This research examines the significance of higher education institutions (HEIs) as anchors in their host cities and their community engagement strategies between 1980 and 2020. By examining four case studies of urban-based universities that are members of the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities (CUMU) across diverse geographical and…

As campuses seek to advance community engagement, and embrace their role as anchor institutions within their community, questions emerge regarding how this role connects to and informs priorities within larger institutional mission and goals. Welch & Saltmarsh (2013) have noted that, historically, infrastructure--a center or office that…

Drawing on cultural studies and the practice of engaged learning and scholarship, this paper proposes a cultural approach to institutional transformation, which we argue necessarily follows anchor partnerships. The authors advance a model of cohesion and alignment among equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), community engagement, and social…

Research on community impacts from service-learning has been scarce, yet this area is worth exploring in order to understand how and why service-learning can make a difference. The current research sought to validate a conceptual framework (Lau & Snell, 2020), which categorizes the impacts of service-learning on community partner organizations…

Increasingly, suburban universities find themselves in communities facing challenges that inner cities have had to deal with for decades, including concentrated poverty, housing vacancy, and underperforming school districts. While the problems are similar, the institutional context is different. Compared to central cities, suburban municipal…

The concept of the anchor institution, and its subsequent mission, was first considered in the mid-1990s, a time during which the dominant academic culture of higher education was driven by the "public good regime." The decades since have seen the emergence of the public engagement knowledge regime, and the academic capitalist regime.…

This analysis of the supplier relationship between Drexel University and Aramark offers a demonstration of the potential for intensifying an anchor institution's local economic inclusion strategies by leveraging the economic power of supplier partnerships. The operation of a major food service contract represents a substantial set of campus jobs…

The degree to which urban and metropolitan colleges and universities can have a positive impact on their respective communities is heavily influenced by the nature and extent of their connectedness to, and alignment with, civic need. Drawn from the experiences and outcomes of the College of Staten Island's Legacy Trilogy initiative, a…

This article emerges from a collaborative research project between a religious studies professor at DePaul University and the executive director of the Chicago-based non-profit Interfaith Community for Detained Immigrants (ICDI). In 2016, we forged a community partnership to explore and enhance the relationship between pedagogy, faith, and social…

For decades, community engagement scholars have built a robust body of knowledge that explores multiple facets of the higher education community engagement domain. More recently, scholars and practitioners from mainly Christian affiliated faith-based institutions have begun to investigate the complex inner world of community-engaged students'…

Faith-based communities supporting diverse and underserved communities are increasingly being recognized by researchers as community "anchor institutions" and equitable partners in research engagement. Research suggests that faith-based organizations (FBOs) can promote health and well-being within congregations and throughout…

Finding a sense of authentic self as an institution, a true sense of mission, and the means to live that mission were the central focus of a strategic planning process addressed by the University of Central Oklahoma about fifteen years ago. As the institution grew within a metropolitan-serving mission, the goal to transform students from…

The University of Chicago (UChicago), known for transformative education, created the Civic Leadership Academy (CLA) to address the need for leadership development in government and the non-profit sector. In 2014 the Office of Civic Engagement recognized that while there were a host of leadership development opportunities for individuals in the…

Furthering intercultural competence in higher education requires colleges and universities to establish an intentional, mission driven strategic plan that embeds intercultural understanding and practice across the institution's work. To secure broad-based buy-in and support, this plan needs to consider the various ways that different units within…

Urban institutions are typically located in diverse and vibrant cities. This diversity has changed over the decades, thus requiring campuses to address the complexity that is seen as these new American cities evolve. In this article the city of Buffalo is discussed as a city that manifests a continuous change in population diversity with a…