Emory University
EN-13: Community Stakeholder Engagement

Emory has a formal structure for engaging community and civic stakeholders. For nearly a decade, Emory's Executive Vice President for Business and Administration has met quarterly with community members. In addition, Emory has formed an advisory group for community members and business in our local area, called the Clifton Community Partnership (CCP). The CCP Advisory Group also meets quarterly with Emory administration. The feedback gained from civic leaders in these fora inform Emory's planning decisions.

Emory University’s Center for Community Partnerships is committed to equitable partnerships with all stakeholders, including the residents and organizations of underserved communities.
Community partners bring unique and essential assets to the table and are meaningfully engaged participants in all aspects of partnership initiatives. This includes, for example, project conceptualization, design, implementation, evaluation, dissemination, and utilization.

A place-based engagement strategy supports our commitment to equitable partnerships. Such an engagement strategy is consistent with community building paradigm, provides coherence and focus, increases both depth and breadth of engagement, and connects the efforts of multiple Emory departments, divisions, programs.

Our work, in collaboration with our community partners, addresses the root causes of persistent problems related to poverty, affordable housing and equitable development, health disparities and access to care, educational outcomes, natural resource preservation and sustainable development, new Americans, and crime and justice, among others.

The Clifton Community Partnership (CCP) is an initiative founded by Emory to provide a framework in which to engage the Clifton Corridor community (the area within a three mile radius of Emory’s core campus) in productive dialogue to develop a vision for the future and work together on implementation. The CCP Advisory Group meets quarterly and is comprised of local leaders from neighborhood and civic associations, businesses, government, non-profit organizations and employers in the Clifton Corridor. The CCP focuses on quality of life initiatives that have a significant and positive impact on the community. These include:
• Live Locally – encouraging housing in the Clifton community that will appeal to local employees, let them live near their jobs and reduce the number of commuter cars on area roads.
• Walk Anywhere – walking supports safe and vibrant streets and can be a healthy viable commute option.
• Commute Creatively – reducing the number of local residents and employees who travel on area roads in single occupancy vehicles – commute differently and reduce congestion, improve air quality.
• Enhance Vibrant Neighborhoods – improving the community by supporting local shops, restaurants, entertainment and activities.

The CCP has an informative and interactive website, produces a quarterly newsletter and communicates regularly with the Advisory Group as needed.

1. Ailey Camp Atlanta
2. Atlanta Community Food Bank
3. Atlanta-Fulton County Public Library System
4. Atlanta Housing Association of Neighborhood-Based Developers (AHAND)
5. Atlanta Housing Authority
6. Atlanta Prosperity Campaign
7. Atlanta Public Schools
8. Atlanta Regional Commission
9. Atlanta Weed and Seed
10. Beacon of Hope
11. Center for Pan Asian Community Services
12. Center for Working Families of the Annie E. Casey Foundation
13. Center Helping Obesity in Children End Successfully (CHOICES)
14. City of Atlanta Office of the Mayor
15. City of Atlanta Office of Sustainability
16. City of Refuge
17. Communities in Schools of Georgia
18. Community Building Coalition of Northwest Atlanta (CCNA)
19. Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta
20. Clarkston Community Center
21. Clarkston Scottdale Opportunity Zone
22. Dekalb County Human and Community Development
23. DeKalb County Schools
24. Dekalb Technical College
25. East Lake Terrace Neighborhood Association
26. ECO-Action
27. Edgewood Community Church
28. Four Corners Primary Care Clinic, Inc.
29. Fugees Family
30. Georgia Association of School Nurses
31. Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention
32. Georgia Chapter of the Sierra Club
33. Georgia Coalition to End Homelessness
34. Georgia Commission on Women
35. Georgia Department of Community Health
36. Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning - Bright from the Start
37. Georgia Department of Education
38. Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice
39. Georgia Department of Labor
40. Georgia Department of Public Health - Maternal and Child Health
41. Georgia Family Connection Partnership
42. Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education
43. Georgia PTA
44. Georgia School Counselors Association
45. Georgia School Superintendents Association
46. Georgia STAND UP
47. Global Village School
48. HEALing Community Center
49. Housing Authority of Dekalb County
50. I Must Achieve the Goal to Excel (I.M.A.G.E.)
51. Interfaith Children's Movement of Metropolitan Atlanta
52. International Rescue Committee
53. Latin American Association
54. Mayson Avenue Cooperative
55. National Wildlife Federation
56. Neighborhood Nexus
57. Nieghborhood Planning Unit G
58. Neighborhood Planning Unit V
59. NeighborWorks America
60. Partnership for Southern Equity (PSE)
61. Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital's Network of Trust School Health Program
62. Pittsburgh Community Improvement Association
63. Refugee Family Services
64. Refugee Women's Network
65. Sagal Radio
66. Southeast Atlanta Communities for Schools (SEACS)
67. STAR (Southern Truth and Reconciliation)
68. Sustainable Atlanta
69. Trinity Presbyterian Church
70. Twin Cedars Youth and Family Services
71. United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta
72. Voices for Georgia's Children
73. West Atlanta Watershed Alliance
74. Whitefoord Community Program
75. WRFG
76. Ben Franklin Academy
77. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
78. Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston
79. City of Decatur
80. Emory Conference Center Hotel
81. The University Inn
82. Veterans Affairs Medical Center
83. Veterans Affairs Regional Office
84. Wesley Woods Center of Emory University

