“Returning the Dues:” Community and the Personal in a University-School Partnership

This study uses interviews to explore students’ perspectives of a university path program, one initiative of a university-school partnership. Responses show that the abstraction of the program lives in concrete and personal dimensions for students as they move from high school to university in the same neighborhood. Advanced placement work at the university and the secondment of faculty from the school board blur distinctions between school and university. Most striking is the students’ desire to contribute to the community that has supported them and is most closely associated with their families, the school, and the university that lies, at least geographically, within community bounds.