Global educators explore higher ed

No educational institution exists in a bubble.

That was the central theme of the two-day international conference that Penn's Center for Community Partnerships hosted yesterday and Monday in Houston Hall.

The conference marked the 10-year anniversary of the center's founding and was intended to open discussion on how institutions of higher education around the globe handle the issue of town-gown relations.

Yesterday, a panel of speakers from universities in various countries convened to discuss "Higher Education, Civic Responsibility and Democracy."

More than ever, "the weight of expectation on universities is enormous," said Sir David Watson, vice chancellor of the University of Brighton in the United Kingdom.

Watson described universities' responsibility to be both "critical and supportive, radical and conservative... certain and provisional... local and international."

In reconciling these dichotomous characteristics, universities can contribute to their communities, the panelists said.

Jo Lazarus, a representative of the Joint Education Trust in South Africa, explained that after his country held its first democratic election in 1994, policies were implemented to "reform and transform education."

He discussed three initiatives -- an overarching strategy for community engagement, heightened efforts to respond to the community's social, political and economic needs and the social responsibility of universities to respond to their communities and to commit themselves to the public good.

Yong Lin Moon, a professor at Seoul National University in Korea discussed the challenges his country is facing.

"We are in the beginning stages of this matter," he said.

One difficulty he has encountered is that internally, his university is reluctant to share its resources. Additionally, students are "too absorbed" in their studies and are minimally interested in neighboring communities, he said.

Externally, Moon said that people are cautious about involving university students in local affairs.

Regardless, he said that his university is working on democratizing the educational system in hopes of indoctrinating the university with a sense of civic responsibility.

Bruce Muirhead, director of the University of Queensland Community Service and Research Centre in Australia, described some of the efforts his committee already has taken.

CSRC focuses on "community renewal" in a city that is highly populated by prisoners and disabled people. The committee helped build front decks on some of the homes around the university in an effort to increase communication among neighborhood residents.

Muirhead also discussed the goal of reinventing the university "to become directly relevant to the communities."

And that is exactly what some Philadelphia residents are hoping will be accomplished.

Marion Corbin, the development officer for St. Vincent DePaul Catholic Church's after-school program, is one local resident who attended the conference.

She is attempting "to develop a program, to incorporate the colleges in our community in after-school programs at St. Vincent's. It's a depressed area," she said.

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