From the Ivory Towers of Academia to Village Homesteads

Community service is critical for any university, its employees, students, and external stakeholders. 

For a university to remain relevant, it must continue to engage in authentic community service. 

Institutions of higher learning should engage in community service within their ecosystem to address local and global challenges while providing rich, real-time learning experiences for their students and staff. 

STARTING AT HOME

I have been involved in community service in Namibia, from urban to rural engagement, with elders such as tate Uariaike Mbinge from Otjisa village, Kunene region. 

He is a community lead researcher and co-designer. In my home village, Toasis Number 1, Aminuis, Omaheke region, I serve on the technical advisory board of the village management community and provide information and communication technologies (ICT) advice, specifically encouraging the responsible use of emerging technologies by the youth and elderly community members. 

Most of my research career was done with elder Mbinge, with whom I authored several blind peer-reviewed papers and attended knowledge fairs in his region and international conferences engaging on pertinent matters to preserve indigenous knowledge. 

As academics we not only empower indigenous communities but they also empower us as they also have a wealth of knowledge and experience. 

They have proven to be renowned researchers in their own right. 

In addition, with a team of exceptional researchers, I have also had the opportunity to engage communities in other parts of the country, such as the Kavango East and Omaheke regions. 

The aim is to collaboratively design and develop ICT applications that address challenges of integrating emerging technologies for efficient livestock production. 

Back in Windhoek, I voluntarily share my collaborative online international/intercultural learning knowledge, having served on key national working groups.

I have also embraced national civic engagement.

THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

Throughout my engagements, I am reminded that transparent communication is vital in having a positive social impact on communities. 

This begins with conducting a needs assessment to listen to the communities on the ground, collaboratively interpreting findings and applicability to local contexts. This is then followed by sharing the findings in formats that are understandable to the layman, thereby building more inclusive and resilient societies. 

How many universities present their community engagement strategic plans to communities for insights? 

From my personal and professional experience, I will highlight practices I am confident will result in more inclusive community service if they are embedded in a university’s strategic plan. 

• Broader strategic plan engagement: University strategic plans should be representative of the different voices of the various communities we serve, especially those outside of campus communities.

They should be allowed to contribute their input to engagement strategies. This includes stakeholders in remote areas such as villages; they, too, have a right to access education and contribute to nation-building. 

Silos must be broken down.

• Pragmatism research paradigm: Universities should be aware that communities have lived and experimented with environmental sustainability for survival for centuries. 

Thus, getting insights from the communities into universities’ strategic community engagement, research projects, and coursework is essential. 

Integrating Indigenous Knowledge into the broader body of Knowledge caters for the inclusivity of data sources for developing emerging technologies such as Generative Artificial Intelligence. We can learn about the reality of African villages by employing the Afrocentrism epistemology, which encapsulates knowledge from the community and should be allowed to validate our research findings.

• Strategic key performance areas: Now more than ever, universities must treat community partnerships similarly to corporate partnerships. 

Signed or orally recorded agreements with expected targets for solving community challenges should be part of university performance ratings. These agreements should be regularly evaluated against community upliftment results so institutions remain impactful.

• Benefits of embedding Afrocentric practices: Community challenges are integrated early in the university plan rather than as an afterthought, resulting in effective interventions. 

Management is accountable for community upliftment and civic engagement, and the communities are allowed to have a share of the intellectual property rights of the co-created research and innovation output. 

Community service is a lifeline for universities, making it a vibrant activity to probe curiosity, take theory to practice, and take conventional classrooms to explorative environments for innovation and excellent knowledge transfer opportunities. 

I agree with other scholars that for community-university partnerships to move beyond collaboration, it requires universities to value community knowledge, value its staff time and skills investments, and value the tangible outputs of this collaboration as a strategic and social responsibility achievement. 

Again, I say, community service is a lifeline for universities.

– Colin Stanley is the acting deputy vice chancellor of research, innovation and partnerships at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (Nust). The opinions expressed here are entirely his own and not the views of his employer.