I had no idea what the meeting was to be about. All I knew from my colleague was that three community leaders from the Evanston neighborhood, which borders Xavier University in Cincinnati, wanted to talk to us — and it was urgent.

Our offices had become a convenient space for gatherings to discuss various community revitalization efforts between Xavier and Evanston, a proud African-American community trying to recover from years of economic decline. As our relationship grew, the meetings, typically called by those of us at the university, had become feel-good sessions. This one, however, was requested by the three residents — and they were not feeling good.

Essentially, the community representatives, all women, were upset that the housing strategy that we agreed to focus on as part of our partnership with the community had been lagging behind. To get the project back on track, they had mobilized community residents to take over the housing component. They proposed that grant funding through the university that had been designated for a housing non-profit organization to do the work now be diverted to the community council, which was ready to take full responsibility for it.

Our 90- minute meeting ended with an agreement that the community would put together a formal proposal to do the work. As the women left our offices, my colleague and I looked at each other with exhaustion — then we cast broad grins and gave each other high fives.

The evidence of true collaboration with the community finally was becoming evident. Its residents were demanding power.

Power — or at least the imbalance of it — often lies simmering beneath the surface of most university-community relations, however it is seldom explicitly talked about. The parties learn to dance around it in order to realize the benefits of their partnership as best they can. However, as soon as the university expresses its dominant power, even in subtle ways, the underlying mistrust emerges. Left unaddressed, the good will weakens and the partnership begins to break down.

Many university administrators and faculty who desire to genuinely embrace the communities around them talk enthusiastically about collaboration. After years of failed community relations, administrators now recognize that ignoring our neighbors is short-sighted, yet treating them like a case study to be observed or a project to be serviced is offensive. Collaboration holds promise of mutually beneficial engagement built on shared interests.

Yet even with our good intentions, true collaboration is not easily realized and power often is the hindrance. More than likely, we move along a kind of community engagement continuum that has been identified by the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation in St. Paul, Minn., which has done tremendous work researching and facilitating community partnerships. On one end of the continuum is communication, where we seek input and share information. After some success, we move on to cooperation, where the community and university find occasions to work together when it is convenient for both parties. We may regularly include the community in our events, or join community-based activities. Collaboration, which awaits at the far end of the continuum, requires much more of us. (Mattessich, Murray-Close, & Monsey, 2001). Ultimately, for it to take place, power must be shared, which means that any university that wants to embed itself in community must be willing to relinquish it. The Wilder Foundation maintains that true collaboration requires “a commitment to mutual relationships and goals; a jointly developed structure and shared responsibility; mutual authority and accountability for success; and sharing of resources and rewards” The National Academy of Public Administration, in its investigation of successful cross-sector initiatives, replaces the term collaboration with “high-powered partnerships.” It says such a partnership is “a mutually beneficial and reciprocal relationship among entities that share responsibilities, authority, and accountability for results” (Barnett, 2003).

Sharing responsibility, accountability and resources can be difficult, but they are likely to be gradually realized in the course of ongoing communication and cooperation. However, sharing authority — or power — between a university and a community is far more challenging because of the inherent discrepancy in power that already exists between the two parties.

Universities generally maintain among the highest levels of civic reputation, political clout, expertise, and resources of any institution in their regions. On the other hand, their residential neighbors — particularly if they live in resource poor communities — typically hold but one lever of power: the ability to disrupt. Only when the community opposes something — and then vehemently so — does it gain the media and political attention necessary to mitigate the university’s influence.

Having worked during my career both on the institutional side of this predicament in corporate and non-profit community relations and on the community side as director of grassroots neighborhood organizations, I have seen this phenomenon of community resistance play out repeatedly. It wasn’t long after I arrived at Xavier in 2002 that I witnessed it anew.

Xavier had spent a great deal of energy soothing over Evanston’s long-held hostility toward the university that had emerged through the typical set of town-gown tensions: the university’s indifference toward the community’s affairs; disorderly students; and the obligatory capital improvement imposition. In this case, the closing of a major street without community consent.

