This is part three of a three-part series on the ABC’s of CCE Partnerships, where we share some of the most important things to keep in mind when engaging in a CCE Partnership. Here, we’ve identified some strategies for sharing power. This article draws from interviews and focus groups conducted in 2015-2016 as part of °ä¹ó±õ°ä·¡â€™s year 4 project evaluation, and includes common themes from across °ä¹ó±õ°ä·¡â€™s five Phase I hubs. 

In the first two parts of this series, sharing responsibilities and sharing resources, the question of power has been present throughout. Power dynamics in community-campus engagement (CCE) partnerships are important to be aware of, because if left unchecked, they can leave a lasting and damaging impact on community-campus engagement (CCE) partners.

Power dynamics can be managed and mitigated through building an awareness of power imbalances, openly discussing how power might impact the partnership, and by those holding positions of power using their privilege to empower the voices of others.

This article explores how power dynamics were at play within CFICE partnerships, and the strategies that were employed to manage power imbalances with a community first perspective.

Self-awareness of power dynamics

The first step in equalizing power is to develop an awareness of any power imbalances that might exist in a CCE partnership. The power dynamics and how they play out will differ depending on context, but the practice of being conscious of how power dynamics are impacting any given relationship can always apply.

For instance, within °ä¹ó±õ°ä·¡â€™s Community Environmental Sustainability Hub in Peterborough, “the role and power of the university and the perception of the university’s influence was a source of tensionâ€�, according to one community partner. It’s important to note here that the perception of a power imbalance or undue influence can have just as much of an effect on a partnership as an actual power imbalance.

In this instance, the perceived power imbalance was visualized when the number of academics and university affiliates “significantly outnumbered� representation from the community. The university affiliates may have simply been very engaged in the partnership and wanting to demonstrate this enthusiasm through their presence. However, there was discussion about whether or not the strong academic presence affected community members’ comfort in expressing opinions. Whatever the intention of the academic partners, the perception was that there was a power imbalance, and it may have had an impact on community participation in the discussion.

A power imbalance can be real or perceived.

Taking steps to consciously equalize power imbalances is important in developing an effective partnership. For instance, the Poverty Reduction Hub demonstrated a self-awareness of power dynamics by making all decisions with input from both community and academic partners. They also worked to identify and discuss the principles they had been either consciously or unconsciously adopting to equalize power. This type of discussion ensured that efforts to equalize power were front of mind for everyone involved, which naturally lead to a more power-conscious partnership.

Academic institutions and partners, who are often seen to be the players with the power in a CCE partnership, should aim for self-awareness when it comes to their level of participation and representation within a partnership. Too much representation can cause the community partner to feel overpowered. Developing a self-awareness of power dynamics should lead to open and honest discussions between partners to ensure equalizing power becomes a priority for the group.

That said, these sorts of open and honest discussions can only happen when there is a foundation of trust.

The importance of trusting relationships

°ä¹ó±õ°ä·¡â€™s Violence Against Women Hub found that the success of the partnership was hugely dependent on trust. For partners in this hub, overcoming the inherent distrust that community felt towards academic partners as a result of prior experience with academic research was a slow process, but one that was deemed extremely worthwhile.

One of the academic partners in this hub described the benefit of coming to understand more about “why people in the community might not want partnerships with people in the university,� because it helped the academic partner “think about [her] own interaction.�

Discussing problems that were experienced as part of prior community-academic relationships allowed for the Violence Against Women hub to develop more understanding of potential problematic power dynamics. It also allowed the Violence Against Women academics to approach their partnerships with community in ways that allowed community to re-develop trust.

Similarly, in the Community Environmental Sustainability Hub, community partners made sure that conversations happened as they were needed, because “the need to provide space to air issues, questions, concerns� was a necessary component of a trusting and productive relationship.

Power and control in CCE relationships: Whose voices are heard?

Academic voices are often prioritized. Sharing power is about advancing community voices equally.

Academic knowledge is often privileged: It is usually academics who apply for and receive funding grants, and it is academics whose voices are heeded by institutions like government. As one community partner in the Violence Against Women Hub noted, “when you are talking about a research project, you are talking about who is in control, and it’s not us…ever.�

The feeling that the academic partner is in control of the research project can be amplified if the academic is paying members of the community for their participation. One academic partner in this hub reported how, “once we could pay the participants…then they felt like we were their bosses. Things shifted.� Because they were being paid, the community partners felt that it was ultimately up to the academic whether or not the project proceeded at all.

