Campus Community Collaborations
Examples & Resources for Community Colleges

Mesa Community College in Mesa, Arizona, has a proud history of engaging in partnerships with business and industry that meet community needs. President Larry Christiansen has demonstrated leadership in these endeavors and recently accepted the Campus Compact National Center for Community Colleges Campus-Community Partnership with Business and Industry Award on behalf of the college. Terry Pickeral met with President Christiansen to discuss campus-based business and industry collaborations, and the transcript of the conversation follows.

Pickeral: How do you describe the foundation of partnerships at Mesa Community College?

Christiansen: To us, partnerships are really relationship building, the college being a player in terms of decision making and the community feeling good to be a part of the college. We have developed mutually beneficial relationships with many major businesses and industries here in the East Valley, including AT&T and Motorola University.

We find it important to understand that partnership means that you do not get your way all of the time; rather, you have a common vision. We have learned there is more than one way to approach and accomplish a task, and in the end partnership means sharing. It is interesting that sometimes these things are foreign to us who like to do it our own way, but they are the foundation of relationship building.

Pickeral: What benefits can community colleges derive from partnerships with business and industry?

Christiansen: There are several specific points that can be made from our experience here at Mesa Community College.

First is one of currency. That is, by working with business and industry partners, our curriculum is required to stay current. Our faculty are aware of business and industry needs and do not become complacent in their class offerings. It also makes our students more employable.

The second is employee renewal. Our faculty have been taught to teach in a particular way; however, some of our partners have engaged our faculty, for six months to a year, in a training type of environment to work on their site, which re-energizes our faculty and enhances their teaching skills.

Third is the institution's responsiveness to the community. Working with new players, learning how to be a good neighbor and citizen, especially in terms of labor force needs, is important. When business and industry work on a particular process or idea, the college is there.

Fourth, when we are on the cutting edge of activity, there is an opportunity for students to mix with full-time employees and work on projects with business partners and to secure jobs.

Fifth is the entrepreneurship nature of the partnership. Some of the partners have donated equipment that we could not otherwise afford. In some cases, we have done joint hiring; in others, we have had opportunities to provide a climate for students to use or become familiar with business equipment, training materials, or the way business is done that would not otherwise be possible.

Sixth is economic development. Many say community colleges should not be part of economic development. We are, however, an economic development player with our local and regional community. When companies locate or relocate, they look to education, or aspects of education as one of the important issues on their list. Education delivery is not just for business, but also for education of their workers' families. We work hard at providing training and retraining for individuals who are part of the workforce.

Pickeral: What benefits can business and industry secure from working with community colleges?

Christiansen: First, a trained and renewed workforce. Business and industry wants a workforce that is nimble enough to succeed at their job and to understand the kinds of things a community needs and takes pride in as well. Colleges many times can provide a quality product for the same or less money.

Second, value from things business/industry cannot do. For example, employees receive college credit for training/learning, leveraging this training through value-added elements such as degrees and certificates.

Third, a variety of delivery times and locations. Business and industry gain access to campus services and equipment, distance learning, different sites and time options. Successful training is done in more than one delivery mode.

Other value-added pieces for business and industry are areas like basic skills training and language training. Businesses do not have just one set of needs. Many employees need enhancement to their skills, in some cases just a refresher. These kinds of enhancements can be secured at the community college.

A significant benefit business and industry derive from a community college partnership is the building of future relationships. Training needs do not stop. New technological advances, a plant expansion in two years, or relocation of people years from now--that partnership establishes long-term ability for business to work with community colleges to face those futuristic challenges. This is buying position for future delivery that can be significant.

Pickeral: Mesa Community College has demonstrated leadership in two communitywide initiatives. Tell me about the East Valley Partnership and the East Valley Think Tank.

Christiansen: The East Valley Partnership (EVP) is an organization of more than three hundred East Valley business/industry and community leaders who address issues that cross traditional community lines and look at the needs of the east side of Maricopa County, known as the East Valley. The EVP addresses the following kinds of issues: transportation, appointment to boards and public commissions, and community projects like Kids Voting, which stresses the importance of citizen participation and voting. It is these kinds of initiatives that become significant as we look at our community.

