rational and reflective models of community action

Journal of Community Psychology Volume 16, October 1988

Rational and Reflective Models of Community Action Allan D. Wallis

University of Colorado, Boulder

Daniel Schler University of Colorado, Denver

The Western Colorado Rural Communities Program (WCRCP) was created to address problems resulting from an energy development boom in the region. It was conceived, and perceived by administrators, following a set of assumptions, referred to here as the rational model. This model is based on a positivist conception of professional action that suggests that problems can be reduced to objective, value-free statements that can then be subjected to analysis and solution. In the most effective projects of the WCRCP, however, the program followed a different model: one based on action through reflection. The effect of these different models- rational and reflective - operating at different levels of the system led to difficulties in program staff communicating their accomplishments to institutional administrators. It also proved problematic in developing appropriate commitments for the institutionalization of the program once outside foundation funding was phased out. The nature of the conflict between these models as it arose through the implementation and operation of a community service program is discussed here. Suggestions are offered for the alternative structuring of such programs.

One of the major innovations of the American system of higher education is the idea that universities should not only engage in the creation of new knowledge, but that they should also direct their effort to the application and dissemination of knowledge. This idea had its fullest expression in the creation of the Land Grant Colleges over a century ago, which included the establishment of Experimental Field Stations and the Cooperative Extension Service. It is an area that is also evident in the development of university-affiliated teaching hospitals, business bureaus in colleges of management, and legal clinics in schools of law. The justification for these service-providing facilities relative to the central research and teaching missions of the system of higher education has been expressed as one in which the “real world” serves as a laboratory for the application of new knowledge and as a training ground for professionals. Consequently, rewards to faculty and staff within the system of higher education are still distributed primarily to those who create rather than to those who disseminate new knowledge.

Underlying the relationship between the research, teaching, and service missions in higher education is a tacit set of assumptions, which Donald Schon in The Reflective Practitioner (1983) defines as the model of technical rationality, or the rational model. According to this model, problems can be reduced to objective, value-free statements that can then be subjected to analysis and solution. Dissemination is a matter of knowledge transfer within a hierarchy of institutions. The model asserts that “the proper

Evaluations of the WCRCP upon which this article was based were funded by the Kellogg Foundation. Reprint requests should be sent to Daniel Schler, Department of Sociology, University of Colorado, Denver, CO 80202.

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404 WALLIS AND SCHLER

relationship between the higher and lower schools is one of separation and exchange. Quite simply, the professions are to give their practical problems to the university, and the university, the unique source of research, is to give back to the professions the new scientific knowledge which it will be their business to apply and test" (p. 36). The philosophical foundations of the rational model lie in the positivist tradition, which places objective empirical knowledge above personal knowledge and the generation of theory above application and practice (Bernstein, 197 1).

In the late 1960s, the rational model began to come under the critical scrutiny of students and faculty members, particularly in professional schools (Gartner, 1976; Gold- stein, 1978; Halmos, 1973). This criticism emerged in a context where the failure of publicly funded planned action programs threatened to undermine the credibility of professional knowledge. One set of proposals emerging from this criticism suggested that society should be de-professionalized (Haug, 1973; Illich, 1970). Another set of proposals suggested that the way professionals think and act should be studied in order to understand the sources of their failures as well as of their successes (Boland, 1980; Schon, 1983, 1987). This latter line of analysis was critical of the rational model, with its top-down structure of knowledge generation. Instead, it argued for a transactive model of knowledge generation, which Schon calls "knowledge-in-reflection" or, more succinctly, the reflective model. The underlying assumption of this model, as Schon describes it, is that the understanding of a problem situation develops out of the process of applying a theory-at-hand to a situation and then reviewing the consequences of the actions taken against their expected results. Part of this process is a dialogue between client and professional regarding the definition and nature of the problem situation. The purpose of this dialogue is not simply to uncover a problem, but to construct a definition of it. In short, the reflective model tries to describe how professionals learn through doing.

Despite criticisms of its limitations, the rational model continues to dominate professional education. Its influence is evident in the perceptions and expectations administrators have of service-type programs and activities; for example, in the lower evaluation given such activities in decisions concerning merit pay, promotion, and tenure (Egner, 1981). By contrast, the reflective model suggests an alternative way of viewing the relationship between service activities and professional education. From this point of view. service would not only be elevated in its standing among institutional missions, but the separation of research and service, which has traditionally cast service in a subser- vient status, would change.

