The Leeds Anchor Network (or system) was established in 2017 with eight founder organizations. In 2024, membership was 14 and represented 1 in 7 of the Leeds city workforce. Leeds Beckett University is a founding member. This paper explains how the system originated and developed, the role Leeds Beckett University has played in that process, and…

Anchor movements rest on the premise that people- and place-based initiatives can be mutually reinforcing. The community development movement, however, has been haunted for years by the people-place dilemma -- the idea that efforts to help people harm efforts to uplift places and vice versa. Most of the literature on the anchor strategy has…

The legacy of deindustrialization and associated underemployment continues to plague many former industrial communities. In these spaces, universities serve as anchors providing gateways for individual economic empowerment, and as "brain centers" charged with generating solutions for societal problems. This paper explores the development…

This paper explores efforts of the Coppin Heights Community Development Corporation (CHCDC) to: (1) increase the commitment to community engagement at Coppin State University, an HBCU situated in the heart of one of Baltimore's most challenged communities; and, (2) increase the community's capacity to engage the university, and other institutions,…

Laurie A. Walker, the 2017 recipient of the Ernest A. Lynton Award for the Scholarship of Engagement, is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Montana. Together with her co-author, Dr. Jean F. East, Professor in the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Denver, they have raised, in this piece, an…

The essay briefly outlines the history of community engagement at DePaul University in order to explore how and why universities and colleges are increasingly adopting data collections systems for tracking community engagement. I explore the question of why there is a growing interest in tracking engagement within the academy and suggest that…

Historically Black Colleges and Universities have many organizational characteristics and challenges similar to those of all urban and metropolitan institutions: to serve increasing proportions of first-generation, multicultural students from diverse, often disadvantaged backgrounds while also contributing to economic and community development.…

This essay explores Eastern Washington University's East Central Neighborhood Partnership Center project, which utilized coordinated community service-learning classes and internships to create a neighborhood revitalization plan in partnership with a neighborhood council and community-based organizations. The author explores the ways in which the…