JISCMail - COMMUNITYPSYCHUK Archives

Dear Bill,

Thanks for distributing your flyer ‘A Global University for Community Development?’ and for welcoming ‘thoughts and ideas of any kind, at any time’. Below, I make a few points by email in case I cannot get to Barcelona and also to promote discussion.

I view the notion of a ‘global university in community development’ with suspicion for a variety of reasons. First, I regard an enthusiasm for globalisation as difficult to consider separately from the neoliberal discourse which it drags with it. Second, I regard universities as decreasingly places where critical scholarship and innovative social science is tolerated and deep learning promoted. In my experience, political and community activists who have avoided University are usually more effective than University trained professionals in naming the causes of oppression and intervening into them. I regard universities as increasingly disabling of radicality and increasingly taken over by managerialist entrepreneurialism. The focus of the proposed ‘global university’ even at this early stage with “details” such as “costs”, “marketing”, “monitoring” and “certification” is not reassuring. Third, a focus on community development implies a victim blaming frame of reference in which communities’ underdevelopment – rather than for example societal inequality, poverty, the so-called flexibilisation of the labour market etc. – is positioned as the problem. You claim “many of the world’s problems exist on a community level”. I agree in the sense that the consequences of political and economic policies are seen in communities round the world but not in the sense that the causes of and solutions to community misery, and so loci for intervention, are to be found in communities. I am also sceptical that community members need “instruction” in “community skills” from psychologists and resist the implication that community members’ lack of skills is the problem. Your suggestion that a benefit of a global online university would be “the development of stronger and more cohesive communities” seems to me to position the current problem as weaker and less cohesive communities”, rather than global economic socio-policies which are destroying people and the environment. I am also resistant to what seems to me universalism in phrases like skills “applicable to most cultural settings with adaptation”, “uniform curriculum materials” and the aspiration to “reach people in communities everywhere” etc. For all these reasons and others I am sceptical that a global online University in community development would the answer to the problems urgently in need of being addressed.

Yours,

David

From: Vincent Francisco <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thursday, 26 April 2012, 6:35
Subject: Re: [ecpa-l] A Global University for Community Development?

*Please reply to the list and to Bill Berkowitz - contact info below!*

A Global University for Community Development?

Dear Community Psychology Colleagues,

It’s good to know that a number of us will be attending the
International Community Psychology Conference in Barcelona. But a
question for all of us is how we can work together across
nationalities and borders to address the global challenges we face.

Though we community psychologists have limited political power, we
have much community skill. And that is fortunate, because many of the
world’s problems exist on a community level. How, then, can we best
reach people in communities everywhere? We can’t do it face-to-face;
but perhaps we can do it online.

So here is one idea, which we’ll be presenting in Barcelona. Whether
or not you'll be attending, it would be excellent to know your
thoughts on it, and your potential interest in being part of it. What
do you think? Your comments on this list-serv (or offline) will
strengthen this idea and make it more feasible in practice.

Suppose we envision a global university in community development.
This proposed university would be a collaborative effort across
countries. Instruction would take place in general community skills,
applicable to most cultural settings with adaptation. Emphasis would
be on practical action skills, that people could use back where they
live.   These skills would be taught online, using uniform curriculum
materials. The opportunity to learn these skills would be available to
anyone. Learning would be self-paced. Certification would be available
upon completion.

Consider the benefits such a global university could provide. To
mention just five:  (1) expansion of the community building skills,
capabilities, and empowerment of community members;  (2) increased
likelihood of local solutions to local community problems; (3)
protection against economic and social adversity, through the
development of stronger and more cohesive communities; (4) possible
new international collaborations and partnerships; and (5) in general,
the provision of an integrative idea for community psychology, which
if executed properly could stimulate imagination and action on a
global level.

Given these benefits, it seems worthwhile to explore this idea. The
good news is that many relevant instructional materials are already in
place through the Community Tool Box (http://ctb.ku.edu), now in
English, Spanish, and in Arabic (by mid-2013). With these and other
sources, we already have the online technology to make a global
university happen. In theory – and potentially in practice –
instruction can now be expanded to a larger scale, at relatively low
cost, and with flexible, self-paced instructional timing. We may now
be ready to provide community-building instruction on a global basis.

At the Barcelona conference, a roundtable consisting of Cesareo
Fernandez from Cidecot in Leon, Spain, Mayte Vega of the University of
Salamanca, Maria Vargas-Moniz of the University Institute in Lisbon,
and myself will present the basic idea and encourage audience
response. If there is interest, we might form a multi-national working
group to take next steps. This group would do background research,
draw upon existing efforts in the European Union and elsewhere,
develop an action plan, and report back with specific action
recommendations at or before the 2014 international conference.  By
that time, it might be possible as well to pilot the idea on a small
scale.

Of course, in a global university, many details would need to be
worked out: content, costs, recruitment, translation, marketing,
monitoring, evaluation, certification, and sustainability are some
examples. We do not underestimate these issues; nor will it be
possible to resolve them in a single conference session. For even if
details were agreed upon, it would take some significant time to
implement a global university in reality.

Does this sound ambitious? Surely it is. But it could happen. And we
plan to take some first steps at the Barcelona conference in June. If
you will be there, we warmly invite you to join us. If not, we just as
warmly welcome your thoughts and ideas of any kind, at any time.
Please let us know, through this list-serv and by contacting me
directly at [log in to unmask].

Whether and how we proceed with this idea will be up to all of us. If
we move forward, the idea may take different forms from those
presented here. In any event, we think there is great potential to
bring community psychologists together from different corners of the
world, in a combined international effort to share our own knowledge
and skills with community members everywhere.  Together, we can help
meet the social, economic, political, and environmental challenges of
our time.

                             Bill Berkowitz

                             For the Community Tool Box team

Department of Psychology
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Lowell, Massachusetts, 01854 USA
(978) 934-3655
[log in to unmask]

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Vincent T Francisco, PhD
Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Study
Editor, Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice
Dept of Public Health Education
The Univ. of North Carolina at Greensboro
437 HHP Building, P.O. Box 26170
Greensboro, NC 27402-6170
voice: 336.334.5520, Fax: 336.334.3238
[log in to unmask]
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