Researcher ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0009-0007-5304-6095

Graduation Year

2024

Document Type

Open Access Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Environmental Analysis

Reader 1

Guillermo Douglass-Jaimes

Reader 2

Nicholas Kacher

Terms of Use & License Information

Terms of Use for work posted in Scholarship@Claremont.

Rights Information

© 2024 Anna Wilk

Abstract

In higher education spaces, there tends to be a divide between on-campus and off-campus communities creating dissonance between the activism conducted by the students and faculty and that taken on by the surrounding communities; this is known as the “town and gown divide”. For the sake of each of these individual groups it is pivotal to attempt to rectify this division so that the institutions and the communities that they find themselves within can work together to strive for justice and innovation. A crucial aspect of diminishing the town and gown divide involves addressing students' preconceived notions of the community surrounding their educational institutions by having students reflect on the stereotypes with which they may have come in contact throughout their time in college. Additionally, it is important to not perceive community partners as recipients of services, but as sources of knowledge, expertise, and transformation within the community. Successful community engagement requires integration of organization expertise, student expertise from previous class work, and creativity from both parties. In collaboration with the Pomona College Draper Center and a group of five other students, I created a project that uses the newly established Pomona College Community Engagement Center (PCCEC)’s prime location within the city of Pomona as a means of reconnecting the college with its namesake community to eliminate the town and gown divide. By establishing PCCEC as a community research hub and facilitating relationship-building between local non-profit organizations and the Claremont Colleges, we were able to create three final deliverables: a funder’s proposal outlining a partnership-managing role at the Draper Center and requesting an endowment for this position, a database with the contact information and research experience of professors and local non-profits, and a completed website that acts as a central location for groups interested in collaborative partnerships bridging to the town and gown divide to begin conversing about potential projects.

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