Therefore, academic partners and community partners engaging in CCE need to be mindful of the potential for “frontline experience [to be] overshadowed by academic expertise in research.�

In the Violence Against Women Hub, one academic partner used their privileged voice to empower the community partner and give them a platform that would traditionally be reserved for academics. When the academic partner was invited to speak at a conference on a topic they knew the community partner had more expertise on, they advocated for a spot for the community partner at the conference. This helped to change the perception that the academic is always the expert, and allows the community partners to have their voices heard.

Additionally, within the context of CCE, it can be important for academics to avoid measuring their work in terms of academic publications. As one academic partner said, keeping a community first mindset means recognizing that “it’s done in this community and it’s sent back to the community.�

Where community power lies

°ä¹ó±õ°ä·¡â€™s Knowledge Mobilization hub focused primarily on promoting effective communication amongst the other CFICE hubs. As a result, this hub took into account the differences in power held by partners. Ultimately, different models and approaches to CCE provide different ways to approach equalizing power relations. While academic power may hold certain privileges—access to funding and other resources, for instance—it’s important to remember that community partners and communities are not powerless.

Geri Briggs*, former CFICE Co-Director, said, “community power rests in connectedness to networks and individuals, in application of theory. Communities have the power to say ‘no’ thereby decreasing academe’s capacity to fulfill community engagement mandates. Academic power rests in sustainability, multiplicity of resources, research capacity.�

Ultimately, power differentials and imbalances can be corrected by using a community first approach that prioritizes frequent discussions and conscious efforts to equalize power and empower community partners and communities.

*The attributed quotes used in this article came from °ä¹ó±õ°ä·¡â€™s Midterm Review Report, which was posted publicly to our website in February, 2016.

This is part two of a three-part series on the ABC’s of CCE Partnerships, where we share some of the most important things to keep in mind when engaging in a CCE Partnership. Here, we’ve identified some strategies for sharing resources in a way that empowers the community partner. This article draws from interviews and focus groups conducted in 2015-2016 as part of °ä¹ó±õ°ä·¡â€™s year 4 project evaluation, and includes common themes from across °ä¹ó±õ°ä·¡â€™s five Phase I hubs.  

A successful community-campus engagement (CCE) partnership requires adequate resources for all participants to be able to do their best work. However, access to resources such as funding, literature, and space typically lies with academic partners and institutions. One CFICE community partner acknowledged this imbalance, speaking to how much community partners rely “on academics with access to resources…We have to hope that they would be amenable to our involvement and inclusion.�

This article outlines three different resources that are important to CCE partnerships: funding, knowledge, and space. Using the results from °ä¹ó±õ°ä·¡â€™s year 4 project reports, we explore different challenges with, and approaches to, sharing these resources.

Sharing access to financial resources  

°ä¹ó±õ°ä·¡â€™s year 4 evaluation reports found that, in general, community partners are wary of the external control that institutional funders might exercise over a given project. When funding is coming from academic institutions within a CCE partnership, this power dynamic must be acknowledged and mindfully managed.

Even if funding is coming from an academic institution or from a government agency such as SSHRC, academic partners can take steps to ensure that funding is being effectively mobilized to community partners in a variety of ways.

Some CFICE hubs, such as the Community Environmental Sustainability hub in Ottawa, found a need for “greater support and ease of access to funds,� as the administration of funds fell to one faculty member, simultaneously becoming a logistical burden for them as well as creating an unequal balance of power in the partnership. Similarly, within the Poverty Reduction Hub, financial resources were found to be difficult to access by some community partners, because the “academic manages [the] purse.�

Conversely, the Community Food Security Hub found that leaving the community partner to manage how funds were used burdened the community partner with “too much responsibility and not enough resources� to effectively disseminate funding. This hub found a more collaborative approach to sharing funds was more effective.

While some community partners within the Poverty Reduction hub might have found access to financial resources to be a challenge, funding was mobilized through the employment of research assistants (RAs) whose roles were essential to keeping the project focused and on track.

The Community Environmental Sustainability Hub in Peterborough similarly found CFICE funding enabled them to increase overall capacity through hiring more RAs, expanding on fundraising activities, and increasing faculty and community capacity for knowledge mobilization.

The Community Environmental Sustainability Hub in Ottawa identified a need for adequate resources for all those involved in the partnership. They found acknowledging the “significant in-kind volunteer contributions of time, expertise and mentorship� by way of a financial stipend, for instance, was important for maintaining relationships.

