by the relationships, environments, and systems in which they develop. Her work asks three related questions:
- Can developmental capacities—particularly metacognitive capacities—be intentionally strengthened during adolescence through intervention?
- How do these capacities influence adolescents’ self-understanding, navigation of adversity, exercise of agency, and reciprocal interactions with relationships and environments?
- Can strengthening these capacities alter developmental trajectories across mental health, educational, behavioral, and health outcomes, particularly for adolescents experiencing significant adversity or disruption?
A central mechanism in Brewster’s research is metacognition, which she conceptualizes in applied developmental terms as the capacity to step back from immediate experience; reflect on one’s thoughts, emotions, behaviors, values, relationships, and context; appraise influences, possibilities, constraints, and supports; and use that understanding to plan increasingly intentional responses. Her work extends metacognition beyond intrapsychic processes to examine how adolescents understand their participation in reciprocal relationships and systems, including what they can influence individually, what requires collaboration or support, and what conditions they themselves may need to change.
Brewster developed the Transformational Resilience model to examine processes that support growth after adversity and educational disruption: values persistence, self-compassionate reflection, purposeful re-engagement, and balanced agency. She also originated the curriculum-as-intervention approach, which uses developmentally informed curricula to create structured opportunities for young people to apply psychological and developmental science to their own experiences and to strengthen emerging capacities.
Through long-standing research-practice partnerships with schools and communities, Brewster develops and studies interventions that target underlying developmental mechanisms rather than individual problem behaviors. Her work integrates developmental promotion and prevention, examining whether strengthening capacities such as metacognition, self-understanding, planning, and balanced agency can influence multiple developmental trajectories and outcomes, including pathways related to suicidal ideation and behavior and to educational disruption. Her broader scientific aim is to understand how intervention can strengthen young people’s capacities not simply to accommodate themselves to existing circumstances, but to understand themselves and their contexts and to participate increasingly intentionally in shaping their development and the environments in which it occurs.
Unless otherwise indicated, scholarly articles published by Duke faculty members are made available here with a CC-BY-NC (Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial) license, as enabled by the Duke Open Access Policy. If you wish to use the materials in ways not already permitted under CC-BY-NC, please consult the copyright owner. Other materials are made available here through the author’s grant of a non-exclusive license to make their work openly accessible.