Higher Education as Institution of Decolonization

Higher education should be an institution of decolonization––one centered on the repatriation of land and ocean to Indigenous peoples. Quantitative methods are used to perpetuate the historical and ongoing processes of Indigenous dispossession. However, quantitative methods courses often fail to reckon with these colonial histories and are taught in ways that are inaccessible for Indigenous students. Drawing from the first author's experiences as a professor of political science in Hawai‘i, this chapter proposes three classroom-level interventions that educators can pursue to make quantitative methods relatable and empowering for Indigenous students: (1) designing lectures to center the experiences of Indigenous students, (2) designing assignments that invite Indigenous students to interrogate the settler-colonial and neocolonial structures perpetuating Indigenous dispossession, and (3) maintaining university-community partnerships that provide Indigenous students with opportunities to use quantitative methods to support Indigenous sovereignty movements.

“Thinking outside the Box”: Social Innovations Emerging from Academic Nursing-Community Partnerships

Nurses comprise the largest group of healthcare workers in the world. Increasingly, nurses in higher education institutions are collaborating with not-for-profit and community-based organisations to devise programs, projects and interventions that benefit both their students’ education and individuals in the community. This chapter describes an integrative review of these academic nursing-community partnerships, focusing on the nurses’ roles, the students’ role and the lessons learned from the partnership strategies that blend the expertise of the community members and nurses in higher education.

Taking Financial Literacy Downtown: Leveraging Community Partnerships to Increase Communication of Essential Financial Information in an Urban Area

Financial illiteracy is a systemic issue across the country, especially among lower-income individuals in urban communities. This low level of financial literacy often leads to higher levels of debt, lower credit scores, less wealth accumulation, and poor retirement planning. Increasing financial literacy in these priority populations can be effective in combatting some of these negative financial outcomes. This study emerged from a partnership between community organizations in a large urban metropolitan area and scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds. Guided by formative research principles, this manuscript reports on research findings derived from several focus groups with community members. These focus groups helped to identify existing perceived financial knowledge levels, categorize barriers to enhancing financial literacy, and illuminate potentially pathways to effective financial literacy program development.

Learn, Engage, and Act to Advance Age Inclusivity in Higher Education

Shifting age demographics are reshaping our social structures with far-reaching implications for higher education. Aging populations mean more older adults are looking to higher education to meet their professional needs and personal interests, and the longevity economy is calling for a trained workforce to provide services to support the health and functioning of individuals as they age. As well, there is a need to improve students’ aging literacy, along with developing synergistic age-friendly campus-community partnerships to address aging issues. How can institutions explore, create, develop, and sustain more age-friendly programs, practices, and partnerships? This presentation will introduce the toolkit specially designed by the GSA-AGHE Workgroup for use by faculty, students, administrators, and other campus leaders, and will provide an overview of the Age-Friendly University (AFU) initiative and its 10 guiding principles for creating more age-inclusive campuses.

Age-Friendly Universities (AFU): Necessary Partners for Age-Friendly Communities

The pioneering Age-Friendly University (AFU) initiative, endorsed in 2016 by GSA’s Academy for Gerontology in Higher Education (AGHE), calls for institutions of higher education to respond to shifting demographics and the needs of aging populations through more age-friendly campus programs, practices, and partnerships. The case will be made that AFU institutions can also play vital roles in helping neighboring communities develop, launch, assess, and sustain their age-friendly efforts through research and related endeavors that engage students and faculty. In addition, AFU campus-community partnerships can play a critical role in breaking down age-segregation that fuels ageism, building intergenerational connections, and increasing aging literacy among rising community members - all of which are necessary steps for building age-friendly communities.

Developing Synergistic Relationships between Age-Friendly Universities and Age-Friendly Communities

The Age-Friendly University (AFU) initiative was designed to support the Global Network for Age-Friendly Cities and Communities (WHO, 2018) and offers a range of opportunities for institutions of higher education to help communities adapt to their new age-diverse social structures as a result of shifting age demographics. In turn, age-friendly community partnerships are helping to fuel campus efforts to advance age-inclusivity through education, research, and community engagement. At present over 70 institutions have joined the AFU global network, as more campuses prepare to become age-friendly partners. In this collaborative symposium (Directors of Aging Centers and AFU Interest Groups), campus leaders will describe synergistic relationships between their age-friendly campus efforts and the age-friendly efforts of their neighboring communities. Montepare (Lasell University) will provide an overview of the AFU initiative and its set of 10 principles, and make the case that campuses and communities are necessary partners for creating and developing age-friendly efforts. Demonstrating this assertion, Pastor and Rogers (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) will describe linkages between their community and campus initiatives, including developing a Panel of Elders, television programming for older adults, and hosting joint events. Black and Andel (University of South Florida) will discuss the intersection between the AFU principles and the processes undertaken by age-friendly communities. Revell and Viveiros (University of Massachusetts Dartmouth) will show how campus collaborations with nearby communities are instrumental in sustaining age-friendly efforts, especially during a pandemic.

Community Partnerships and Experiential Learning: Investing in the Next Generation of a Diverse, Qualified Public Health Workforce

Annually, the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Public Health Scholars Training Program (Program) exposes and engages 35 to 40 undergraduate students, Public Health Scholars, through an 8-week intensive summer training program in public health. Experiential learning through internships is an integral part of the Program, allowing scholars to gain hands-on experience in the field of public health while providing pathways to enter the public health workforce and pursue graduate education. The Program leverages existing strong community partnerships developed through the school’s applied practice experiences as well as creates new partnerships. These relationships are mutually beneficial, improve community connections, expand relationships, and develop the school’s ability to work with undergraduate students. This article outlines an adapted, evidence-based experiential learning model and develops an evaluation framework to capture the program impact. In the program evaluation, scholars and professional mentors assess the impact of the Program on scholars’ intrapersonal, interpersonal, societal, strategic professional, and foundational public health skills. Mentor and peer relationships drive the experiential learning model, supporting the Program to train undergraduate scholars, prepare graduate students to be future mentors once established in the public health workforce, and build the capacity of partner organizations to train a diverse public health workforce. The Program provides a needed opportunity to scholars, most of whom are from underrepresented or underserved backgrounds, to receive in-depth exposure and engagement with public health.