The Western Colorado Rural Communities Program (WCRCP)

This article describes a community service network, the Western Colorado Rural q"' ;jmmunities Program (WCRCP), established by seven institutions of higher educa- t::m in C d carlo. 'l'he WCRCP was created to address problems that were expected ti:* result fr ' : . energy development boom in the region. It was conceived, and perceived by admi!r'. : . .FS, following the assumptions of the rational model: i.e., that the research universji, ' 8 a l d provide the knowledge base, while local colleges would establish ser- \lice liaism ;v ih communities in their region. That model, however, soon proved to be inadequate. ?,r +' r : level of progam staff and the community, the need to respond to immediate r . * ' ' ::iity problems had the effect of organizing action along the assumptions of LP . .dive model. By contrast, at the level of administrative interaction be-

RATIONAL AND REFLECTIVE MODELS 405

tween institutions, and especially between senior administrators, the rational model prevailed. At the level of staff relating to each other across institutions, both models were evident; but not without conflict. The effect of these different models operating at different levels of the system led to difficulties in program staff communicating their accomplishments to institutional administrators. It also proved problematic in developing appropriate commitments for the institutionalization of the program once outside foundation funding was phased out.

This article is based on data drawn from over 80 extensive interviews conducted in the course of evaluating the WCRCP during its fourth and fifth years of operation. The interviewees included institutional administrators, staff, and individuals from the communities being served. In addition, the reports that the program generated describ- ing its own activities, purposes, and goals were analyzed. The Problem Setting

The settlement pattern of mountainous western Colorado is one of boom-and-bust development. Towns like Leadville, Silverton, and Telluride suddenly burst into existence with the discovery of silver and then nearly disappeared with the declining value of that metal. Leadville was reborn of molybdenum, but recently the demand for that alloy shrank, and the town’s economy was again shaken to its roots. Silverton and Telluride were resurrected on tourism. The town of Dinosaur (near the entrance to Dinosaur Na- tional Monument) was founded in the late 1940s with a population of 1,000 construction workers engaged in developing local oil and gas fields. When their construction work was completed, the town’s population shrank to about 300, consisting primarily of operations workers and their dependents. Recently its population was again over 1,ooO, stimulated by the construction of a coal-fired electric power plant.

Other settlements in western Colorado have experienced a more stable pattern of development. Their economies are based on agriculture, ranching, or tourism. Even these communities are forced on occasion to absorb temporary populations of workers engaged in highway, pipeline, or dam construction. In a very real sense, the human landscape of rural Colorado is not unlike its natural landscape: rugged, yet delicate. The impacts of development can easily leave enduring scars on both.

In the mid-l970s, another major boom seemed imminent. The cause this time would be energy development, especially oil shale. This was the time of President Carter’s call for energy independence. An important component of the president’s program was the development of oil shale reserves in the Rockies. Development of other energy resources in the region, such as oil, gas, coal, and uranium, was also expected to receive new stimulation.

Energy companies holding leases in the region predicted the production of a million barrels of oil per day from shale (THK Associates, 1974). The technology to be used in oil shale extraction, however, had never been tested on a large scale. Its environ- mental.and social impacts were unknown. The temporary work forces required to construct the mines and refining facilities, together with the supporting infrastructure of roads, power lines, housing, and the like, were expected to more than double the population of the region. This magnitude of growth would be compounded by the simultaneous development of other energy resources, as well as the continued development of the state’s recreation areas.

Though they were no strangers to boom and bust, Western Slope communities differed widely in their capacity to deal with change (Hill & Schler, 1982). Those with


an established interest in tourism could often see the necessity of planning as a means of preserving and protecting what they valued in the environment. The most scenic areas of the state attracted many urban expatriates who had given up the “rat race” of the big city, but who had taken their expectations about the value of planned development with them and were ready to apply them to their new homes. By contrast, traditional ranching communities viewed most new development with suspicion and resistance, ques- tioning the direct benefits for themselves (Moen, Boulding, Lillydahl, & Palm, 1981). Even mining-economy-based communities, whose fortunes seesawed with the demand for their minerals, looked at the possibility of development with a mixed sense of op- timism and cynicism. Their attitude could be characterized as “We’ll deal with it when and if it happens.”

Just as attitudes toward change differed among rural communities of the Western Slope, so did’their capacity to plan for change. Some communities lacked a comprehen- sive plan and land-use regulations. Others did not even have adequate maps upon which to develop plans. At the same time, there were towns (notably with tourism-based economies) that were experimenting with sophisticated techniques of land-use regula- tion. At the county and regional levels, expertise also varied widely. Where good administrators could be found, they were often wooed away by energy companies with hopes of starting developments in the area. Moreover, the idea of regionally based planning associations (councils of government), which the federal government had imposed as a requirement for obtaining certain program funding, had never been accepted by many county and local governments. In short, the effort to meet the demands of rapid growth seemed to require not only increased expertise, but the development of attitudes supportive of planning (Davenport & Davenport, 1979).

