Richard Eberst
Q: Briefly, what is the mission of your organization and what is your role?
A: Currently, I am the director of Community-University
Partnerships (CUP) at California State University at San
Bernardino (CSUSB). CUP's mission is "To advance
community-university partnerships that enhance the
overall quality of life of our service region, increase the
relevancy of our educational efforts, and bring new
vibrancy, repute, and resources to CSUSB and to the
community." In doing this we are directly addressing one
of the three goals of the CSUSB strategic plan which is to
"Adopt a long-term strategy for university engagement
Richard Eberst, Director of Community
in community partnerships." The most important thing
University Partnerships (CUP) at California
readers should know about CUP is that we span all five
State University at San Bernardino, gives a
Divisions of the University and our partnerships focus on
speech during the CUP Symposia in 2001.
five areas: Culture and the Arts, Educational Quality of
the Work Force and Citizenry, Economic Transformation,
Health Enhancement, and Family and Community Enrichment and not just health. However, most of my
colleagues understand that if universities are to truly engage in community health enhancement they
cannot separate "health" from these other dimensions.
Q: What do you most want people to know about the work that you do and the unique characteristics
of your organization?
A: I think we are unique in many ways. First and
foremost, we make every effort to help the
community identify their actual needs, issues and
challenges that they face and then we return to
campus to try to build partnerships to directly
address these issues. We have tried very hard to
avoid having a few professors sit around a table
and say "how can we get the community to help
improve the educational experience of our students
or meet campus goals." Our focus and goals are
developed by a wide range of "community"
members and our approaches are then generated
in response to those community needs and issues.
Thus, we form partnerships with the community to
Members of the Board of Directors of “Focus
first identify the challenges and issues in the
92411” meet with representatives from
community and then we work to convert these
“California Healthy Cities and Communities” at a
partnerships into ones with departments and
recent board meeting.
interdisciplinary collaboratives.
I think we are also a little different in that our goals represent one of the three goals of the campuses'
strategic plan and we report directly to the President through the Provost. Moreover, our Executive
Committee is comprised of members from all five campus Divisions and we award our Fellowships to
any member on campus, not just faculty. We have provided Fellowships to secretaries and staff in a
variety of units outside of Academic Affairs.
Q: What are you passionate about in your work?
A: My passion has always been the health of school aged children. After 30 years in health education,
disease prevention and health promotion I fully realize that we need healthy communities, healthy
schools and healthy families to produce healthy youth. Healthy people are not created by our "illness"
care industry. What we call the "health" care system is a great misnomer since it only focuses on those
with "disease." I also know that of the four things that affect health (biology, environment, medical care
and life style), life style is by far the most important but has the fewest resources put into it. In order to
truly create a health literate populace, we need to have a more balanced focus on all four of these
aspects through coordinated, interdisciplinary community-based partnerships. One of my passions,
therefore, is to help create the situations which will lead to major reductions in our need for "illness"
care, place more emphasis on "good" health promotion, and expand the over-all quality of life of our
fellow citizens.
Q: What is your dream for the future of your organization and/or community-campus partnerships
you're involved in?
A: I refer to my dreams as "hallucinations" since they are considered radical by most of my academic
colleagues. Initially, I would like to see CSUSB, and other campuses, create a Division of Community
Partnerships (or community engagement) equivalent in structure and influence to other Divisions such
as Academic Affairs and Student Affairs. I would like to see universities and colleges return to some of
the basic underpinnings for which American universities were originally founded in the 17th Century
(e.g. to improve the quality of life of those in and around the campus). Campuses today are like hospitals
in many ways. In hospitals, the very best health care is "inside" the building and the very worst health
care is right across the street. Universities are following suit. The very best quality of life is on the
campus and the very worst is right across the street. At least much of this is true at many of the
campuses I know about.
