From Campus to Community: CUMU Recap

President James E. Lyons, Sr. and Gary Levine, associate vice president, Academic and Community Partnerships, co-authored the article, “Urban and Metropolitan Universities in Tomorrow’s Economy: An Overview of the 11th Annual International CUMU (Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities) Conference” in Metropolitan Universities: An International Forum. CSU Dominguez Hills was the host institution for the conference last October in the city of Torrance, CA.

“That was a great opportunity for institutions that have overlapping missions, to share their common experiences, to learn from one another, and to find common solutions to their problems,” says Levine.

The conference included 60 concurrent presentations from conference delegates, eight plenary speakers, and panel discussions with local officials. Presenters and speakers focused on topics such as the relationships between public schools, community colleges, and four-year institutions; civic engagement; service learning; and institutional mission. Among them were Dennis Jones, president of the National Center for Higher Education Management; California Asssemblymember Jenny Oropeza; and Yolanda Moses, former president of the American Association of Higher Education.

“One of the major questions facing the urban university is how to make the external environment more of a place where student learning can occur,” says Levine. “Some of the main issues have to do with how urban institutions in particular interact with their communities and how the communities interact with them.”

The demographics of the urban university were a topic for discussion in regard to teaching practices and technology. Levine points out the need for an understanding of how younger students “have been completely socialized in technology.

“There is a theory that their brains are a bit different than the student that we are used to and we may need to rethink the way we present programs to them,” he says. “Our faculty have learned to deal with a range of preparation and ability in one classroom.”

According to Levine, the event was the largest and best attended conference in the history of CUMU. He underscores the importance of Dominguez Hills’ participation in this year’s event, to be hosted by Florida International University in October.

“It is incumbent upon us as the host institution for this past year to make a showing at subsequent conferences and show that we’re more than just a flash in the pan,” he says.

“We surveyed about 12,000 individuals and organizations in the community on their attitudes and opinions about the university,” he says. “The major finding in that survey and perhaps the most disturbing is that after 40-plus years in this community, we’re not very well known or understood. We need to be really thinking about how we put ourselves into the community and how we bring our community into the university.”

- Joanie Harmon