Within °ä¹ó±õ°ä·¡â€™s Community Food Security Hub, community partners identified a need for a more efficient reimbursement process for expenses incurred by the community partner. The lengthy process for reimbursement was identified as a “bureaucratic barrierâ€�, which particularly impacted those frontline organizations that “cannot carry the overhead of those expenses for long periods of time.â€�

When managing shared funds, a collaborative approach that includes both community and academic input can mitigate the perception that the academic partner has unilateral control over the funds. As well, prioritizing and being transparent about expense reimbursement processes and timelines can help manage expectations. Finally, increasing community capacity through embedded RAships and by collaboratively budgeting for honouraria or stipends for community work, can contribute to balancing financial power in CCE partnership work.

Ways to share knowledge  

Liz Weaver*, a community partner with Tamarack in the Poverty Reduction Hub, said that “when communities are trying to work and shift more complex issues like poverty, homelessness, the environment, etc., they require the shared wisdom of a wide-variety of diverse partners.� As she suggests through this observation, shared knowledge gives CCE partners power for change. Cultivating this knowledge base is important in achieving results in CCE partnerships.

Sharing knowledge effectively depends in part on the development of a shared language between community and academic partners.

Within the Community Environmental Sustainability Hub in Peterborough, developing a shared language was discussed frequently. The use of academic language was found to be a barrier that often resulted in “the culture of academia substantively driv[ing] or unduly influenc[ing]� the nature of the project. Academic partners in this context found a need for a “slow encouragement of a more common language� amongst partners, which helped shift power and control over project direction to community partners.

Of course, the necessity of a shared language is context-specific, as different community partners have differing levels of academic experience and vice versa. However, this example points to a need for partners to be aware of how jargon, academic or community-generated, can be an impediment to sharing knowledge.

Another knowledge resource that academic partners might take for granted in CCE partnerships is their unlimited access to library resources.

For instance, the Violence Against Women Hub found that full access to library resources, in particular the online resources, was desired by community partners, though effecting this access proved to be difficult. Having such access can be a significant benefit to community partners, as it can help facilitate fulsome contributions to the research at hand. One community partner saw a lack of access to library resources as a barrier erected by the university “in saying who can and cannot have access to knowledge.�

Libraries are an important resource that can be shared in CCE partnerships.

Taking the time to negotiate access to library resources for community partners during either the grant application stage or initial project meetings is a good way of showing commitment to a community-first ethos in CCE partnerships.While it might take extra time and work, academic partners can also benefit community partners by sharing their personal knowledge and skills. As one community partner said, “When the academic is really willing to put in the work, we get enormous benefits. I’ve learned a lot…but it takes real concession on the part of the academic. It takes extra effort on their part.�

Sharing personal knowledge and skills can mean sharing research knowledge and data, helping partners understand the inner-workings of the institution, or connecting community partners to key resources (people and papers!). Conversely, the academic partner can add benefit to CCE projects by committing to listening and learning from their community partners as well.

Sharing access to space

Access to something like library resources can also be synonymous with access to space. Academic institutions generally have much more (free or cheap) space available for things like meetings and events, which means that CCE meetings often get organized on university campuses.

This was true in the CFICE project as well. The Poverty Reduction Hub and the Violence Against Women Hub both identified face-to-face meetings to be crucial to the success of the project. One partner within the Violence Against Women Hub said that in-person meetings provided a space for “great information sharing� as well as a venue where concerns could be voiced that might not have come to light otherwise.

However, as found within the Poverty Reduction hub’s report, something as simple as campus parking costs and availability had the potential to create a “huge power imbalance� for community partners.

Conversely, “in-kind donations ([such as] meeting space, meals for focus group participants) greatly facilitated the work of the project,� said one community partner of the ways in which hosting on-campus events helped increase community capacity.

Balancing power and enhancing community capacity

Overall, the ongoing challenge in sharing resources is how access to resources—including funding, knowledge, and space—is managed by academic institutions. Within the context of large academic institutions, community partners are wary of academic knowledge being seen as ‘above’ community knowledge, and how this dynamic is reflected in things like funding decisions, access to space and other resources, like libraries.

As Leighann Burns*, a community partner in the Violence Against Women Hub, emphasized, participating in CCE projects “provid[es] resources and possibilities for those of us on the front lines to implement things we would like to do but don’t have the resources to do.�

By mobilizing funding, allowing access to institutional knowledge sources such as libraries, and being mindful of sharing space in a way that is convenient and accessible to all partners, academic partners can help balance power in CCE partnerships and enhance community capacity.

The attributed quotes used in this article came from °ä¹ó±õ°ä·¡â€™s Midterm Review Report, which was posted publicly to our website in February, 2016.

This is part one of a three-part series on the ABC’s of CCE Partnerships, where we share some of the most important things to keep in mind when engaging in a CCE Partnership. Here, we’ve identified some of the main things we’ve found important to consider when taking on the challenge of sharing responsibilities in a way that empowers the community partner. This article draws from interviews and focus groups conducted in 2015-2016 as part of °ä¹ó±õ°ä·¡â€™s year 4 project evaluation, and includes common themes from across °ä¹ó±õ°ä·¡â€™s five Phase I hubs. 

