Portland State 20/20 Community Partnerships, Engagement, and Civic Leadership Strategic Planning Project March 30, 2015, 3-4:30 pm Location: MCB, POF Conference Room (8th floor)

Invitees: Ann Mestrovich X Erin Flynn X Seanna Kerrigan X Jessica Bull X Bill Bainey (Catherine Cahn for Bill) X Chris Sweeney X Kevin Kecskes X Rachel Samuelson Amy Spring X Mark Wubbold X Vicki Reitenauer X X=Attended

Agenda: 1. Review of Winter Symposium Notes 2. Trends in higher education 3. SWOT analysis 4. Drafting Template 5. Scheduling next meeting

Meeting Notes: Review of Winter Symposium Notes and what stood out in them?

• PSU NEEDS TO DIFFERENTIATE ITSELF FROM OTHER U’s…Engagement is our nationally ranked football team.

• Affirmation that there is a need for more engagement stories • Stories that illustrate/support/address multiple issues • We need a repository of stories that show different types of engagement impacts: alumni

stories, student stories, faculty research stories…etc. • The cross group affirmation that we need to make engagement more visible. We need metrics

(qualitative/quantitative) to do so. • THE NEED FOR APPROPRIATE INFRASTRUCTURE TO SUPPORT THE WORK. • Local engagement vs. international engagement is a false dichotomy. One of the most useful

things the Partnership Council could do would be to help PSU resolve this tension and come to general consensus on a definition.

• MAYBE ENGAGEMENT IS NOT EITHER/OR but is rather a state of mind…a way of thinking…how we live/work together and is NOT RESTRICTED TO A PHYSICAL PLACE.

• The activities we support are a concrete manifestation of our values and methods of Engagement.

• Reciprocity should be a big part of what we do. For example, “let knowledge serve the city” a more reciprocal approach would be to acknowledge that the city has knowledge we could

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Portland State 20/20 benefit from as well. This could be made visible with a reciprocal statement on the other side of the sky bridge…an important symbolic space at PSU.

• Maybe a better way of putting this is “experiential learning” or “problem solving” or “mastery of”

• We need to take DIVERSITY into consideration as we work through the Partnership agenda vis a vis Strategic Planning.

• We will apply an Equity Lens to this work and should be scheduling some time to do this. • Highlights of this section are: Need for Infrastructure/Need for Faculty Support/Need for stories

and ways of measuring progress/Need for more strategies and support for Alumni engagement/Making the case that this is what Differentiates PSU from others.

Discussion of National Trends in Higher Education and how they relate to PSU’s Partnership Agenda

• Online learning is becoming more important. How should we be doing Engagement in this space?

• Is this an area where the Partnership agenda can grow? • Unbundling of the curriculum - how does this impact the Partnership agenda? • What about online Capstones? We have been doing them for a decade. • How do we apply the Equity Lens to the online environment? • We need more information on how students actually use online education. • Will bringing more of PSU’s partnership work into the online environment require more

partnership infrastructure? Discussion of Community Partnerships

• Should PSU be doing more to create and support internships for its students? Should an internship be a hallmark of a PSU education?

• If yes….how should the student’s experience be assessed and illustrated….Portfolios?? • What role should employers play in supporting student internships? Should they be expected to

“invest” in this education? (this is an argument for local business support) • Should PSU be doing more to develop and communicate the value of its partnership network? • 157,000+ Alumni with (65% residing in the Portland metro area)….quite a network. • Are we sub-optimizing our national reputation as an Urban Serving University? Could we take

more of a leadership role in this space? • If engagement truly is in our DNA, now is the time to renew the commitment to this value and

make new investments in it. Now, when people say ‘it’s in PSU’s DNA’ it is as if they are saying ‘we can’t help but do it, so you don’t have to pay for it.’ We need to address and challenge this assumption.

• Should we be applying the principals of Collective Impact to PSU Engagement? What would it look like if we did?

• Could we begin such an experiment by applying it to pedagogy through faculty collaborations? • Perhaps Centers and Institutes are a better place to experiment with Collective Impact models

for engagement pedagogy? Draft SWOT analysis

• Add “differentiator” to the External Opportunities box.

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Portland State 20/20 • Add “staff” to this sentence in the External Ops. Box: - “part of what draws faculty, students,

and staff to PSU • Add “location” to External and Internal Ops boxes. • Internal Challenge = properly rewarding fixed term and adjuncts across all academic groups • Internal Challenge = PSU is not organized to maximize on engagement. We should have some

vehicle (Center, Institute, Journal) where we reflect on our practice and share our knowledge generation.

• Internal Challenge = we have no Center for Service Learning • Strategic Direction/investment = what would we need in order to differentiate ourselves??? • External and Internal Challenge = we need to strengthen our engagement with Faculty.

Next steps

• Full team reports due April 15th • Partnership work team will create a document that captures the cross-cutting themes for review

by the full committee • Reconvene Mid-may to look at the document (and re-scan through the equity lens)

************************************************************************************* Draft 1 SWOT Analysis: Community Engagement

Internal Strengths Internal Challenges - robust faculty involvement - Partnerships built into curriculum –

e.g. capstones, practicum experiences and

- fits campus cultural identity - part of campus strategic values - nationally recognized scholars in

engagement - P&T allows for the scholarship of

teaching and engagement - Experience linking knowledge to

practice - We are well-located and have easy

access to major employers and urban opportunities

- Uneven engagement across departments

- No sustainable internship program - Uneven acceptance of P&T revisions

that reflect - No standardized assessment process - Increasing class size - Under funded infrastructure and

support - No coordinated infrastructure - No clear “front door” - No method of sustaining

interdisciplinary teaching and scholarship-beyond UNST

- Limited faculty learning communities meant to expand and initiate collaborative work

- Online or distributed learning is in conflict to place based courses

- Inequity across faculty – there are fixed term faculty carrying a 36 credit course load and doing engagement, while a tenure track faculty have a lower load.

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Portland State 20/20 - We’re not organized to maximize the

collective value of this work. (like opportunities to do this well, reflection on practice professionally,

- We have no infrastructure to engage our alumni

External Opportunities External Threats - Nationally recognized for this work - Many state, local and regional

partnership - Part of PSU marketing efforts - Part of what draws faculty, staff and

students to PSU - This is something that differentiates

us from peer institutions - Alumni are a strength – We have

155,000 people – many of whom have gone through a capstone that teaches engagement and/or live in a city that values engagement.

- No real sustainability plan - No front door results in frustration

for CP - Partnerships are based on individual

relationships - Not able to report systematically - Not effective communicating about

the power and impact of this work

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