CWRU's Lev Gonick is in Tel Aviv so he missed the Conference's great reception last night at the Kelvin Smith Library (which was kind of his idea, along with Library Director Joanne Eustis), but he posted this thoughtful piece on his blog welcoming CTCNet to campus and suggesting more active alliances between "community technologists" and university communities.
This week, Cleveland hosts a national gathering of community technology centers. Cleveland welcomes community technologists from around the country. When we look for coalitions to work together to make a difference in our communities sometimes the obvious pieces do not fall into place.Hear, hear.
There is a long standing consensus that civic engagement is directly proportionate to the level of education of the citzenry along with intervening variables like the number of civic action groups, news outlets/sources, and political organizations.
Community technologists across the country and the university community need to be stronger allies in pursuit of a common goal. Case Western Reserve University is pleased to be able to host some of the activities of the CTC in collaboration with OneCleveland.
The more educated our communities the better positioned they are to taking ownership of their own futures. Let's continue to find ways of working together.
There's actually been a lot said about community/university partnerships in the last couple of days, like Technology for All's neighborhood wireless collaborative with Rice University in Houston. (Incidentally, George says he expects to have our Thursday evening "Grassroots Broadband" forum, with TFA's Will Reed on the panel, audio-posted at Brewed Fresh Daily soon.)
More tomorrow, when the conference is over and I can return to my un-evolved, stationary home P3.
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