Hello!
In the ‘community’ group we discussed some general thoughts around the subject, and also some ideas for what projects could be done with those ideas.
Initial ideas and general thoughts:
- What is community? What creates a community?
- What is the UoE’s place within the local/wider community?
- University community as transitory within the city?
- Disconnection from wider community
- Students involvement in the local community – how to normalise
- Student/staff engagement with community for it’s own worth – not just for ‘skills building’
- How to engage with community without adopting an ‘anthropological’, hierarchical (patronising?) approach. Seeing the local community and its members (from all backgrounds) as a place where students/staff could learn something! A place were genuine knowledge and expertise exists that is perhaps unknown to academia?
- How do the uni and wider communities affect/interact with each other?
- Communities within the university
- Isolation within the university – lack of communities
Some ideas for projects:
- A project exploring what the community means to the university, and what the university means to the community. Questioning how to perhaps break these barriers, if they do exist?
- A visual, interactive map of the university’s place within the community, perhaps exploring its impacts in each location, and more widely.
- A project exploring the university’s governance structures, and how they impact the local community. Who sits at the highest decision making-levels at the university (e.g. university court)? How are they appointed? What accountability do they have to the local community (and communities within the university)? What routes of recourse does the local community have to challenge decisions made by the university?
- A project exploring communities within the university e.g. professional staff/academic staff/students. Perhaps an archive of mixed media testimonies of peoples feelings and perspectives on these communities?