The Conception of the WCRCP At the time that renewed energy-development activities were starting in western Col-

orado, the Carter Administration, as well as a number of private foundations, was en- couraging institutions of higher education to become involved in community-development problems. Dealing with the impacts of energy development seemed to provide a test case for such involvement. In the autumn of 1978, seven institutions of higher education in the state of Colorado joined together under a grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation to operate as a network delivering community-planning assistance to western Colorado. The WCRCP consisted of two public universities (Colorado State Univer- sity and the University of Colorado) located on the Front Range of the Rockies, three senior colleges (Fort Lewis, Mesa College, and Western State), and two community colleges (Colorado Mountain College and Colorado Northwestern) located on the Western Slope. Several of these institutions had previously worked together in public service activities under funding from the Title I program of the Higher Education Act of 1965. They did not, however, have a strong tradition of collaboration.

The WCRCP had four goals. First, to assist in improving local leadership ability to cope with the impacts of energy development. Second, to provide technical assistance. Third, to facilitate knowledge transfer from the universities to communities experienc- ing problems with energy-development impacts and, fourth, to test organizational struc- tures that would allow a network of higher education institutions to provide problem- focused instruction and service. These four goals were translated, in turn, into six specific activities.


FIGURE 1. Western Colorado Rural Communities Program Schools.

1. Establish a knowledge base. Each participating Western Slope college would identify community issues and problems in their respective service areas. Simultaneously, an inventory of resource expertise at the colleges and universities would be conducted. Once these two inventories had been completed, they would be integrated into a region- wide profile of rural development concerns and a systemwide referral network that would bring expert knowledge to bear on the problems identified. Included in these inventories would be an assessment of the need for short courses, conferences, and seminars that might be useful to local communities.

2 . Build community competency through goal setting. Local communities would be involved in a process of identifying their own goals, priorities, and leadership. The principal device for achieving this would be the use of planning charettes in individual communities. Based in part on the inventories developed through activity one, program staff would work with community leaders to establish and conduct the charettes. The role of WCRCP staff would be to facilitate community dialogue.

3 . Mobilize volunteer eflort. Following the charettes, community committees would be formed to help develop and carry out strategies to achieve the goals identified. The local colleges would utilize their resource inventory to help locate those capable of rendering technical assistance.


4. Provide technical assistance. Based on a specific request received from a community, an interdisciplinary team (consisting of resource people from the colleges and universities, agency representatives, and members of community volunteer committees) would be formed. A community liaison person would set up meetings and provide background information. The team’s work would take place over a short period of time, ending with a public presentation of findings and recommendations and a summary report.

5 . In order to develop and improve leadership capacity, each local WCRCP college would be responsible for developing a program of leadership training for its service area. Training sessions would draw from the resources of the entire network.

To further enhance local leadership and expertise, a program of .cooperative courses and joint degrees was to be developed. This would be a cross-disciplinary, action-oriented program conducted at the associate arts, bachelor’s, and graduate level. An lnstitute for Community and Regional Development was proposed that would serve to develop and administer interinstitutional offerings.

The four goals and six activities that were to guide the work of the WCRCP reveal a bias toward the rational model. The program’s goals, in particular, stressed the idea of knowledge transfer: the application of objective knowledge to specific problems. Knowledge was to be transferred from senior institutions, from whence it would be generated, to junior institutions which would deliver it to the affected communities. It would flow from the top down. The communities were seen as sites for the application of knowledge, not its generation.

Despite this bias, aspects of the proposal establishing the WCRCP, particularly in the statement of its activities, suggest sympathy for the reflective model. The proposal for planning charettes, for example, suggested that communities would be actively involved in defining their own problems, with the WCRCP staff serving as facilitators. But even here, the notion that problem definition constitutes a form of knowledge generation was not recognized. The fact that all program activities commenced at the same time meant that what was learned from one activity could not be easily used to direct other activities. Because the development of the inventory of expert resources was to be developed at the same time that communities were trying to define their problems, how they were defined could not be used as a basis for determining the types of resources they might need. It was tacitly assumed that the WCRCP administrators already knew what the problems were, and that the community problem-setting activity was simply a means of getting local leadership to realize that they needed the resources that had simultaneously been assembled.

