Registration is currently closed.
Connecting Campus & Community Voices
At Messiah University, we seek to understand, and execute best practices in community engagement. This includes, but is not limited to offering common language, coordination, support, and guidance in our campus efforts to engage community partners in mutually beneficial and reciprocal relationships.
As we discuss housing & neighboring we hope that you will join us to carefully ground community engagement theory in deep practice. In many ways, we believe this convening promises to not only enrich our Messiah community but also to amplify the important work of our off campus neighbors who have invaluable lived experiences and expertise to share. As we all listen & learn from both campus and community voices at the convening we hope to demonstrate the kind of “neighboring” practices that make positive change!
2024 Agenda
8:30AM: Registration
9:00AM: Program Begins
12:00PM: Lunch
12:45PM: “Unconference” / Team Strategic Planning
3PM: Departure
2024 Convening Highlights
Lighting Talks
Lighting Talks are short engaging talks (about 15 min.) that are packed full of great content and promise to inspire and capture your attention. We will have two speakers share their experiences of housing and neighboring and you won’t want to miss it!
The “Unconference”
Following lunch, we will host an “unconference” to share some of the collective wisdom that has been gathered at the convening. If you haven’t ever experienced an “Unconference” before, it is an organic way to invite participants to facilitate conversations on housing & neighboring topics they have experience with and think would be of interest to others. On the day of the convening, participants will be invited to sign up to facilitate a table discussion around a topic of their choice related to neighboring & housing after they have registered. To reserve a table, you need only to write the discussion topic by the table number on a large poster that will be provided. Table reservations are on a first come first served basis. Convening participants are invited to review the topics being proposed to see what discussion they would like to join following lunch. Given this organic approach, participants can come and go as they please and facilitators can decide how long they would like to have the table discussion last, however, all discussions must end by 3PM.
Strategic Planning
Following lunch, convening participants who register together are invited to either participate in the “Unconference” or use the afternoon time to work together on strategic planning. Organizations are encouraged to leverage this opportunity with their teams to make the most of the morning discussions and related resources into their future plans.
Plenary Panel
A moderated plenary panel with experienced professionals engaging housing and neighboring from diverse perspectives will touch on the following…
Neighboring Paradigms
“"Neighboring” will be explored as a verb to describe the interpersonal relationships we have with those who live near us as well as how organizations relate to each other in systems to form neighborhoods.
Neighboring Practices
Panelists will share concrete examples from their varied experiences of how neighboring principals can impact practice. These insights will help participants working to put theory into practice in their local contexts and diverse neighborhoods.
Neighboring Policies
We hope to spark some catalytic conversations around housing and neighboring policy. Toward that end, we will offer some specific examples of where policy can be improved and how we can more effectively introduce change.
Neighboring Philanthropy
Panel participants will reflect on how philanthropists can respond to the changing landscape of housing & neighboring. While government funding is certainly a crucial component to address the housing crisis at scale, we will discuss some promising opportunities where philanthropists can engage in mutually beneficial and reciprocal partnerships.
Take Action…
We are in need of transformative practices that are capable of connecting both individuals & communities together in ways that respond to our most pressing social and economic challenges. Far more than having a metaphoric love for metaphoric neighbors, we need to celebrate and champion concrete examples where neighbors are coming together across diverse sectors to not only improve interpersonal relationships, but also to change the systems that have created, maintain and perpetuate poverty and a lack of affordable homes in our neighborhoods.
Homes not only provide safe spaces to meet our basic human needs, but they also serve as places where inhabitants are dignified as they dwell in relationships with their neighbors and neighborhoods. To create homes more people can afford, a shift is needed from ‘housing’ to ‘neighboring’ where responsible citizens are united by principals & practices that demonstrate a commitment to hospitality and love for neighbors.
Toward that end, this “Connecting Communities” convening has the following twin goals:
1) To gather and connect cross sector stakeholders;
2) To champion efforts that leverage public and private funding in ways that advance neighboring principals in the neighborhoods they serve.
The Connecting Communities Convening is a program of the School of Arts, Culture and Society at Messiah University.
Connecting Housing And Neighboring
A vast amount of policy goes into shaping the neighborhoods we live in. One need only to read Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law to see evidence of how racial discrimination has been maintained and advanced at the highest levels through official federal policy in red lining practices and the exclusion of people of color for federally insured mortgages. It is without question that policies shape the places we live. These neighborhoods, in turn, profoundly form our habits and practices of relating to others. However, formative change happens in many different ways and it isn’t just top down. The practices of relating to others can lead to change in our communities and these communities have power to change policy and imagine new ways of living together. Together we will explore neighboring as a powerful practice for changing not only the personal behaviors, attitudes and values of individuals but also the public neighborhoods that we live in and the housing policies that create, maintain and advance them. We look forward to discussing with you many creative ways that neighboring can be imagined as a corrective lens to bring our collective strengths into focus, marshal our assets and to imagine new opportunities for addressing the most pressing socio-economic challenges that threaten to divide and harm us.
Problem
Too many people in our region lack homes that are affordable, safe and meaningfully connect us with others in community as neighbors. The good work that is happening to address this problem is frequently compartmentalized, under-resourced and disconnected from bigger systems that have created, sustain and continue to perpetuate the problem. This fragmentation of work makes only isolated changes that are inadequate to address the needs of our community.
Vision
In order to make systemic change, we need to work together. This convening is envisioned as a space where leadership teams from a variety of community partners (CP’s) are invited to explore ways to address the most pressing socio-economic challenges in our region together. We hope that new mutually beneficial partnerships can be forged that advance strategic plans together.
Theme
The theme for the spring convening is “Neighboring & Housing”. Together, we will be exploring these topics from several different focus areas (see below). We will use a systems approach to better understand how we can partner to make more of a collective (vs isolated) impact on our region.
Target Audience
While there are many dimensions to the theme of neighboring and housing, we are inviting stakeholders to participate virtually from the following five areas :
· Prevention (Advocacy & awareness)
· Intervention (Direct immediate action)
· Recovery (Transitional support)
· Stabilizing (Permanent jobs & housing)
· Research/Evaluation (Knowledge creation)
· Policy/Planning (Strategic leadership)
· Philanthropy (Resourcing change)
Team Approach
We are inviting leadership teams (5-8 individuals from the same organization) to register and attend the convening together. Through plenary sessions and working groups, convening facilitators will be encouraging teams to interact with others in working groups as we collectively explore mutually beneficial partnership opportunities.
Thursday April 18, 2024 Agenda
· 8:30 AM - 9 AM: Registration & Breakfast
· 9 AM: Program Begins
· 12 PM – 1:00 PM: Lunch
· 1 PM - 3PM: Track I: “Unconference’ / Table Discussions or Track II: Organization Strategic Planning
· 3:00 PM: Dismiss