Community InvolvementSan José State University is a metropolitan university committed
to teaching, learning and serving our community. Our location in
the center of a metropolitan area lends itself to involvement in
the community, to sharing of our resources, and, reciprocally, to
the involvement of the community in the life of the university. A
large number of SJSU alumni (80% of almost 200,000 individuals)
reside in the nine Bay Area Counties; many are active on department
and college advisory boards, take part in Alumni Association
offerings, and attend events sponsored by the university. Many have
become leading citizens of our region. Numerous administrators,
faculty, and staff play key roles in non-profit and governmental
agencies. And students, our greatest resource and future assets,
work and serve and engage the city, the surrounding neighborhoods,
local communities, and public schools in partnerships that are
mutually beneficial, helping meet community needs and improve the
quality of life and work in Silicon Valley.
Service Learning & Community Engagement
Service-learning, the integration of academic study and
community service through structured reflection, has advanced
significantly. (As a metropolitan university,) SJSU established the
Center for Service-Learning (CSL) in its commitment to “
building community through service and learning.” CSL offers
resources to assist departments, faculty, students and community
partners in community service-learning that helps meet community
needs and develops social responsibility. During the 2005-2006
academic year there were 4761 students enrolled in 222 sections of
approximately 65 different courses with a service learning
component. These courses come from at least 35 departments/schools
and involve approximately 80 faculty members. The CSL has been
instrumental in hosting annual events such as a summit on
service-learning, a co-educator in-service, a conference on
Advancement & Community Service Learning, and workshops on the “
educated person” and “difficult dialogue” in the classroom. CSL
further connects students to the community through its programs of
AmeriCorps Bridging Borders; the national Project SHINE;
Students-In-Action; and the collaborative Cesar E. Chavez Community
Action Center.
Project SHINE (Students Helping In the Naturalization of Elders)
at San José State University is an intergenerational and
intercultural service learning program. SHINE links service
learning students with older immigrants and refugees seeking to
learn English and navigate the complex path to U.S. citizenship. In
community centers, and other selected sites in the immediate area,
students tutor elders in English and computer literacy, helping
them become more actively engaged in their communities, and teach
the U.S. history and civics needed to pass the citizenship exam. A
new component of SHINE is the MetLife Foundation Health Literacy
Initiative, which engages students in health professions majors in
providing health education to older immigrants and refugees. Each
year, more than 150 students from SJSU courses in education,
gerontology, anthropology, and health professions.
The Bridging Borders AmeriCorps Program, initiated in 2003, is a
national service program that currently engages 68 SJSU students
and community members in service to immigrant communities in San
Jose. The mission of the SJSU AmeriCorps Bridging Borders Project
is to help low-income, limited English speaking K-8 students
achieve academic success through literacy tutoring support and
physical fitness programming. Additionally, AmeriCorps members
recruit, train, and manage service-learning students and community
volunteers to help meet the needs of additional K-8 students and
clients. The program is administered through the Center for
Service-Learning.
CommUniverCity
San José was founded in 2005 as a collaboration between the
neighborhood Community of Five Wounds/Brookwood Terrace, San Jose
State University, and the City of San José. Under the City’s
Strong Neighborhood Initiative (SNI), this community was judged
underserved by the City and other agencies and targeted for
investing extra money and staff time in improvement. The SNI
process includes an elected Neighborhood Advisory Council (NAC)
composed of local residents which reviews and approves all
projects. CommUniverCity San José is primarily an interdisciplinary
campus-wide service-learning program separate from but closely
related to the Center for Service Learning. Described as "A
partnership for service, learning, and empowerment",
CommUniverCity's projects are implemented through service-learning
classes. Faculty and students from the Colleges of Education,
Engineering, Business, Social Sciences, Applied Arts and Sciences
launched projects in civic engagement, community planning,
community mapping, elementary education, earthquake safety
planning, and intimate violence prevention during the 2005-2006
academic year. In addition, the Department of Urban and
Regional Planning has collaborated with residents of the five
Wounds-Brrookwood Terrace neighborhood to update their neighborhood
action plan. Additional projects are being developed to include
faculty and students from all SJSU's colleges. It is hoped that
this collaborative model will then be replicated in other
neighborhoods adjoining SJSU.
