This integrative learning requires that rank and tenure criteria recognize and reward interdisciplinary, applied scholarship. It also requires that we construct a definition of faculty work load that gets away from the artificial separation of teaching, research, and service and instead creates structures in which all three dimensions of scholarship are themselves integrated. Increasingly, for example, we have classes that are linked to projects by signing up for a class a student also participates in the faculty grant activity. The class provides both an opportunity for systematic reflection on the topic and for the dissemination of findings in the form of papers, reports and other products. Finally, if the community and university are to work together in partnership, attention must be paid to the form of the relationship.
Many communities are suspicious of universities because of past experience.
The university often focuses on the research needs of its faculty, with the community and its members simply becoming objects of study. Increasingly communities are demanding equality. How to achieve this equality while insuring that both partners maintain their integrity is a difficult challenge. We have instituted two reforms that try to take into account the needs of viable partnerships. Community members screen student workers if a student is not acceptable to the community, he or she is withdrawn from the project.