A Model for University-Community Collaboration
SIUE Successful Communities Collaborative (SSCC) is a cross-disciplinary program that supports one-year partnerships between the University and communities in Illinois to advance local resilience and sustainability based on community-identified environmental, social, and economic issues and needs. Our mission is to connect communities with the students and faculty of SIUE.
SSCC selects a single partner community (generally a city or county) through a competitive application process. Working with administrative staff and stakeholders in the selected community, the collaborative helps identify 10–15 projects that will advance local resilience and sustainability based on community-identified needs. Each project is connected with one or more key courses at SIUE that can provide research or technical support and move the project forward.
For communities SSCC provides innovative strategies to move community-identified, high-priority sustainability goals forward. Communities often face limited resources to explore sustainability and quality of life questions. SSCC seeks to reduce those obstacles by linking existing graduate and undergraduate courses at SIUE to explore innovative solutions to community-identified projects
Educational Partnerships for Innovation in Communities Network (EPIC-N)
SIUE is part of a growing network of universities implementing programs to address some of society's most pressing issues through university-community collaboration. Learn more by visiting epicn.org.
Graduate, professional and advanced undergraduate students participate in SSCC by enrolling in a related course. The one-year partnership could engage 10-15 courses spanning up to 10+ academic departments. Projects may include engineering, urban design, planning, cost-benefit analysis, economic development, legal and policy analysis, community engagement, marketing or public relations campaigns.
SSCC staff work closely with faculty to incorporate community projects into their courses and connect students with community partners. Staff and stakeholders from the community work closely with SIUE faculty and students to provide local knowledge and deeper understanding into the issues, guaranteeing projects are not only innovative, but also suitable to the community.