In 2004 SJSU established an EPICS program, Engineering Projects
in Community Service. Similar to CommUniverCity, this is also an
interdisciplinary service-learning program. Wile it involves
primarily students and faculty from Engineering and Management
Information Systems, it has also involved students from Educatio,
Sociology, and other majors. Projects have included: the
Hewlett-Packard Mobility Project designing the application of
tablet computers in social screenings; Emergentes, a neighborhood
earthquake safety and home preparedness plan; and an elementary
engineering education program.
Yet another example of SJSU's engagement in the community came
about through a 5-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education
to support the College of education's "It Takes a Valley" project.
The project involves pre-service teacher education students
participating in 4 semesters of service-learning; two in a school
setting and two with community organizations.
The Center for Service-Learning, with its focus on course-based
service activities, does not have the capacity to respond to the
many requests from community organizations for student assistance
beyond the classroom. To fill this gap, Associated Students
established the Cesar E. Chavez Community Action Center (CCCAC)
in July, 2005, to connect SJSU students with community service
opportunities that deepen the educational experience while
promoting the lifelong commitment to civic activism at the heart of
the Cesar Chavez legacy. Although separate entities, the Center for
Service Learning and the Cesar E. Chavez Community Action Center
continue collaborative efforts to establish a more prominent
culture of service at San Jose State University. (See Associated
Students website and/or contact Jonathan Stoll from A.S. for more
information.)
In fall 1997, a University Neighborhoods meeting was held at San
José State to begin a revitalization planning process. The
University Neighborhood Coalition is composed of several individual
neighborhood associations (e.g., South of University Neighborhood
Association, Naglee Park Campus Community Association, and Spartan
Keyes Neighborhood Association) and encompasses an area that is
approximately 560-acres surrounding the campus. Over 300 people
attended. City staff worked with community members and a 17-member
Advisory Group that included residents, property owners, students,
and representatives of neighborhood businesses, San José State, and
community organizations. The Advisory Group met monthly from
October 1997 to August 1998; all meetings were open to the public,
and special meetings to gather input from the community were held
in November 1997 and September 1998. Issue categories were
identified and prioritized: traffic and pedestrian safety; crime
and gang activity; streets and streetscape maintenance; parking;
land use; blight; litter/clean up; lighting; parks and recreation;
nuisance and noise issues; alleys; and general/miscellaneous. The
result was a University Neighborhoods Revitalization Plan [PDF]
(approved by the San José City Council in October 1998). The plan
included an Action Plan with specific steps identified, time frame
established, and primary responsibilities assigned.
Collaborative planning projects continue, and in 2003, the
Market-Almaden Neighborhood Improvement Plan [PDF] developed by
community members and SJSU students under the direction of a
professor of Urban and Regional Planning was honored with an
excellence award by the California Chapter of the American Planning
Association. The plan was also recognized by the American Institute
of Certified Planners for its exemplary urban planning process.
Also in 2003, Martha Gardens — an arts quarter centered on SJSU’s
Foundry located in the area bounded by I-280 and Keyes and 1st to
7th Streets — was the most recent neighborhood partnership to be
developed; its agreements are expected to continue over the next 20
years.
Partnerships with the City
Library
The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library located on the San
José State University campus is the first library in the United
States conceived and built as a partnership between a city and a
major university. The 475,000 square foot building was dedicated on
August 16, 2003. The idea for the collaboration began in 1996 and
was nurtured by the president of SJSU and the mayor of San José. In
the ensuing years, the SJ City Council, the SJSU Academic Senate,
and the CSU Board of Trustees played significant roles in bringing
the project to fruition. City and University employees (represented
by their respective collective bargaining units) are working
together to provide public access to all of the collections of San
José State University and the City of San José Public Library
System. In addition, merged information and research services
promote lifelong learning.