Practically, I dream that we will eventually have five major "partnerships" for each of our five focus
areas (Culture and the Arts, Educational Quality of the Work Force and Citizenry, Economic
Transformation, Health Enhancement, and Family and Community Enrichment). These partnerships
would be fully engaged in developing regional agendas for their areas and keeping track of a select set
of "indicators" which will be used to assess our over-all impact on the region. I dream that we will have a
"Community-University Partnerships Director" in each of our academic colleges (or departments) and
one in each of the other non- academic divisions. These leaders would help create and maintain campus
and community partnerships. They would keep track of and fully report on their efforts and outcomes as
part of the campuses' accreditation self-study process. There would be some level of community
service-learning required at some level for all graduates and the campus would be the regional focus for
all regional community enhancement efforts.
Q: What lessons have you learned that you would like to communicate to others involved in
community-campus partnerships?
A: Over the years I think I have learned a few important lessons from my colleagues that I try to
remember and practice as best as I can. Here are a few of them:
• Always remember that change is hard
• Efforts must eventually be related to the Retention, Promotion and Tenure (RPT) process
• "Partnerships" needs to be part of larger unit (division)
• Attempt to institutionalize partnerships
• Take a "holistic" approach to all efforts
Always follow through with your assignments/promises
Make sure every member of the partnership has a chance to participate
Go slowly, but make steady progress
Get as many people as possible involved
Reflect frequently
Give all partners a little of what they want. (WIIFM = "what's in it for me")
Do not get distracted: Focus
Always be open and honest
Get community members involved from the very start
Swallow your ego
Give credit to others
Secure "baseline" funding whenever possible
Maintain regular and frequent communications (use variety of channels)
Have a complete strategic plan (but adjust strategies often)
Follow the strategic plan
Build in assessment from the onset
Integrate with current campus structures whenever possible
Have fun and make it fun for your partners
Regarding students, I would suggest that they must: 1) Understand how working with community
partners is directly related to their course goals and objectives. They need to see their experience in the
community as another way to learn just like having another "required reading text" for their classes. If
they are engaging in community service which they do not fully (or at least to a large extent) understand
and do not understand how it will help them learn the content of the course, then service-learning
viewed as another silly assignment. 2) Appreciate how what they learn in the community can be applied
to their life in general and not just to their "education" or "career." 3) Be aware of the bigger picture
related to what they are working to accomplish in their careers. If they do their job as best as they can
but do not support and cooperate with the rest of the world's common efforts, then it makes little
difference how well they do their own jobs. This means they need to think and function in a more
holistic manner.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Q: What is the biggest challenge you face in your work and how are working to overcome it?
Members of the “Vital Communities Dialogue”
planning committee meet to discuss their next
A: There are a couple of huge challenges. Initially,
just getting people together in the same place at
the same time is often a heroic enterprise. We are all so busy today and have a zillion demands on our
time, our minds and our hearts. Technology has been of some assistance with this challenge but there is
still no equal to having different people and different ideas around a table working face to face. This is
where the real difference that is needed to be effective can be expressed. Getting a legally blind
community partner to a meeting can be a huge challenge. But successfully doing this pays for itself ten
fold in the validity of the outcomes. Generating goals, objectives and strategies for community
engagement without the input of students or reasonable cross-sections of community stakeholders is
not "true" partnering.
A second challenge has been the past "institutionalization" of isolation across campuses. Faculty work
hard at isolating themselves and are most often rewarded for singular efforts. Working alone, like
driving alone, especially in California, has become a way of life. Professors are also not rewarded or
promoted for what is mostly viewed as community "service." We need to generate a transition to
"community engagement" as the fourth element of professorate accomplishment. In addition, Deans
need to report what accomplishments they have assisted in creating in the community as well as the
number of publications and external grants their colleagues have generated.
steps..
Q: If you could give advice to a policy maker (Congress, President, Secretary of Health, Surgeon
General, etc.) what would you recommend?
A: Fortunately I have had a couple of opportunities to do just that and here are some of my "educational
messages" for major policy makers:
• Put more funding in to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP) and less into the
National Institutes of Health (NIH). We need fewer narrow and isolated research articles
collecting dust on shelves and more translation of what we already know into the actions of the
everyday lives of Americans. That is what CDCP does.
