Community Partner-authored Articles: Partnering with Colleges & Universities

Posted by HE-SL Listserv on April 29, 2025

The following message was posted on the HE-SL (Higher Education – Service Learning) Listserv:

“Got recommendations for your favorite community partner-authored articles on the subject of partnering with colleges & universities? Case studies + storytelling pieces would work. Stoecker & Tryon’s Unheard Voices is one of my faves for highlighting community partner voices + giving us higher ed folks clear action items, but I’m hoping for some more contemporary pieces that’re actually written by (as primary authors or co-authors) community partners. ”

Responses:

Please take a look at a study we did (now nearly 20 years ago), that is on our website. We led the largest community partner study (at the time) in California. You can find the executive summary, as well as the full report, that you may download. The focus group protocol is there in case anyone wishes to replicate the study, or use similar questions or formats.

Here are a couple of references I like that are co-authored with community partners:

• Arango, O., Flores, S., Gallo, S., Lara, M., Link, H., Arreguín, D., & Peregrina, I. (2016). Un trago dulce pero adentro con sabor amargo (A Bittersweet Swallow): Constructing Counterspaces to Explore Undocumented Status Across Academic, Family, and Community Spaces. Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education, 10(4), 228–241. 
• Méndez, M., Flores-Haro, G., & Zucker, L. (2020). The (in)visible victims of disaster: Understanding the vulnerability of undocumented Latino/a and indigenous immigrants. Geoforum, 116, 50–62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.07.007
• Campano, G., Ghiso, M. P., & Welch, B. J. (2016). Partnering with immigrant communities: Action through literacy. Teachers College Press.
• Our piece on the Family Math Project, co-authored with partners at New Labor community organization.

To build on the examples shared so far, I’d like to recommend a journal that many may not be familiar with.  Indiana University Indianapolis’ Engage! Journal has prioritized community authors alongside academic voices as central to their’s journal’s approach.  Rather than lifting one piece up, I’d invite perusing through any of their issues to see how the editors and authors have approached negotiating the power dynamics and myriad issues that can place road bumps in the way of joint authorship. The current issue under production focuses on the topic of reparations and reckoning in local and global contexts.

One of my favorites: Bach, J., LeSaicherre, C. C., & Morris, K. ALAN v43n1-The Book Battle: Using Service Learning to Collaborate with a Young Adult Library. It’s a co-authored article from a faculty member, a community partner, and a student participant.

In addition to Unheard Voices, I highly recommend: Rewriting Partnerships: Community Perspectives on Community-Based Learning by Rachael W. Shah.

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