Local Government
The university has worked closely with the City of San José on
the development of a Campus/City Master Plan Framework. Other
involvement with the City of San José includes membership and
active participation by campus individuals in the San José Chamber
of Commerce, Silicon Valley Leadership Group, and the Downtown
Association. The University President is a member of the Board of
Directors of Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network, a civic
organization that seeks to find solutions to problems in an effort
to improve the quality of life in the region.
University Police Department
The partnership between the University Police Department (UPD)
and the City of San José Police Department is formalized in a
Memorandum of Understanding between the two departments. The UPD
Chief of Police serves on several community organizations including
the Campus Community Relations Roundtable, Downtown Safety Task
Force, and the Civic Center Traffic and Parking Committee.
Public Transportation
SJSU’s Associated Students Transportation Solutions (TS) is a
transportation demand management program addressing the commuting
needs of students and university employees. TS offers incentives
for using alternative transportation and provides commute
information and services to the SJSU community. TS promotes use of
the Valley Transportation Authority services, partially subsidizes
monthly passes for faculty, staff and students using the Highway 17
Express, and partners with the Downtown Association, University
Police Department, the Redevelopment Agency, and the City of San
José to provide DASH shuttle service from the CalTrain Station to
the campus. San José State University is on the 2003 list of
California’s Best Workplaces for Commuters, compiled by the
Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of
Transportation.
Partnerships With Industry
San José State University has benefited from its location in a
metropolitan area that is home to over 7,835 high technology
companies employing over 320,600 people. The city of San José was
ranked third among 320 areas surveyed by Sales & Marketing
Management Magazine (January 1998) in hottest domestic markets to
do business. SJSU alumni are actively engaged in the field in local
engineering and high technology firms, including companies with
unique specialties.
Art & Design Animation Lab
Capitalizing on the strengths of the Silicon Valley and SJSU
faculty, creative partnerships have been forged with the industries
that are unique to this region. An example of one such highly
successful university-private industry partnership is the Animation/Illustration Program in the School of
Art and Design.
SJSU Metropolitan Technology at NASA Research Park
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Research Park being developed on the original campus of NASA Ames
Research Center and on an adjoining portion of the former Naval Air
Station Moffett Field will be an integrated, dynamic research and
education community in Silicon Valley. Partners from academia
(including SJSU, UC-Santa Cruz, the Foothill-De Anza Community
College District, and Carnegie Mellon University), industry, and
non-profit corporations are joining with NASA and UC to develop
common goals in support of NASA’s mission. The three California
public higher education institutions also joined together to form
the Collaborative for Higher Education. As of 2006, the
Collaborative has received more than $5 million in grant funding to
implement programs that improve teacher and student performance in
Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
San Jose BioCenter
The San Jose BioCenter (SJBC) operating in partnership with the
SJSU Research Foundation, is a state of the art facility equipped
with wet laboratory and office space that provides world class
business and facility services to high potential life science
companies. SJBC members have access to an extensive range of
products, services and equipment that enables them to grow and
scale successful businesses. The team at the SJBC works closely
with our portfolio companies as true partners in their growth,
creating value over the long term. Our mission is to provide
entrepreneurs with the resources, contacts and experience they need
to commercialize their technology.
Community Outreach & Engagement
Throughout the university, there are many individuals and groups
that offer programs and activities that are open to the community.
Today, many of these programs are offered in the King Library where
the opportunity for community involvement is great. For example,
the Center for Literary Arts
invites several authors to campus each year with each one giving a
lecture (usually held in 1,000+ seat Morris Dailey Auditorium) that
is open to the community. For 22 years, the College of Business has
been providing continuing professional education to tax
professionals through it High Tech Tax Institute which is
co-sponsored by a non-profit organization called Tax Executives
Institute. This program is open to all and also provides an
opportunity for continuing education to our graduates and promote
our graduate business programs. Finally, SJSU has over 200 student clubs and
organizations with many focused on providing community
service.
|
