‘Building’ Engagement into the Fabric of the University

Abstract

This paper explores the way that the University of Catania, in Sicily, Italy, has attempted to build up a mission of community engagement through creating a University Centre for Engagement. That process reveals the tensions that a university faces in attempting to build engagement with external partners, in parallel with wider ambitions to create socially useful outcomes. From a University perspective, the story tells how the University has moved through different stages, from a traditional research approach towards a university–community partnership experience; showing also how a real collaboration between the university and distressed communities arose from conflict and frustration, as long as it revealed its heuristic potential, being the only way for researchers to really deal with the most meaningful problems on the ground. The chapter focuses on one activity, the university–Librino partnership, the attempt to help a declining new town revitalise itself by ridding itself of a domination by the Mafia. Although the engagement developed and was later to be deemed successful, the key issue remains that whilst the university and city authorities were well organised to participate, it is harder to see sustainable long-term benefits for the city residents. The chapter argues that multi-lateral interactions must be at the heart of the engagement process, even if they reduce the immediate benefits to the university, because without an ongoing dialogue, the societal benefits, and upholding the societal compact, can never be realised.