Having overcome those battles, it was understandable that the university felt good about itself for having purchased and renovated an historic building in Evanston, across from the main campus, for use as university office space. The art deco manufacturing building with marble stairways and terrazzo-tile floors was going to be vacated by a publishing company. Left abandoned, it might have ended up as yet another community symbol of blight and decay.

However, in my initial meetings with community residents, when I touted the building purchase as an example of Xavier’s commitment to neighborhood revitalization, I was met with skepticism. “So, what other properties is Xavier going to buy up in our community?” residents would demand to know. “Is this just the beginning of you taking over our neighborhood?”

It did not take me long to realize that the source of this cynicism had nothing to do with the merits of the purchase. In fact, as I engaged with them, many residents would concede that renovating the building was good for the community. Their real concern was the demonstration of power the university exercised in buying the building. No one in the community could do that. And if the university could, what else might it do? The only tool the community had to equalize the effect was to challenge the university’s motives.

That is what made the evening meeting with the Evanston community leaders some four years so meaningful. The community sensed the university was using its power as fiscal agent for its community partnership grant inappropriately by not insisting certain work be done. In response, they were demanding a share of the power and with it, embracing responsibility and accountability. “Give us control over the dollars,” they insisted, “and we will make sure the work happens.”

Without a sense of empowerment, they probably would have resorted to the disruptive tactics that communities see as their only resort. They would have attacked our motives, charged us with withholding funds for the university’s benefit or exploiting the community for our own gain. You do that when you’re fighting a bully. When you’re taking on your equal, you simply punch back. And we had worked hard to make the relationship as close to a peer arrangement as possible.

It is important to acknowledge here that there are benefits to being the biggest kid on the block. Namely, you get to be in charge. On the contrary, sharing power brings with it risks. The other party might mess up, and if they do, you suffer as well. Worse yet, they may deliberately take advantage of you. It is safer to hoard power if you have that option, and universities often do.

So why share power? The best response I have heard comes from Fr. Howard Gray, a Jesuit priest who has served as a faculty member, administrator and consultant for several Jesuit universities. “If you share power, you risk being abused,” Gray told us recently at an administrative retreat on campus. “If you don’t share power, you are certain to be abusive.”

In other words, if you don’t share power, you get to always win, and inevitably your winning will be at the expense of someone else losing. John McKnight and John Kretzmann argue that it is precisely this kind of institutional imposition that overwhelms and snuffs out the identification and mobilization of community assets, particularly in economically distressed urban communities, which find themselves in their predicaments mainly because institutions have won for decades at their expense through economic and social disinvestment and exploitation (Kretzmann & McKnight, 1993).

The community understands this dynamic far better than the university. Residents know that the institution ultimately is trying to serve its self interests and if there is a choice to be made between its own agenda and the community’s, the institution is likely to operate on its own behalf — as long as it holds all the power. So a powerless community is always in fighting mode, ready to pounce the moment it senses it might be taken advantage of.

Collaboration is impossible to achieve in such a climate. Collaboration seeks only mutual wins, but they are hard to identify when agendas are hidden and mistrust lies just beneath the surface. A weak community can be controlled, but it will always seek to disrupt the affairs of the university as a result. A powerful community will make demands — and mistakes — but it will possess the ability to collaborate. Leadership is more consistent. Agreements are more credible. Capacity is greater. Relationships can be sustained.

Part of the satisfaction of seeing Evanston residents boldly demand a share of power — rather than privately scowl or publicly demean us — was that we had challenged ourselves to relinquish power. At Xavier, our Catholic Jesuit values, which embrace the pursuit of social justice, compel us to take this matter seriously. Still, we are not perfect and sometimes take advantage, even unwittingly, of the privilege we have as the more powerful partner, as our friends in Evanston reminded us.

Nevertheless, we have taken several deliberate steps to create a structure where power can be shared with the community and true collaboration achieved. These steps include:

Defining focused, achievable goals

Not everything a university does is open to partnership. Some authority the university will not concede, even as it relates to the community. Likewise, there are community initiatives residents would prefer the university to influence. Collaborative partnerships, therefore, must explicitly define what falls within the realm of shared responsibility, accountability and authority.

