Interesting chat on the bus today after Notre Dame. Basically Notre Dame University has the most beautiful campus that you have ever seen including an 85,000 seater-stadium, a golden dome, a recreation of the grotto in Lourdes, a lake etc. However these amazing facilities are not used by local people at all - only by the students. And the University doesn't really make it easy for local people to come and visit - they make the community park their cars right at the periphery of the campus, there's issues around security etc.
Part of my mission at MMU is to make the campus more accessible to local people - I want to find ways to share, not just the knowledge but the physical resources that we have but the question is whether this activity is seen to be part of public engagement? Or whether it is corporate social responsibility. I don't see how you can be effective at public engagement without being a good neighbour? But I realise that this makes the whole debate around what is public engagement even more complicated than it already is...we've heard so many different terms on this trip - civic engagement, public engagement, community engagement, outreach etc. Adding one more element to this could tip things over the edge.
Part of my mission at MMU is to make the campus more accessible to local people - I want to find ways to share, not just the knowledge but the physical resources that we have but the question is whether this activity is seen to be part of public engagement? Or whether it is corporate social responsibility. I don't see how you can be effective at public engagement without being a good neighbour? But I realise that this makes the whole debate around what is public engagement even more complicated than it already is...we've heard so many different terms on this trip - civic engagement, public engagement, community engagement, outreach etc. Adding one more element to this could tip things over the edge.
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