the Netter Center for Community Partnerships

(Philadelphia, PA) I am at the University of Pennsylvania along with about 500 colleagues who have come here to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Penn’s Netter Center for Community Partnerships. The Netter Center connects an Ivy League University to the civic life and social problems of a great but distressed American city. The Netter Center encourages and supports research and service-learning, known at Penn as “Academically Based Community Service.” At the heart of its work are about 60 courses each year (enrolling a total of about 1,700 students) that address social problems in West Philadelphia. These separate courses contribute to a coordinated approach that Penn develops and refines in collaboration with the community. The Center was founded in 1992, near the start of the current movement for community-university partnerships and civic engagement in higher education. It has always set the standard.

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About Peter

Associate Dean for Research and the Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Tufts University's Tisch College of Civic Life. Concerned about civic education, civic engagement, and democratic reform in the United States and elsewhere.