Deepening Partnerships: The Latin American Youth Center (LAYC) and George Washington University
February 25, 2022, noon-1:30pm
Hosted by the Honey W. Nashman Center for Civic Engagement and Public Service
Partner: Latin American Youth Center
This Deepening Partnerships event brought together LAYC staff, and the GW students, faculty, and staff who have worked with the LAYC this year on a variety of service projects.
Deepening Partnerships events are on-going gatherings of community partner organizations, community members, GW faculty, administrators, students, aimed at inclusive participation in the cycle of program planning and evaluation. The goal of this gathering was to deepen the relationships among these stakeholders by discussing what an ideal campus-community partnership looks like, from everyone’s perspective.
We aimed for a process that promoted empathy and deep listening, honoring our collective knowledge, experience and points of view. In addition, the LAYC shared their priorities for the coming year. Students and faculty explored with LAYC staff how we can be even better campus-community partners in supporting those priorities.
Thirty people attended, with each stakeholder group (community partners, students, faculty/staff) represented in equal proportions. Students and faculty had served with the LAYC through participation in Nashman Center programs, seven different courses, and the Knapp Fellowship program. More specifics about these projects was shared with event participants in advance of the event.
The Appreciative Inquiry process guided the conversation. Starting first in pairs, participants shared the story of a “peak experience” from the GW/LAYC partnership. Pairs combined to form small groups, which analyzed the stories for patterns and themes, particularly considering where various stakeholder perspectives were similar or different. Themes were further discussed and refined in a final full group conversation and are described below. A noteworthy part of this conversation was recognition that none of the themes were unique to one stakeholder perspective. Students, faculty, and community partners had all shared stories that reflected the emerging themes.
In addition to the insights provided by the identified themes, participants noted that the deeper connection from sharing stories and meeting participants of different programs was valuable. Faculty from different courses knew LAYC staff they worked with, but weren’t aware of other LAYC programs. Many potential new service partnerships worth following up on were identified.
The Ideal Campus-Community Partnership: LAYC and GW
Shared outcomes emerge from mutuality and reciprocity
All involved understand each other’s structures, processes, and goals and have clarity on what everyone needs and wants in order to arrive at a sense of shared outcomes. Listening occurs in all directions, with mutuality and reciprocity as the goal. Faculty understand what LAYC wants from the project and what students want from service; students understand what LAYC wants and why faculty are connecting service to their course, etc.
Real connections with people
Truly getting to know each other makes all the difference. It requires more time, but everyone benefits from the investment in relationships. Interactions and learning from each other. This theme is connected to the importance of reflection. While taking action and “doing” is key, we must also take time to pause and have intentionality around who we are meeting and what we are learning from each other.
Sustainability and developmental growth
The ideal partnership does not feel like one-time partnerships over and over, but growth. Each project benefits from the work that came before it. All stakeholders learn from experiences and apply it to take projects to new levels. For students in particular, we love to see service experiences lead to social innovation projects, and for a social innovation project to lead to a new course.
While the 15-week semester limits on-going student involvement, faculty and LAYC staff can be intentional about helping students understand how their work is connected to the work that students before them accomplished.
Balance between structure and adaptability
All involved want a certain amount of structure to a project so they feel they know what to do and what is expected of them. But they also like flexibility and adaptability so that individuals can contribute their unique skill-set and ideas and service can respond to unexpected needs that arise. When all stakeholders are open-minded, the youth in LAYC programs can be met where they are, as can the GW students.
Space to reflect is important for all involved
Everyone benefits from time to reflect and learn from our work together. This includes pausing to consider what unique strengths each person can bring, naming the baggage or bias we bring, acknowledging new perspectives that need to be processed, and celebrating accomplishments.
