Becoming an Anchor Institution
Earlier this year, CUMU and The Democracy Collaborative announced The Higher Education Anchor Mission Initiative. This initiative brings together 33 CUMU member institutions to collaboratively work to identify resources and develop new tools for implementing, expanding, and evaluating anchor mission practices within their institutions, higher education, and the communities they serve.
Our partners at Campus Compact took note of the initiative and invited us to chat about anchor mission work on their podcast, Compact Nation Podcast. Co-Host J.R. Jamison sat down with Valerie Holton, CUMU, and Emily Sladek, The Democracy Collaborative, to discuss the Anchor 101 Framework, what it means to be an anchor institution, and whether or not the Higher Education Mission Initiative and the Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement are mutually exclusive.
And, don’t miss Andrew Seligsohn’s article referenced in the episode: The Civic Mission and the Anchor Mission are the Very Same Mission, published in Metropolitan Universities journal.