At Augsburg, our location in Minneapolis’ Cedar-Riverside neighborhood means the “classroom” is porous — intentionally so. Through our Campus Kitchen program, students glean produce at the Mill City Farmers Market, serve meals at Pillsbury United Communities’ Brian Coyle Center, and operate an on-campus food pantry. Graphic design students solve real-world problems for local clients through Design & Agency, an on-campus design studio. At five Augsburg Health Commons drop-in centers, health care students experience a radical approach to health equity based in accompaniment and mutuality.
But it’s not simply a matter of sending individual students out into the city. One-way engagement is not sustainable. Instead, place-making work only succeeds if it is grounded in mutual benefit with community partners. Long-term relationships must be built and sustained through consistent, intentional efforts to listen to each other and align our work together around creating shared value.
Some of this work takes place at the institutional level. Augsburg serves as a convener for cross-sector collaboratives like the Central Corridor Anchor Partnership and the Cedar Riverside Partnership, both of which promote investments to sustain vibrant neighborhoods. Some of it is programmatic, like our partnership with Soomaal House of Art, which provides studio space, technical assistance and an exhibition in the Augsburg art galleries for rising Somali artists.
And some of it is fundamentally relational. In 2017, the opening of our newest building, the Hagfors Center, included the creation of a welcoming community garden at the northwest corner of campus, facing our nearest neighbors. When a magnificent cottonwood tree near the garden came down in a storm this past August, dozens of neighbors and gardeners joined us on campus for a time of shared grief and remembrance. It was a powerful reminder that in a time of polarization, fraying social connections and decline in institutional trust, another story is possible — and it starts right here in our neighborhood.
With the national election looming, it can be easy to overlook the significance of these daily, local commitments. Our colleagues at CUMU institutions know well the slow work of tackling intractable urban problems, from criminal justice reform to economic mobility. But this is the work of democracy: sustained engagement over time. Building relationships across lines of difference. Working collaboratively to think beyond the barriers that keep our communities from flourishing. Urban colleges and universities are uniquely equipped to model and cultivate this way of life with our students.
This is the public purpose to which we are called.
