The local democratic mission of HE: Lessons from the US

How can we affirm and develop the public purpose of higher education? How can higher education institutions further democracy and inclusion by working with their local communities?

These are the questions that a recent white paper produced by the University of Pennsylvania’s Netter Center for Community Partnerships with support from the Teagle Foundation seeks to answer.

Edited by Ira Harkavy and Rita A Hodges, the white paper focuses on urban universities in the United States, which also provide the case studies that make up a substantial part of the paper. Nevertheless, the study is of interest well beyond the cities of the United States.

Responsibility to broader society

The proverbial ivory tower has never been an apt metaphor for universities. Had it been, universities would not have survived for centuries. That said, public debate often gives a narrow view of what universities should do.

One view holds that they should focus on research and teaching in a narrow sense without being much concerned about how academic knowledge and understanding may help improve broader society. Another, and probably more widely held, view emphasises the role of higher education in providing society with highly qualified candidates for the labour market.

Both views are wide of the mark. Research and teaching have their own intrinsic value, but both higher education and individual staff and students have a responsibility to broader society.

The public responsibility of higher education is one of the six fundamental values of higher education on which ministers of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) adopted a statement at their recent ministerial conference.

That responsibility, however, is far broader than merely catering to the labour market. This has been recognised in successive EHEA Communiqués since 2007, and the Council of Europe has spelled out the major purposes of higher education as preparation for the labour market, preparation for life as active citizens in democratic societies, personal development, and the development and maintenance, through teaching, learning and research, of a broad, advanced knowledge base.

Universities and democracy

From a European perspective, one of the most important contributions by US higher education to the debate on the multiple purposes of higher education is the link it makes between democracy and universities working with local communities.

This link is, of course, far from absent in Europe, and Queen’s University Belfast and Dublin City University are just two examples of institutions that work with their local communities and do not limit this cooperation to local businesses.

Nevertheless, discussions of the role of higher education in building and maintaining democracy often focus on the national and European levels. The institutions whose work is outlined in the white paper are all urban, but otherwise they are highly diverse.

Augsburg University is a small, Lutheran liberal arts institution in Minneapolis, a city with a proud but no longer prominent history of progressive politics aiming at social inclusion and home to one of the largest Somali communities in the United States.

The University of San Diego is a medium-sized Catholic institution very close to the border to Mexico with a large Hispanic local community.

Columbia University is a prominent research and teaching institution based in the heart of New York City, whereas De Anza College in California is a community college which grants associate degrees and caters largely to students who may otherwise not have enrolled in higher education, many of whom later go on to earn more advanced degrees at other institutions.

Rutgers University – Newark is a public research university that emphasises a commitment to diversity, social justice and community engagement in its mission statement. It is also a very active member of the Anchor Institutions Task Force that sees comprehensive engagement with its local community as part of its core mission.

The University at Buffalo, in upstate New York, is represented in the white paper by its Community Health Equity Research Institute and also has a strong record in urban studies with an emphasis on the inclusion of African-Americans.

The University of North Carolina at Charlotte aims to build its own distinctive identity and civic contribution by focusing on its engagement with the region in which it is located.

Finally, the Netter Center for Community Partnerships has a more than 30-year record of promoting civic and community engagement at the University of Pennsylvania, among other things by developing democratic, place-based partnerships between the university and its immediate neighbourhood in West Philadelphia.

Its founding director, Harkavy, is also the long-time chair of the international consortium that plays such an important role in the Global Cooperation for the Democratic Mission of Higher Education coordinated by the Council of Europe; the International Consortium for Higher Education, Civic Responsibility and Democracy; the International Association of Universities; and the Organization of American States.

Diverse initiatives

The initiatives described in the white paper are as diverse as the institutions that run them, and space allows for only a few examples. The Freedom and Citizenship programme at Columbia aims to give high school students from under-served areas of the city an opportunity to undertake college level work in the humanities as well as to develop their civic competences and commitment to democratic citizenship.

The De Anza Vasconcellos Institute for Democracy in Action aims to provide students with the competences and attitudes required for them to become agents of change in their communities.

Augsburg’s Campus Kitchen project enables student volunteers to work with a highly diverse neighbourhood by organising the sharing of food from the university cafeterias. Augsburg also intensified its work to support local businesses, many of which are owned and run by minorities, after the murder of George Floyd.

Among other things, the Netter Center promotes academically-based community service, furthering collaborative problem-solving with local community partners that is directly connected to university research, teaching, learning and service. It also encourages Penn students and staff to engage with local schools through its University-Assisted Community Schools programme.

The diversity of institutions and programmes in the white paper are in themselves an important inspiration for Europe. With thousands of very different institutions in some 50 countries, European higher education has never been about making one size fit all. What the projects and institutions covered by the report do have in common is the conviction that democracy and social inclusion can and must be furthered through local engagement.

The report also underscores what is a strong feature of the networking of US higher education institutions with similar convictions: mutual learning and inspiration and sharing of good practice and policy recommendations, whether through the Anchor Institutions Task Force or in other fora.

Sharing best practice

European higher education institutions also work with their local communities in many different ways, whether through engaged research, outreach to those who would otherwise not aim for higher education, working with local communities and civil society to address urgent local problems, or in many other ways.

There is, however, little in terms of sharing of good practice or the development of shared policies. The latter is perhaps more important in Europe than in the United States because public authorities play a considerably more important role in developing policies and funding initiatives in Europe than in the United States, especially at national level.

There is no contradiction in developing policy suggestions and sharing good practice at European level, even if they need to be put into practice locally in the mosaic of diversity that is Europe. That, after all, is also how the European Higher Education Area functions.

A newly established expert group whose remit includes the Democratic Mission of Higher Education has been convened by the Council of Europe.

A main expected output of this project includes “a pan-European framework on the local mission of higher education”, and I look forward to seeing this work advance.

Place, civil society and values

As underlined in a proposal submitted to the Council of Europe some three years ago and reinforced by ideas in the US white paper, European cooperation on the local democratic mission of higher education might be guided by three overall principles.

Firstly, it should emphasise place – higher education institutions are based in a community and should see themselves as an integral and integrated part of it.

Secondly, it is not enough for higher education institutions to work in the local community; they must work with local public authorities as well as civil society.

Thirdly, this work must be values based, with a strong commitment to democracy, human rights and social inclusion.

A European cooperation could serve as an advocacy group for the local democratic mission, and it could develop policy proposals and undertake studies on specific topics bringing in perspectives from various parts of Europe.

Not least, it could explore, exchange and disseminate examples of good practice and suggestions going forward, as the Netter Center’s white paper has done so effectively.

Sjur Bergan is an independent higher education expert, and the views expressed in this article are his alone. He was head of the Council of Europe’s Education Department until February 2022 and represented the Council of Europe in the Bologna Follow-up Group as well as in the Global Cooperation on the Democratic Mission of Higher Education. He was, among other things, a member of the European Higher Education Area Working Groups on fundamental values that produced the statements adopted by ministers in May 2024. Sjur Bergan was the series editor of the Council of Europe Higher Education Series 2004-23 and is the author of European Higher Education, Social Responsibility, and the Local Democratic Mission (Temple University Press, forthcoming).