In a time of skepticism, higher ed’s public purposes matter

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes a mix of guest commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

•••

Sixty years ago, Joel Torstenson returned from sabbatical to his Augsburg College teaching position with a radical proposal that changed the trajectory of the Minneapolis college.

Torstenson, a sociologist, was keenly interested in the role of the city as a dominant community reality in American life, and he challenged his faculty colleagues to embrace Augsburg’s urban setting as a laboratory for learning and research. Nothing would ever be the same on campus.

Today, a mission-based embrace of place infuses every aspect of Augsburg. From curriculum to campus life to community engagement, we don’t just say we are in this place. Rather, as a college of the city, we are of and with this place — with our neighbors and neighborhood to build and sustain safe, healthy and just communities.

Torstenson’s legacy reminds us that urban colleges and universities are crucial incubators of democracy as a social ethic — a bedrock for life in community. Next week, more than 300 leaders of urban colleges and universities will gather in Minneapolis for the annual Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities conference, co-hosted this year by Augsburg, Metro State University, St. Paul College and the University of Minnesota. CUMU’s 120 member institutions are leading critical efforts to advance the public purposes of higher education. In a time of great skepticism about the value of higher education, cultivating an inclusive democracy is chief among them.

This work is about more than the machinery of government, although it encompasses the democratic process. (To this end, Augsburg recognizes Election Day as a holiday, hosts a polling place on campus and helps students register to vote during residence hall move-in.) CUMU’s member institutions prepare students to be engaged citizens, helping them understand education not as a simple means to an end, like a degree or a job, but as a way to create meaningful change in their communities.

What does it look like for higher education to be place-based, to settle into urban settings and be good neighbors, and to believe that our academic missions compel us to both educate students and care about the world into which they will graduate?

At Augsburg, our location in Minneapolis’ Cedar-Riverside neighborhood means the “classroom” is porous — intentionally so. Through our Campus Kitchen program, students glean produce at the Mill City Farmers Market, serve meals at Pillsbury United Communities’ Brian Coyle Center, and operate an on-campus food pantry. Graphic design students solve real-world problems for local clients through Design & Agency, an on-campus design studio. At five Augsburg Health Commons drop-in centers, health care students experience a radical approach to health equity based in accompaniment and mutuality.

But it’s not simply a matter of sending individual students out into the city. One-way engagement is not sustainable. Instead, place-making work only succeeds if it is grounded in mutual benefit with community partners. Long-term relationships must be built and sustained through consistent, intentional efforts to listen to each other and align our work together around creating shared value.

Some of this work takes place at the institutional level. Augsburg serves as a convener for cross-sector collaboratives like the Central Corridor Anchor Partnership and the Cedar Riverside Partnership, both of which promote investments to sustain vibrant neighborhoods. Some of it is programmatic, like our partnership with Soomaal House of Art, which provides studio space, technical assistance and an exhibition in the Augsburg art galleries for rising Somali artists.

And some of it is fundamentally relational. In 2017, the opening of our newest building, the Hagfors Center, included the creation of a welcoming community garden at the northwest corner of campus, facing our nearest neighbors. When a magnificent cottonwood tree near the garden came down in a storm this past August, dozens of neighbors and gardeners joined us on campus for a time of shared grief and remembrance. It was a powerful reminder that in a time of polarization, fraying social connections and decline in institutional trust, another story is possible — and it starts right here in our neighborhood.

With the national election looming, it can be easy to overlook the significance of these daily, local commitments. Our colleagues at CUMU institutions know well the slow work of tackling intractable urban problems, from criminal justice reform to economic mobility. But this is the work of democracy: sustained engagement over time. Building relationships across lines of difference. Working collaboratively to think beyond the barriers that keep our communities from flourishing. Urban colleges and universities are uniquely equipped to model and cultivate this way of life with our students.

This is the public purpose to which we are called.

Paul C. Pribbenow is the president of Augsburg University.