...directed identifying protective and risky settings for children and youth in urban communities to suggest evidence-based solutions for intervention. Present in the themes of the papers is an acknowledgment of a larger social and political context connecting higher education, research, outreach, and policy.

These issues will be explored further in the second biennial national children's conference held at Wayne State University, "Promoting the Well-Being of Children and Youth in Urban America: Best Practices to Next Practices," on September 28 and 29, 2006. This event will bring together researchers, clinicians, educators, students, policy makers, and community representatives to focus on best practices for promoting the health, education, and development of urban children and on disseminating program models for next practices.

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Universities increasingly have extended their research and educational programs out of the ivory tower and into the community (e.g., Boyer, 1990; Jaffe, 2004). This shift reflects the growing notion that universities are an integral part of the community in which they are located; that their scholarly activities should contribute to the economic, social, and cultural vitality of that community; and that their scholarly activities should inform best practices and public policy (e.g., Freeland, 2005). This perspective necessarily takes into account the sociocultural exchange between persons and their environments (e.g., Rogoff, 2003; Vygotsky, 1962) and the ecological niches in which children and families live (e.g., Bronfenbrenner, 2000). Equally important, it provides a viable interface between "town and gown" by creating the opportunity for critical discourse among community service providers and university scholars as well as meaningful action among appropriate partners that will result in successful outcomes for children and families.

Urban universities have long viewed their mission as embedded in the life of the community in which they participate, resulting in a focus on urban issues and a commitment to social action. Wayne State University's urban mission, like that of other urban institutions, is manifest in its history, location, and tradition. Founded in 1868 as the Detroit Medical College, it expanded as several local colleges and professional schools, including the College of the City of Detroit, were united to become Wayne University in 1934. These colleges and schools had served the local population, offering day classes for traditional students who could not afford residential universities, night classes for working adults, and adult education courses in enrichment and practical topics. Classes burgeoned in the 1920s with the influx of immigrants into the city, and the College of the City of Detroit was seen to provide "the opportunity to keep learning close to life in a great industrial city" (Hanawalt, 1968, p. 180). The postwar era saw colleges flooded with veterans entering under the GI Bill, veterans who were older and more serious about their goals than earlier students, and this group too needed to be accommodated and incorporated into the institution (Hanawalt, 1968). As Wayne became a state university in 1958 and grew into a major research institution in the 1980s and 1990s, it appropriated and built on this tradition, emphasizing its role in addressing problems relevant to urban communities.

Interest in marshaling university resources in order to solve problems is not just driven by an urban mission. Indeed, the missions of land-grant, faith-based, and professional schools, as well as other types of institutions, have long connected curriculum to community. In addition, current impetus for a focus on embedded scholarship also comes from calls to reform undergraduate (e.g., Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University, 1998, 2002) and graduate education (e.g., Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, 2005), emphasize service-learning or community-based education (e.g., Steffes, 2004), change funding priorities to support "translational research" via the National Institutes of Health roadmap (e.g., Zerhouni, 2003), and address government-driven concerns about the accountability of higher education (e.g., Guskin & Marcy, 2003). All of these initiatives stress scholarship that applies academic expertise to social challenges, learning that extends beyond the classroom into the community, and research that translates basic science into effective application. Reflecting these and other trends, in November 2005 the Carnegie Foundation released new classification schemes to replace the current scheme with a set of independent, parallel categories that highlight differences and similarities among institutions of higher learning. Included in this scheme is the opportunity to participate in two voluntary classifications. One of these is outreach and community engagement (e.g., McCormick & Zhao, 2005).

The Children's Bridge, a Wayne...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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