Taking responsibility: Institutional agents of color (Re)imagine collaboration that centers community stakeholders in university-community partnerships

This paper examines three university-community partnership (UCP) projects. Two projects were situated within a Southeastern, lower-income Black community, where the university recently developed a campus, to anchor an education ecosystem. The third project was affiliated with a Northeastern university that is seen as an anchor for the community, within its city limits. The projects and participants were examined not to reveal empirical findings. Still, they were used as a lens that guided the authors’ reflections as agents of color working in UCPs. Utilizing critical autoethnographic narratives, we discuss our motivations for social justice-oriented, engaged work. We also illuminate the real opportunities and challenges in fostering UCPs. We further examine how equity was integrated within the projects by using counterexamples of the common discourses of engagement, which we ultimately identified as a necessary resistance to collaborate within communities authentically. We conclude with a framework to center community stakeholders in UCPs.