Xavier’s move from cooperation with Evanston to true collaboration began with the creation of a community plan that spells out the specific initiatives we would pursue together with measurable outcomes and clear mutual benefits. One aspect of the plan, for instance, calls for commercial revitalization and focuses on a two-block business district in the neighborhood. In reality, the community would have preferred to focus on another area closer to the center of the neighborhood. University administrators were pushing for an area closer to campus. The area we chose was in the interests of both. That doesn’t mean the community and university won’t pursue their own projects on their own, but we won’t do it in collaboration — at least not for now.

Making the university more transparent

Community leaders believe the university is engaging with them out of their own selfish motives. And they are right. The problem is that universities are reluctant to divulge their institutional goals to the community. They might be misinterpreted or, worse yet, the community might interfere.

Residents, meanwhile, knowing full well that the university has an agenda, become suspicious when they don’t hear it articulated. Absent a credible explanation, the community interprets its own agenda for the university. Thus, the well-intentioned purchase of a building appears to be part of a plot to take over the neighborhood.

When Xavier began developing a new facilities master plan two years ago, the administrative vice president tucked under his arms the maps and sketches heretofore only on display in his office and took them to a meeting of Evanston residents focused on the neighborhood’s development. It was risky, but the executive, recalling the backlash from the secret street closing a decade prior, was willing to take it. Amazingly, not one shred of information was ever leaked to the press; no speculator emerged to buy up the property the university had set its eyes on. To the contrary, having been giving a seat at the table — a bit of power that comes from access and information — the attendees at the meeting guarded the information. If it were compromised, so would the power they had been granted.

Several of those residents remained engaged in the entire planning process, meeting with architects and reviewing final recommendations before they were approved by the board of trustees. Rather than mobilizing to fight the plan, several community residents already are championing it.

Creating a table where the community has clear authority.

Show me a room full of administrators and I will easily sort them by their relative power by asking two questions: Who controls how money is spent? Who controls how people spend their time? If the community is to be engaged in collaboration, the partners must define upfront what direct control the community will have over the way money and time are allocated. This is not satisfied by giving residents the opportunity to provide input, where residents hand over information to others so they can make decisions. Collaboration requires defining this area upfront.

When Xavier received its COPC grant, it was obvious that the community needed some evidence that they had some ownership in it. We did two things to achieve this: First, we created a steering committee with a majority of community residents that is co-chaired by me and the president of the Evanston Community Council. Second, we gave the community authority in hiring the staff coordinator.

Investing in community empowerment.

Sharing authority requires that community leaders have a power base independent of the university. Building a cozy relationship with one community representative might seem efficient, but it does not sustain collaboration. Either the representative will compromise the community’s interests in order to gain favor with the university and retain his seat of power, or the community will suspect that he has done so and withdraw support. Either way, the representative’s legitimacy is destroyed and collaboration is doomed.

Communities need a broad base of participants who have access to information, relationships, and are engaged in the decision-making process. In order to encourage this, Xavier holds a leadership academy for residents and has assisted in community organizing efforts. At the same time, we have invested in community organizing training for residents independent of the university in order to equip leaders to engage with the university from a position of strength.

Dispersing community relationships across the university.

It is efficient for the university to create a single conduit for dealing with the community such as one office or one person. It is extremely debilitating to the community to do so. Real power comes from the breadth of networks in which we participate. A resident who knows one person at the university has far less influence than someone who knows a dozen. While it is true some coordination and accountability for partnerships may come from a central office, relationships ought to be spread out to include students, faculty and the senior administration.

The president of the Evanston Community Council often says that the opportunity for collaboration with the university became evident to the community when Xavier’s president ventured out to meetings in the community. That is when she, as CEO of the community, began to engage her “peer.” Now, as partnerships with the community develop, we push different departments and offices to manage them on behalf of the university, with support from my office.

References

Barnett, C. C., et. al. (2003). Powering the Future: High-Performance Partnerships. Washington, DC.: National Academy of Public Administration.

Kretzmann, J. P., & McKnight, J. L. (1993). Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community’s Assets. Evanston, IL: Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University.

Mattessich, P. W., Murray-Close, M., & Monsey, B. R. (2001). Collaboration: What Makes It Work. St. Paul, MN: Amherst H. Wilder Foundation.