Community-first CCE partnerships require a lot of time and commitment from both parties. As one academic partner puts it, “I don’t think you can pick up a community-university partnership the way you pick up another research question that you can quickly answer. I think it does require your whole self.�

Clearly defining roles and responsibilities and keeping channels of communication open about what’s working and what’s not are crucial elements of a successful community-campus engagement (CCE) project. A collaborative and supportive approach to sharing responsibilities is part of how these CCE partnerships function.

Here we highlight three different ways CFICE partners divided responsibilities, with some thoughts on the outcomes of each strategy:

Sharing responsibilities equally

The Poverty Reduction (PR) Hub found that sharing responsibilities equally between partners worked best. According to °ä¹ó±õ°ä·¡â€™s Midterm Review Report, the PR Hub “consciously equalized power by making all decisions together, including the co-creation of measurement instruments.â€�

“Everyone has taken part in collaboration in community involvement,� said one participant, adding that “feedback was sought from [the] larger group� allowing the group to have a collective sense of its needs.

Furthering this collaborative approach to sharing responsibilities, partners within the PR Hub also identified the principles they were adopting in an attempt to equalize power, including communication, relationship building, and ensuring that the community partner was setting the agenda.

Participants in the Knowledge Mobilization (KMb) Hub also indicated that they appreciated having academic and community co-leads share responsibilities. However, other hubs took different approaches to divvying up responsibilities between co-leads.

Academic-lead on administrative responsibilities, and community-lead on project progress

Often times, community partner resources and time are stretched thin, and taking on extra work like drafting funding requests and other administrative duties can actually be an impediment, despite the fact that their voice and perspective is often invaluable for these types of endeavours.

°ä¹ó±õ°ä·¡â€™s Violence Against Women Hub operated with the academic co-lead taking on the administrative duties, thereby relieving the community partners of this burden and freeing up their time and energy for hub projects. The senior academic partner on this project was not constrained by publishing pressures and had more flexibility with their time than the community partner, whose time was already stretched thin due to a lack of resources.

However, academic partners must also be mindful of how the division of responsibilities impacts the perception of power. If an academic co-lead does decide to take on the administrative responsibilities, it is still important that they communicate and update the community partner as much as possible. One of the community partners in this hub reported that while it was overall beneficial for them to have the academic co-lead take on the administrative duties, that dynamic required a high degree of trust. If the academic co-lead is the one drafting proposals and soliciting them, the community partner “might be left reacting to a proposal maybe you don’t agree with.�

Having frank and honest discussions amongst partners is key to ensuring that everyone’s voice feels heard and included in decision making processes.

Embedded graduate-level research assistants as enhancing community capacity

Within the Community Environmental Sustainability (CES) Hubs, the role and responsibilities of research assistants (RAs) were integral to relationship building with community partners and participants, providing applied research support, and facilitating project evaluations.

Embedding RAs within the CES (Ottawa) Hub in particular meant that “RAs enjoyed ongoing access to community participants and ensured the development, over time, of meaningful relationships� with community participants. In the CES (Peterborough) Hub, the effect of embedded RAs was similar in that they “provided the kind of relationship building required when working with a vulnerable population that has been marginalized by traditional planning processes and academic engagement.�

(Left to right) ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ professor Patricia Ballamingie, Jason Garlough of the Ottawa Eco-Talent Network, and doctoral research assistant Michael Lait are an example of a successful CCE partnership with an embedded RA. (Justin Tang Photo)

The reports RAs were able to produce as a result of their relationship-building efforts also provided academic partners with “a better understanding of the enablers and barriers� faculty might encounter when engaging in Community Based Research (CBR).

These results demonstrate how embedded RAs often act as brokers between academic and community partners. In the Poverty Reduction Hub, for instance, participants said that the responsibilities that RAs were able to take on helped drive the agenda, keep everyone on track, and ultimately, acted “as connector all around, at times project manager, [which] prevents [us] from dropping the ball� said one participant.

Communication and clarification are key

No matter the approach to sharing responsibilities, community and academic partners in all hubs noted the importance of maintaining open channels of communication and clearly defining roles and responsibilities, which helped to foster accountability. Further, if either partner felt the division of responsibilities was not working for whatever reason, partners stressed the importance having frank and open discussions and making adjustments accordingly.

What ways have you and your partners shared responsibilities in your CCE partnerships? What has worked and what hasn’t? Share your thoughts in the comments below!