For more than a decade, the East Valley Partnership has been active politically in community issues. Several years ago, there was a funding crisis for both K-12 and higher education. In an effort to contribute to a solution, the EVP developed an educational initiative of its own. To effectively promote the initiative, the EVP needed a voice to talk about kindergarten through Ph.D. in the East Valley. Out of this need came the East Valley Partnership's relationship with the East Valley Think Tank (EVTT).

By definition EVTT is a group of all kindergarten through Ph.D. public sector educational institutions within the East Valley. Its purpose is to collaborate by bringing together the education groups with the idea that it makes more sense to do some things together than separately. Whenever possible, the educational community should speak with one voice rather than many.

A dotted-line relationship connects the East Valley Think Tank with the East Valley Partnership. Since EVTT has no business/industry advisory committee, and the EVP has no long-term educational advisory committee, the two organizations depend upon each other to stay current on issues relating to their respective areas of expertise. This two-way dotted-line relationship brings reports and ideas and will continue to provide help, support, and attention to both the business and the educational community.

Pickeral: What are some specific examples of the projects these organizations have established?

Christiansen: As I mentioned, the national Kids Voting program began right here in the East Valley as an East Valley Partnership project. It is a highly successful program that engages our youth in understanding the right, responsibility and habit of voting.

We have also been successful in our School-to-Work and Tech Prep programs. EVTT brought together its members to receive the largest single allocation of funds in the state. It demonstrated the kind of setting that capitalizes on the cooperative spirit of the educational community.

The EVTT Teacher Corps Partnership project responded to the need for citizens who are not in teaching positions to move into a community college/university setting for training and go to work in their local school districts. In this project, we had to work at breaking down barriers and securing scholarship money, and we had a variety of other initiatives that brought out every naysayer possible. Yet we were able to succeed through collaboration.

Pickeral: What "lessons from the field" have you learned that can be helpful to other community colleges in developing effective collaborations with business and industry?

Christiansen: I believe the most important lesson is that of inclusiveness. The EVTT started off by being inclusive, not exclusive. We agreed not to be too bureaucratic. There were no written rules, and thus none of the traditional trappings that most organizations have. For some this is great; for others it has been challenging.

A second lesson we have learned is to build trust. We each have our own niche in the community, our own activities and our own agenda. Collaborations only succeed as individuals trust each other.

A third lesson, aligned with the other two, is relationship building. As our agendas shift, we trust each other enough to talk about how we can share, enhance, and build a new initiative or project.

Pickeral: All of this sounds great, and I am sure encourages our colleagues to develop and implement partnerships with business and industry, but what do you see as the major challenges to building effective campus-business collaborations?

Christiansen: First, let's agree that initially it is easier to do things yourself than to share with others. Further, we are not placed in environments many times where we are encouraged to share. As we develop ideas, one of the major challenges is to be convinced and to convince our constituency that our investment of time, energy, and talent toward sharing and collaborating is in everybody's best interest.

Another challenge is to be able to identify the perceived or real value-added nature of collaborations. People say "What is in it for me?"

Another challenge is the multiplicity of thought that exists within these institutions. For us to say we are going to have a common voice for education with kindergarten through Ph.D. is difficult. It is especially hard when you have a legislative agenda built on different laws, different funding sources, and different sizes of institutions. So there are plenty of barriers, plenty of reasons not to collaborate and share.

Pickeral: How would you summarize the impact campus-community partnerships have on their institutions and the community?

Christiansen: The reality is that by working together, you create more opportunity to appreciate the good that comes from the education community and the return it gives taxpayers, students, and the community. Many of these good things can be shared, enhanced, and celebrated. These positive outcomes are the reasons people want to come and live and work and become part of this particular environment in the East Valley.

Dr. Larry K. Christiansen is the President of Mesa Community College in Arizona. He brings to the position more than twenty years of experience in education. Before his presidency at Mesa Community College, Dr. Christiansen was the Dean of Administrative Services, Acting Dean of Instruction, and Associate Dean of Instruction at Glendale Community College in Arizona.

Dr. Christiansen is active in a variety of community activities. He currently serves as a member of the National Community College Chair Academy International Executive Advisory Board, Vice President of the MegaCorp Board, a board member of the Mesa Chamber of Commerce, a member of the Campus Compact National Center for Community Colleges Executive Advisory Board, and a member of the Executive Committee of the National Campus Compact.

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