Diversity+in+faculty+and+community+partner+perspectives+about+achieving+reciprocity+in+partnerships

**Diversity in faculty and community partner perspectives about achieving reciprocity in partnerships** Melinda Forthofer, Associate Professor, University of South Carolina [forthofer@sc.edu] Robert Roscoe, University of South Carolina [roscoer@mailbox.sc.edu] John Clarkson, University of South Carolina [clarksog@mailbox.sc.edu] Alyssa Mackelprang, University of South Carolina [amackelp@mailbox.sc.edu]



**Keywords:** Diversity, faculty, community partnerships, reciprocity, systems change

**Track:** Community partnerships and reciprocity

**Format:** Research paper

**Date & time: **Thursday 9:30 - 10:40 **Location: **Salon 10

**Summary:** Challenges inherent in sustaining productive academic-community partnerships may deter researchers from engaging communities in their research. Our assessment of researcher and community partner experiences reveals dramatic differences in faculty and community partner perspectives and underscore areas where academic researchers may fall short of “walking the talk” of community engagement. Using network analysis to focus on the on partnership patterns and implications of those relationships can inform strategies for strengthening network linkages and for developing linkages to address network gaps. We will use these findings to illustrate how a network approach can inform institutional strategies for supporting community engaged scholarship.

Our results reveal dramatic differences in perspectives between faculty with and without previous experience in community-based research. The results also document convergence and divergence in faculty and community partner perspectives, as well as partnership or dyad-specific patterns. For example, at the network level, there is substantial agreement among researcher and community partner perspectives, except for with respect to the timeliness of generating results and the equitable sharing of resources. At the partnership level, there is substantial variation in agreement across partnerships.

Our study findings underscore areas where academic researchers may fall short of “walking the talk” of community-engagement, thereby hindering the sustainability of community-campus partnerships. Using network analysis to focus on partnership patterns and implications of those relationships can inform strategies for strengthening network linkages and developing linkages to address network gaps. Additionally, we will use these findings to illustrate how a network approach can inform institutional strategies for supporting community engaged scholarship and facilitating the bridging of gaps between researchers and community partners that may hinder the translation of research into practice.

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**<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Please click here to access a PDF of this page: ** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">[|Forthofer et al. Diversity in faculty and community partner perspecitves.pdf]


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