| Abstract: | Abstract The willingness on the part of university participants to listen attentively to community representatives is of great importance to successful collaborations. This article presents three phases of a university-community partnership between the Macedonia neighborhood in High Point, North Carolina, and the Center for the Study of Social Issues (CSSI) at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Although no professional network and neighborhood contacts were in place prior to this collaboration, the partnership addressed community needs by obtaining federal grant funding and by listening to the residents' concerns. Staff, students, and faculty overcame the challenges of inexperience and the difficulty of working with a neighborhood that was not located near the university. In various phases, the partnership moved away from a technical assistance approach to a self-help model. By actively engaging neighborhood residents through the Community Outreach Partnership Center (COPC), a learning and adaptation process occurred that resulted in successful university-community collaboration. |
