Outreach at CPC

One of the primary functions of the Community Partnership Center (CPC) is outreach to our local and regional community. The CPC partners with community organizations, university departments, faculty, students and staff to share resources and develop programs, including collaborative research, service-learning, training, and educational and cultural programs to build capacity for self-sufficiency and empowerment in the Knoxville area and our regional community.

We ask the following questions in assessing our outreach commitments:

First, are we partnering with groups that represent the interests of low- and moderate-resource communities? Our urban programs and partners are all within Knoxville's Empowerment Zone or EZ, a sixteen square-mile area in the heart of Knoxville that has demonstrated the most compelling need for community and economic development. We also conduct rural sustainable development projects in "distressed counties" as defined by the Appalachian Regional Commission, and are in the analysis phase of a participatory research project with regional grassroots organizations struggling for environmental and medical justice. 

A second question we ask is about the nature of the partnership: is it equitable? If it is a service-learning project, for example, have our community partners had substantive input into the design and outputs? Is there a clear understanding of faculty, student, and community responsibilities and lines of authority? Are our students adequately prepared, including, in some cases, providing them with cross-cultural sensitivity training to challenge their assumptions and negative stereotypes about class and ethnicity? Is there good follow-up and evaluation? Have we taken sufficient time to build relationships and can we make commitments sensitive to timeframes other than the academic semester? If it is a research or planning project, do our community partners have significant decision-power in designing, implementing, and analyzing the project? Have we changed our professional culture and language to reflect their perspectives?