Vision for the 21st Century: A Plan for Excellence

Community Linkages Project

A new project will be undertaken this spring in order to identify the numerous and diverse university-community partnerships that are currently under way through the efforts of faculty, staff, students and administrators on our campus. California State University, Fresno has a great tradition of outreach and service and one of our strategic plan goals is to develop an institutional portrait of our engagement activities.

The Community Linkages Project will be implemented this spring as a result of recommendations made by the Community Linkages Task Force (Task Force "G"), one of nine task forces that was established during the university's strategic planning process (fall 1996 to spring 1998). Thirty faculty, staff and administrators served on the Community Linkages Task Force and they, in turn, consulted with more than 200 additional faculty, staff, administrators and members of the surrounding community.

As a result of this planning process, our strategic plan ­ our Plan for Excellence ­ includes the goal that we:

Develop an easily accessible, up-to-date and comprehensive communications program that highlights and inventories the breadth, significance, and impact of community linkages within the context of the university's mission and goals. Such a program should promote diversity and participation by university and community constituents and educate both on-and off-campus communities on the university's role in community linkages.

- A Plan for Excellence, Strategic Plan Goals

While the Task Force recognized the outstanding university-community collaborations that are taking place at California State University, Fresno, they also identified the need to establish and maintain a better inventory of active university-community linkages and the need to develop a system to recognize, support, build awareness, and publicize these linkages.

All faculty, staff, students and administrators are invited to forward descriptions of university-community partnerships and collaborations by e-mail to linkages@listserv in order to help identify innovative and key outreach efforts as we attempt to track and communicate outreach initiatives across the university. We need to communicate successful outreach initiatives across boundaries of the university, across constituent groups, and externally to a wide variety of public constituents - including alumni, members of the business community, legislators, civic organizations and other stakeholders.

Examples of engagement activities, collaborations, partnerships and community linkages that are currently under way include: engagement with K-12, community colleges, and colleges and universities; community service outreach; applied scholarship activities; policy analyses; service learning, internships and clinic programs; individual volunteer work and group initiatives; linkages with business and industry; engagement with urban and rural communities; outreach through the use of information technology; engagement through planning for regional economic development; and many other initiatives.

We hope that these descriptions will help us to assess the impact and scope of our involvement with the broader community and evaluate both the extent of our engagement and how public service is incorporated into our institutional mission.

Information on community linkages may also be sent to Diane Threlkeld, University Business Center, or Sandra MacNevin, Office of the President.