One indicator of an engaged campus: faciliting community access toinform

Dear SL colleagues,

See below for an award-winning university-community partnership focused on
community access to information and technology for decision making and
social change.

On a related note, Seedco's newest publication, Opening the Door:
Technology and the Development of University Community Partnerships,
highlights the critical role that academic institutions can play in
mobilizing technology resources to improve conditions in their host
neighborhoods.   To download the free report, visit
http://www.seedco.org/about/pub/index.html

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University-Community Information Initiatives at UCLA has been chosen for
recognition as one of fifteen finalists for the Innovations in American
Government Award.

Every work day, the websites of UCLA's Neighborhood Knowledge Los Angeles
(NKLA) and Living Independently in Los Angeles (LILA) receive more than
9,000 hits as people either retrieve or record data to enhance
understanding of their communities. They access information on community
assets, property tax delinquency, building code complaints, census data
and other public records, or, if they are disabled, they navigate the city
and county and add useful disability access and policy-related
information.

These University-Community Information Initiatives of UCLA represent an
unprecedented use of public university resources--technology and knowledge
--for the improvement of neighborhoods, particularly for some of the most
impoverished neighborhoods in the city as well as to serve the city's most
disconnected residents, the disabled and the elderly. Typically,
university-community partnerships involve local collaborations that focus
on physical improvements and expanding local services in one or more
neighborhoods adjacent to the campus. UCLA has demonstrated a new approach
to community partnerships that involves the use of web-based systems for
both data collection and data delivery to a wide variety of local
participants over large distances. Specifically, the creative elements
include: 1) a university in an innovative role as an honest broker of
government and community information and data, and 2) an original and
creative "Internet G.I.S." system that enables users to interactively map
and display properties at risk of deterioration as well as upload
neighborhood assets on which revitalization efforts build.

NKLA (http://nkla.ucla.edu) is beginning to gain recognition as a model
that employs Internet technology to address residential disinvestment, a
problem common to cities throughout the United States. City housing
inspectors use the NKLA site daily to decide which buildings to inspect;
community-based organizations use the site for grant writing and strategic
information; and hundreds of high school, community college and university
students conduct research to find comprehensive, accurate and up-to-date
data on Los Angeles--from the view of the entire county, down to any
single street in any single neighborhood.

Using a similar platform, LILA (http://lila.ucla.edu), an initiative
co-directed by the Westside Center for Independent Living, is a
community-directed online information resource site, created in large part
by local residents with disabilities using their personal expert knowledge
to identify and map resources. Launched in March 2001, LILA contains an
interactive, independent living asset map--created by disability community
members--interconnected government and quasi-government data sets, an
online discussion forum, an events bulletin board, advocacy alerts, links
to disability and senior-specific websites, as well as electronic systems
for user feedback.

Both NKLA and LILA demonstrate that the university can pioneer online
systems that help coordinate public and private action over large
distances in ways that serve the needs of many participants. These
information initiatives are models for the campus, now shaping a full
range of new university-community technology projects under the
Chancellor's "UCLA in LA." program. Moreover, these Los-Angeles based
projects have provided the foundation for a new statewide information
initiative, Neighborhood Knowledge California (NKCA), the nation's first
community information system that has been built to serve users throughout
an entire state.

University-Community Information Initiatives was one of nearly 1,000
applicants for the 16th annual Innovations in American Government Award.
The award program is based in the Institute for Government Innovation at
Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and was founded
to identify and promote excellence and creativity in the public sector.
The award is administered in partnership with the Council for Excellence
in Government, a national nonprofit organization that works to improve the
performance of government at all levels.  Award finalists receive a
$10,000 grant and are eligible to win one of five $100,000 grants,
announced on May 8, 2003.

For more information on this award-winning program, visit
http://mkla.ucla.edu/ or call Stan Paul at 310-206-8966

For more information on the award, visit www.innovations.harvard.edu or
www.excelgov.org.

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Community-Campus Partnerships for Health is a nonprofit organization that
promotes health through partnerships between communities and educational
institutions.  Check out our website at www.ccph.info

Mark your calendar for CCPH's 7th annual conference - April 26-29, 2003 in
San Diego, CA. The conference will feature a symposium jointly planned and
sponsored by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development's Office
of University Partnerships and the Community Outreach Partnership Centers
program. This will present an unprecedented opportunity for advancing
community-campus partnerships that truly span the campus and contribute to
public problem-solving and healthier communities.

CCPH is the Higher Education Senior Program Advisor for the Learn and
Serve America National Service-Learning Clearinghouse
Visit the Clearinghouse at http://www.servicelearning.org
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