The Power of Partnerships:
Lessons Learned

Good afternoon. Thank you for inviting me to be your capnote speaker. This has given me a chance, once again, to be with a group of committed people who are eager to serve their communities. It has been a powerful three days!

My goals in the next few minutes will follow the KISS principle­-keep it short, sister!

I will try to summarize and synthesize what I have heard going on as you have carried out your program and I will also share lessons I've learned in nurturing partnerships and collaboration. I have just stepped up to become an Endowed Professor of Human Development at Virginia Tech after having served for 5 1/2 years as Senior Vice President and Provost of the University. The years were marked with budget deficits, one crisis after another, and yet, a desire to make the university a better place academically. The one marker I would point to is our rank at number 46 in 1995 and in 2001 that number had risen to 26th place nationally as ranked by U.S. News and World Report. The university made that leap because we built powerful partnerships between faculty, academic departments, and colleges through our Cross-Cutting Initiatives--but that is another topic, another capnote. However, the lessons I learned from that experience of success lead me to tell you that I believe there are three P's to powerful partnerships: Passion, Persistence, and Performance.

Passion
Every successful partnership or collaboration starts with passions. Your passion is to improve your community--you are willing to give your time and talent. Recently I spent two months in Perth, Australia, as a Visiting Scholar at Curtin University. I was thrilled to hear Australians talk about my country--America. The pride in their voices made me realize I often take for granted this wonderful democracy we enjoy. 

American is great because our forefathers and foremothers in their wisdom enacted the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890, creating the land-grant colleges we represent today. The Hatch Act in 1887 and the Smith-Lever in 1914 created our research and extension pieces, which were truly revolutionary. Education for the masses, and for a practical purpose.

This extension of education to improve the lives of citizens is something we must never take for granted. It has made our country great, and today Outreach Scholarship and the Engaged University document produced by the Kellogg Commission is reminding us that the community is a classroom, not a laboratory. Co-learning between faculty and citizens around problems to be solved in the community is the new paradigm. 

Persistence 
Partnerships and collaborations are hard work. Your role as leaders in your community requires persistence. You are in for the long haul. Problems don't have quick solutions. There is never enough money. There are always those who believe it can't be done. You must carry the torch. Keep training volunteers, keep pushing local officials, the university, the state, keep looking at ways to improve structures and linkages between universities and communities. Powerful partnerships require persistence.

Performance 
Your job is to make things happen. We have done a good job with measuring impacts in recent years, but there is a new model I want you to think about. It arises out of an approach called "developmental contextualism," a big term which simply means we learn best when our research is carried out in natural settings around problems identified by communities, who then help carry out the research and feed the results back to the researchers to inform theory. This is the feedback loop which is often missing, but is essential. This is outreach scholarship, which gives validity to our Land-Grant mission and is a win-win for universities and communities. Your job is also to find resources to keep programs in place and to learn from other communities, other states. Next year, if you repeat this conference, why not also share best practices: what works in your community can be adapted to help problems in another community without everyone recreating the wheel.

Well, no one ever said your job was easy; it is formidable, but as community leaders you are making a difference. I like the quote by Dennis Gabor, 1964, who said, "One cannot predict the future, one can only invent it." With communities' welfare in your hands, I have confidence you are inventing a future we can all be proud of. Good luck to you.

Capstone Address delivered May 5, 2001, at Strengthening Extension Advisory Leadership in the Southern Region, a Southern Region Extension Advisory Leadership Conference held in Charlotte, N.C.