It’s well documented that people are spending less face-to-face time together than at the beginning of the twenty-first century. According to the American Time Use Survey, an annual report produced by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and other surveys conducted by numerous academic centers at universities, there’s been a critical decline of face-to-face time spent between 2003 – 2022. Data illustrated that adults decreased their face-to-face interaction by 30%. That number increases slightly for unmarried adults to 35% and made a significant jump to 45% for teenagers. The obvious culprit is the rise of social media, but even prior to social media’s cultural stronghold, we were already decreasing our face-to-face engagement. I’m not a social psychologist equipped to offer any new discovery or information, but it doesn’t take a specialist to conclude that more spaces to promote in-person interaction are imperative for our mental well-being. This essay isn’t to offer a solution – although I’m more than happy to hear whatever suggestions are available – but it is to socialize an idea for a role higher education might be able to play with fostering a re-engagement of the communities nearest their campuses.
Universities are natural bastions of activity. Drive through any university campus during a weekday and it’s a flurry of activity that probably resembles that of generations long before personal computers. What you’re seeing is an intentional investment in infrastructure that supports healthy social connection. This characteristic of daily life on university campuses exemplifies a healthy social infrastructure. Social infrastructure has a broad definition that includes public spaces such as churches, libraries, schools, and parks, but also can relate to public policies that impact the size, location, and function of the aforementioned places. Simply stated, social infrastructure is what draws us into a space and keeps us there long enough to interact with others. As a society, America has divested in these spaces for decades. This is most glaring when considering how kids in this millennium have grown up. If you were a child in an urban or suburban area growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, and if you were a latch-key kid like me and most of my cohorts, you would let yourself in the house, grab a snack, maybe do homework, and then dash outside where you’d play until the streetlights turned on. This narrative was common, and just recalling it evokes a nostalgic smile. Social infrastructure is a term social psychologist Eric Klineberg describes as the following:
public spaces where individuals come into contact with one another, shapes the way people interact and can help mitigate a variety of social problems, including crime, isolation, food insecurity, and climate change…
Nothing embodies the physical representation of Klineberg’s description better than a university campus. This fact is amplified for campuses in urban areas where they are already surrounded by a density of people and places to cater to the university community. These characteristics represent a third place.
The term third place is commonly affiliated with sociologist, Ray Oldenburg. Oldenburg’ reference to third places appears in his essays and writings back in 1990 where he recommends spaces necessary for good overall social connection as places where people can voluntarily gather outside of home or work and connect with others face-to-face. Coffee shops, bars, restaurants, barber and beauty shops, come to mind when considering third places I’ve frequented, but all these come with an associated cost, so gathering at these has an affiliated expense, and depending on the price, could be prohibitive for full inclusion. Libraries can be fabulous third places, and they’re often under-utilized and appreciated by the general public, so once again when considering Klineberg and Oldenburg’s descriptions respectively, I again think of universities fitting the bill.
Universities are considered anchor institutions because they’re typically one of the largest employers, unlikely to relocate, spend millions annually procuring goods and services, and have the ability to serve as catalysts for social and economic mobility. In many cases, they are public goods (at least the public universities), and if you subscribe to John Dewey’s philosophy of the university as a vehicle to advance democracy, then its role serving as an anchor institution is elevated to more than being an economic engine and place of teaching and learning, but to an essential ingredient for social evolution. The idea of an anchor institution isn’t new. In 1999 the Kellogg Commission published Returning to our Roots, which highlighted the need for universities to be civically engaged. The document defined engaged colleges and universities as:
Institutions that have redesigned their teaching, research, and extension and service functions to become even more sympathetically and productively involved with their communities….
The commission articulated seven guiding characteristics:
1. Responsiveness to communities, regions, and states
2. Respect for partners
3. Academic neutrality
4. Accessibility to outsiders
5. Integration or interdisciplinary work
6. Coordination of institutional efforts
7. The commitment of resources to these ends[i]
These characteristics are cornerstones of an anchor institution.
The Kellogg Commission provided a framework that 25 years later still rings true. These characteristics are just as relevant – possibly a bit more – than when they were originally put forth. My inclination is to proclaim that we in the academy have advanced these recommendations, but I can’t help but ponder and ask, have we? Without question, higher education continues to produce important research that advances society in all aspects, but it can’t be ignored that rising tuition and unprecedented social and economic inequity have placed a renewed urgency to revisit and revise a collective vision to advance. As further evidence of the necessity for higher education’s role contributing to the country’s social fabric, the Annie E. Casey Foundation picked up where the Kellogg Commission left off. In 2013, the Casey Foundation funded the University of Maryland to develop a set of best practices to guide educational institutions and medical institutions (eds and meds) towards their roles as catalyst for economic and social mobility. The report, The Anchor Dashboard: Aligning Institutional Practice to Meet Low-Income Community Needs (2013), made the case for why eds and meds are the ideal entities to engaged in this work because of their deep place based roots, but also because of their economic impact. [ii] These recommendations are particularly relevant for public hospitals and universities because they are in essence, public goods. The subsequent years after the report, Casey continued engaging leaders in educational and medical institutions across the country, and particularly in southern states where gaps in socioeconomic status was most persistent. The goal, to get more anchor institutions to think critically how they might collectively serve as vehicles for upward mobility in their respective areas, was earnest and well-intended. At best, this effort generated a collective impact model that supported efforts to socially and economically advance communities, and at a minimum hospitals and universities leaders at least had an awareness of tools and collaborators that might advance these efforts.
What makes universities and hospitals anchors – their economic impact and vast intellectual resources – is also what creates a laborious process of implementing a strategic workplan to put into practice. Both eds and meds have layers upon layers of departments, policies and procedures, and actual people whose buy-in is essential. Figuring out ownership of any anchor effort alone can belabor or eliminate any meaningful initiative from getting out of the gate. But this further underscores the importance of why persistence is mandatory. It’s also why community engagement is a key factor to ensure these efforts don’t fail before they start. This returns me to the original point, universities as a third space to incubate and convene community conversations are ideal places to keep communities actively engaged in a dialog that cultivates a togetherness at a minimum, and cultivates a reciprocity of learning and discovery. Just imagine the possibilities when community members are joined by university faculty, staff, and students to discuss relevant social issues and the persistent barriers that have hindered social mobility for certain groups. Now envision that dialog in a public space managed by the university that regularly held events and town halls to exchange ideas and provide a platform for everyone to teach, learn, and gather. Now that’s a model that certainly contributes to a greater vision of democracy, similar to that of what the late John Dewey envisioned when he walked the halls at the University of Chicago.
Chris Burke is the executive director of community relations at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
[i] Kellogg commission on the Future of State and Land Grant Universities, Returning to our Roots: The Engaged Institution, Third Report (Washington DC: National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges, 1999)
[ii] Dubb, S, S. McKinley, & T. Howard; Anchor Dashboard: Aligning Institutional Practice to Meet Low-Income Community Needs. The Democracy Collaborative at The University of MD. 2013