Maria Balais
Executive Director, Leadership DeKalb

Robert L. Brown, FAIA
Board Member, Georgia Department of Transportation
Architect / Urban Planner

Mary Hinkel
President, Mason Mill Civic Association

Justin Critz
President, Druid Hills Civic Association

Brittany Cunningham
Principal, Druid Hills High School

Natalie Disantis
Druid Hills Resident
Wesley Woods Health Center

Jeffrey Dufresne
Executive Director, ULI Atlanta District Council

Ron Foust
Druid Hills Resident
Emory Office of Information Technology

Todd Hill
Chair, Alliance to Improve Emory Village
Druid Hills Resident/Landscape Architect

Renee Huskey
Druid Hills Resident

Mary Leight
Briarwood Hills Civic Association
LeightWorks: Workplace Learning

John Maximuk
Director of Design, Environment and Construction
City of Decatur

Leonardo McClarty
President, DeKalb Chamber of Commerce

Lyn Menne
Assistant City Manager & Director of Economic Development
City of Decatur

Martha Pacini
President
Victoria Estates Civic Association (COVE)

Pamela Papner
President, Virginia Highlands Civic Association
Executive Director, AT&T Mobility

Julie Ralston
Druid Hills Resident
Communications Director, Atlanta Regional Commission

Thayra Riley
Sustainability Specialist
Centers for Disease Control & Prevention

Doris Robinson
Druid Hills Resident
Realtor

Suzan Rowe
President, Clairmont Heights Civic Association

Sally Sears
Druid Hills Resident
Executive Director of the Southfork Conservancy

Clyde Shepherd, III
Vice President, Toco Properties

Arnold Silverman
Druid Hills Resident
President, Silverman Construction Management

Kathleen Sobush
Community Planner-Transportation
Centers for Disease Control & Prevention

Marshall Orson
DeKalb County Board of Education - District 2
Principal, Melbourne Partners, LLC

Henry Batten
President & CEO, Lindbergh LaVista Corridor Coalition, Inc.

Sally Flocks
President & CEO, PEDS (Pedestrians Educating Drivers on Safety)

Emory University participates in scores of community partnerships each year, far too many to meaningfully summarize here. Last year, for example, more than 5,600 Emory students and 60 faculty members invested thousands of hours working in partnership with over 200 community organizations under just one Emory initiative – Sustainable Partnerships for Atlanta Neighborhoods (SPAN). Student commitments ranged from service learning to community building and community-engaged scholarship activities.

One of SPAN’s farthest-reaching impacts has been helping DeKalb County, Georgia, to transform the way it works with neighborhood residents to improve life in their communities – while helping the county revitalize neighborhoods.

Through its work with one SPAN component – the DeKalb Sustainable Neighborhoods Initiative (DSNI) – the county is beginning to form more inclusive and equal partnerships with neighborhood residents in its community building efforts. The Community Building and Social Change (CBSC) Fellows Program – a flagship program of Emory’s Center for Community Partnerships – is a key player in this effort.

