A Case Study of Two Community Advisory Boards Within Community Engagement Centers at Institutions of Higher Education

Abstract: Community engagement has become an important part of the higher education landscape and developing mutually-beneficial community-university partnerships has become a common interest for practitioners and researchers. However, building these partnerships, often distinguished by reciprocity, shared goals, and effective communication (Bringle, Games, & Malloy, 1999; Harkavy & Benson, 1998; Pompa, 2002) is a complex endeavor. The partnerships between communities and universities often involve challenges such as paternalism, unequal power, clashes in values, and often-wrought histories (Strier, 2014). As a way to support building partnerships based on mutuality, and to address some of the challenges present in the complexity of community-university partnerships, community engagement centers on college campuses have created Community Advisory Councils (CACs). While CACs have recently become a structure within the practitioner-realm of the community engagement field, the higher education research that investigates CACs as models aimed to support and strengthen community-campus partnerships is still in its infancy. This presentation will explore a multi-site qualitative case-study that aims to fill the research gap within the field. This presentation will discuss the formation, role, and responsibilities of two Community Advisory Councils housed within community engagement centers at two different institutions. I will present the similarities, differences, and patterns across these two cases, as well as the successes and challenges of the CACs in building strong equitable partnerships based on reciprocity and centering community voice. While the results of this study are not generalizable, the implications for practitioners and researchers within the community engagement field are informative and useful.

Narrative: Over the past several decades, there have been various calls to action to deepen the role that community engagement plays within the U.S. higher education system. As a result, civic engagement has become an important part of the higher education landscape and developing mutually-beneficial community-university partnerships has become a common interest for practitioners and researchers. Institutions of higher education began to collaborate with communities as a way to connect intellectual, human, and financial resources to solve real-world community problems (Benson, Harkavy & Puckett, 1996). However, building these partnerships, often distinguished by reciprocity, shared goals, and effective communication (Bringle, Games, & Malloy, 1999; Harkavy & Benson, 1998; Pompa, 2002) is a complex endeavor. The partnerships between communities and universities often involve challenges such as paternalism, unequal power, clashes in values, and often-wrought histories (Strier, 2014). As a way to support building partnerships based on mutuality, and to address some of the challenges present in the complexity of community-university partnerships, community engagement centers on college campuses have created Community Advisory Councils (CACs).

While CACs have recently become a structure within the practitioner-realm of the community engagement field, the higher education research that investigates CACs as models aimed to support and strengthen community-campus partnerships is still in its infancy. This presentation will explore the several challenges to partnership building from epistemological models that create hierarchy of valued knowledge, to institutional violence resulting in the displacement and exploitation of communities, to harmful power imbalances that are perpetuated in present-day, to lack of community accountability and transparency. Moreover, this presentation will also explore how university constituents reconcile “institutional tensions, conflicts of interests, bureaucratic constraints, stakeholders’ differential knowledge and experience, value clashes, [and] mistrust…” (Strier, 2014, p. 157) through a CAC structure to build equitable partnerships.

In a landscape where colleges and universities aim to build relationships with their neighboring communities, this multi-site case dissertation study helps to examine the critical components necessary to supporting meaningful partnerships that center community voice through a formal structure, a Community Advisory Council. The Bringle, Clayton and Price (2009) framework provided a solid foundation for thinking about Community Advisory Councils on a spectrum from transactional to transformational partnerships. Furthermore, I will share some adaptations created to enhance the framework that allow for a more nuanced examination of communication and power dynamics, and their effects on the spectrum of partnership development.

This presentation will explore a multi-site qualitative case-study that aims to fill the research gap within the field. This presentation will discuss the formation, role, and responsibilities of two Community Advisory Councils housed within community engagement centers at two different institutions. I will present the similarities, differences, and patterns across these two cases, as well as the successes and challenges of the CACs in building strong equitable partnerships based on reciprocity and centering community voice.
The research questions guiding this dissertation study were:
Within the community engagement centers:
1. What are the roles, responsibilities, and functions of the Community Advisory Council (CAC)?
a) What were the initial goals of the CAC at its inception?
b) What are the explicit and implicit methods to garner community voice?
c) What are the explicit and implicit methods that create reciprocity?
2. To what extent can Bringle, Clayton & Price’s (2009) Relationships Continuum framework be applied to determine closeness, equity, and integrity within the CAC?
3. How do the CAC members perceive the strengths and limitations of the CAC in the community-university partnership?
a) In what ways, if any, does the institution’s mission play a role in the work of the CAC?

The exploration of these two CACs are compelling case studies in which both practitioners and researchers can garner numerous lessons. The core themes that emerged from the data analysis, community voice and communication, the role of trust and integrity, and power dynamics and accountability, will be explored in depth in this presentation. Additionally, while the results of this study are not generalizable, the implications for practitioners and researchers within the community engagement field are informative and useful. The key takeaways for the field, in an effort to inform more equitable and just practices, are how these CACs engaged in co-creating their vision and work with partners, as well as the necessary mechanisms for follow-through and accountability. While there were several similarities within both structures, there were a number of key differences that demonstrate the myriad of ways to construct a Community Advisory Council. Both CACs had their own stories, complex histories, different stakeholders, structure, meeting frequency, and size. Moreover, the community constituents and institutional cultures and dynamics were also varied. These dynamics played a role in shaping each Community Advisory Council uniquely and thus this presentation will add new perspectives on community-university partnerships. Additionally, this presentation will argue that while there have been recent critical theoretical developments in the field, including critical feminism, critical service-learning, there are still areas to be developed. This presentation will argue the necessity of further theoretical exploration of community accountability, abolitionist thought and teachings, and mutual aid within the community-engaged learning field.

In theory, Community Advisory Councils have potential to support equitable, sustainable, reciprocal, and accountable partnerships between communities and universities. However, these formalized structures also have the potential to reinforce harmful dynamics if not constructed with power dynamics and community accountability in mind. Through analyzing and synthesizing the similarities, differences, and patterns across these two cases, the lessons gleaned can help researchers and practitioners better understand the critical components necessary in building meaningful partnerships through a Community Advisory Council.