ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates the Center's multidimensional, integrated focus on solving a practical, real-world problem, the problem of the American city. It highlights the work of the Center in three key areas: academically based community service, direct traditional service community and economic development. The Center is an organizational innovation responsible for mobilizing the broad range of university resources to help Penn better fulfill its mission and to help create a better West Philadelphia/Philadelphia. The Center also helps to form partnerships with other institutions including public schools, businesses, not-for-profits, community organizations, unions, churches, and governmental agencies that will facilitate ongoing interorganizational cooperation, learning, and improvement. The Center for Community Partnerships is playing a leading role in helping Penn to become a model urban university for the twenty-first century, a 'research university that commits itself to addressing needs in its own city' in order to advance knowledge and human welfare.