In 2009, the DeKalb Department of Community Development invited CBSC to help the county more effectively respond to neighborhood needs. CBSC collaborated with the East Lake Terrace Neighborhood Association, a community organization in a neighborhood that had experienced a great deal of investment in the early 2000s with the tide of gentrification driven by speculative investors with no long-term stake in the area.

With the market downturn in the late 2000s, residents faced abandoned and foreclosed homes, declining property values, decreasing numbers of homeowners, and poorly kept properties. Residents and the neighborhood association were ready to organize around strategies and solutions to stabilize their neighborhood, building on the assets of the community and its people. A team of four CBSC Fellows worked directly with neighborhood leaders and residents to identify the vision, priorities, and potential strategies for strengthening the neighborhood.

In 2010, DeKalb County launched the Comprehensive Neighborhood Housing Initiative (CNHI) to develop and implement a more comprehensive approach for stabilizing and strengthening neighborhoods. A pilot program was created and targeted to a portion of the neighborhood.

In 2011, the county again invited the CBSC Fellows to work with them and the community, this time looking specifically at the CNHI pilot and in particular at options for dealing with the high rate of foreclosed and abandoned properties. Fellows worked closely with neighborhood leaders, residents, and other stakeholders to fully assess neighborhood conditions, including completion of a comprehensive housing inventory and convening of several community forums and workshops.

At the end of the summer the CBSC Fellows presented their findings to ELT neighborhood leaders, DeKalb County community development officials, and a host of other public, private, and nonprofit leaders concerned with the quality of life in DeKalb neighborhoods. Although CBSC Fellows acknowledged the contributions of DeKalb’s Comprehensive Neighborhood Housing Initiative, they strongly encouraged the county and other stakeholders to think more comprehensively and move beyond simply a “bricks and mortar” approach for strengthening neighborhoods.

The DeKalb partners took the work of CBSC Fellows seriously. Shortly thereafter the Department of Community Development changed its name to the Department of Human and Community Development, and in 2012 invited CBSC Fellows to help the county launch a more comprehensive approach to neighborhood revitalization that would be directly tied to the county’s five-year 2013-2017 Consolidated Plan.

Two teams of CBSC Fellows worked with the county in 2012 to assist with launching the DeKalb Sustainable Neighborhoods Initiative (DSNI). The initiative drew heavily on the report prepared by 2011 CBSC Fellows, as well as lessons learned from Chicago’s New Communities Program.

In May 2012, the county announced two neighborhood clusters – McNair and Cross Keys middle school/high school clusters. Each worked with a team of CBSC Fellows to establish a steering committee and governance structure, devise a plan for fostering community engagement throughout the cluster, and craft a plan that outlined the vision, priorities, and potential strategies for improving quality of life.

In 2013, the county and CBSC Fellows expanded their efforts to help create quality of life plans for two additional neighborhood clusters. During summer 2014, CBSC fellows are assisting all four clusters with implementing those plans.

Related to the neighborhoods and businesses surrounding the Emory campus, the CCTMA and the CCP organizations/representatives and local community stakeholders actively engaged in community planning charettes providing instructive feedback and ideas on the transit route and location of stations for the Clifton Corridor Transit Initiative (CCTI). The collective community input and recommendations culminated in the unanimous approval by the MARTA board of the Locally Preferred Alternative, allowing the CCTI to progress to the next phase of the federally required process to receive funding.
In addition, the CCP organizations/representatives advocated to defeat state legislative attempts to divide local neighborhoods into several new cities, which would have split existing boundaries of neighborhoods and communities of interest.

Please see Theme 3 on page 7 of the Strategic Plan document (Creating Community – Engaging Society).
www.cliftoncommunitypartnership.org
www.cctma.org

Emory Center for Community Partnerships:
http://cfcp.emory.edu/

CFCP’s Engaged Learning Projects and Programs: http://cfcp.emory.edu/our_work/engaged_learning/index.html

CFCP’s Community Engagement Strategies:
http://cfcp.emory.edu/about_oucp/strategies.html