• Fund efforts that are interdisciplinary and address larger generic challenges and not just
extremely narrow medical outcomes which affect only a small cohort of individuals by putting
money into researchers' pockets.
• Connect NIH funding for universities to producing real community outcomes in areas outside of
the top 20 causes of death.
• Work to address the more important underlying issues affecting health.
• Encourage more complex approaches to helping our society create better health. What we are
doing in community partnerships IS harder than rocket science. There is nothing more complex
than a human being ? much less a huge number of humans in one place.
• Accept the fact that what is required are major institutional changes.
• More fully engage the everyday members of our nation in determining our national health foci
and significantly reduce the "leverage" currently practiced by major power brokers such as big
health businesses, pharmaceutical companies, unions, and medical trade groups.
• Generate more elements within all government agencies similar to the Community Outreach
Partnership Centers (COPC) program at the Department of Housing and Urban Development
(HUD) which are designed to build partnerships among universities and communities directed a
significant community change.
• Avoid any focus on "community service" for K-12 or college students devoid of efforts that do
not directly connect the goals and objectives of specific courses to community service. Focus on
service-learning, not community service.
•
Encourage and support coordinated college (and K-12 school) health programs that help to
create healthy students who are more able to role model good health and translate their actions
into healthy communities.
Q: Why did you join CCPH? How would you describe the organization to your colleagues?
A: CCPH has offered me many benefits both personally and professionally. One of my personal goals in
life is to be exposed to as many creative individuals as possible who share some of the same passions
and dreams (hallucinations) as I do. CCPH has this and is a truly innovative leader in so many areas of my
interest. Additionally, the underlying theories, approaches and research of CCPH can be applied to my
work in the other four areas of CUP. CCPH seems to me to be genuinely interested in making a
difference in communities and not just providing a service to members. CCPH is well organized,
thoughtful, open, and dynamic unlike some of my other national organizations. Lastly, CCPH provided
me with many great ideas and specific assistance even before I became a member. That was very
impressive to me.
I generally tell my colleagues that CCPH is a professional association which is working to accomplish the
same goals as we are at CUP, but specifically in the health arena. I tell them that currently most
members come from the medical professional schools who are working to improve community health
and generate improved learning experiences for their health-related majors. However, CCPH is
expanding its focus to other non-medical related universities and colleges with the goal of creating more
interdisciplinary interactions.
Q: What does "community-campus partnership mean to you?
To me this is a longitudinal process where campus and community members come together to develop
common actions around a specific community challenge. These actions will provide expanded and more
effective learning opportunities for students and faculty while equally providing services which will
directly address either the community challenge or the ability of the community partner to address the
challenge.
Q: What value do you see in being a member of CCPH to meet your future goals for your organization?
I hope that CCPH will continue to provide me the opportunities to engage with bright and imaginative
folks who openly share ideas and learn about the successes and failures of their colleagues. I greatly
value how CCPH has asked its members how the organization can help its members be more effective in
their community partnerships and thus more effectively create healthy communities and individuals.
I think the best part of CCPH has been the national conferences. CCPH has been quite thoughtful in how
it has organized the conferences so as to be as practical as possible to the attendees. I have also been
fortunate to be part of several CCPH task forces which have been very valuable experiences for me and
for Community-University Partnerships. I encourage each of you to become involved in one of the many
opportunities CCPH has for member involvement.
Q: What strengths and talents do you bring to CCPH?
My vision (hallucinations) of how health care and community partnering might be developed could be
considered somewhat unique and of use to CCPH and its members as we move deeper into the 21st
century. Also, I think my long and wide experience in coordinated school health programs and disease
prevention and health promotion might also be of some assistance to other members. Lastly, my recent
experience in working across so many disciplines on my campus might offer some informative value as
CCPH attempts to create wider dispersion of its programs.
For more information contact:
Richard Eberst
Director
California State University, San Bernardino - Health Science & Human Ecology Dept.
Community-University Partnerships
TO-43, 5500 University Parkway
San Bernardino, CA 92407
Phone: (909) 880-5345
Fax: (909) 880-7793
Email: [email protected]