Another bias toward the reflective model is evident in the proposal for action- oriented training programs. Field experience was regarded as an equal if not more valid source of professional information than classroom learning. Training in the field, however, would focus on applying knowledge rather than reflecting on what was learned. The direction of the flow of knowledge was still essentially one-way, from expert to client, rather than reciprocal. The WCRCP in Action

The six activities of the network were coordinated by a central staff consisting of a project director and coordinators for leadership training, technical assistance, and

Organize leadership development training programs.

6 . Create joint cooperative courses and degree programs.


the degree programs. Each Western Slope college had its own community development facilitator. The program was governed by a policy board consisting of the presidents of the seven institutions involved in the network. All of the activities of the program were to commence at the same time - with the receipt of funding. The inventory activity was to be completed during the first year. The other activities, except the degree programs, would be completed by the end of the third year. The degree program would continue for the full 5 years of the grant and, it was hoped, beyond.

The rapid start of program activities was propelled by the rate of energy developments in the region. Exxon, for example, had already begun work on its Colony Oil Shale project that was expected to have a peak work force of 17,000. Although the company was constructing a new town, Battlement Mesa, to absorb the influx of population, the nearby town of Parachute, with a population of less than 300 , was being inun- dated with migrant construction workers. Other projects of varying magnitude were in progress. Then, in April of 1982, Exxon closed down its operation. Oil prices were falling, and the motivation to develop new, more expensive sources of fuel disappeared. During the last year of its operation, the WCRCP was faced with an environment of economic bust rather than boom.

During the 5 years from 1978-83, the WCRCP completed over 300 projects involving training and community assistance. Program funding for this period totaled approx- imately $3 million, $1.7 million of which came from the Kellogg Foundation. In its first 3 years in operation 48 communities were involved in projects. In its last 2 years the program served over 50 communities.

Many projects involved the development of some type of information. This included creation of coordinated maps, which could provide the basis for land-use assessments. It also included the projection of user demand for social services. Projects such as these often involved the simultaneous development of local leadership. In reflecting on their experience with WCRCP staff, many community leaders remarked that although they knew what their needs were, they did not always know how to go about documenting and addressing them. By working with the staff, they became acquainted with processes that allowed them to deal with these problems.

In developing projects, WCRCP staff tried to involve a broad range of community interest groups. This involvement helped to build coalitions that would later support recommendations. At times, however, community groups were polarized. In these cases, the role of the staff was to serve as a third party, helping to bring the two sides into constructive dialogue. At a more formal level, the WCRCP offered leadership training courses. These served not only to develop local leadership capacity, but to provide a common technical language within which problems could be identified and addressed.

The involvement of the WCRCP extended beyond the analysis of problems and the development of proposals’ to assisting in the formation of local action groups that could carry out implementation. For example, in setting up an arts council or a historic preservation society in a town where neither existed, it was the role of the WCRCP staff to help an organizing committee clarify its goals and agenda, initiate activities, and establish contacts with potential funding sources. In many cases a local problem con- cerned the development of a new facility, such as a recreation center, town hall, or a park. The role of the WCRCP staff in these projects was to assist in site selection, pro- gramming, and conceptual design. This involvement gave local leaders sufficient familiar- ity with project requirements to be able to proceed with hiring professionals to com- plete the proposals and secure funding for the proposals’ ultimate implementation. In


all cases, once a community group was functioning to sustain a project, WCRCP staff involvement was removed.

Assessing the Effectiveness of the WCRCP

A review of the operation of the WCRCP suggests that although it was conceived and organized following the assumptions of the rational model, the need to respond to immediate local demands forced it, at least in part, to act in a manner more characteristic of the reflective model. This was particularly true of its actions in relation to community clients. Nevertheless, the assumptions of the rational model continued to dominate thought and action governing the relations between the participating institutions in the network and, to a lesser extent, the relations between program staff at these institutions.

As previously suggested, the hierarchical organization of the WCRCP endorsed the belief that knowledge flows from the top down: from senior research universities through local colleges to their communities. In practice, however, those closest to dealing with problems in the field had the potential for developing knowledge-through-action. If that knowledge could have been communicated back up through the system, it would have helped inform and direct the future actions of the program. In this way the program would be learning and the organization altering itself as it reflected upon the consequences of its actions (Lawrence & Lorch, 1969; Schon & Argyris, 1975). A major block in this upward flow of information, and in the process of reflection in general, was the faith that the administrative and coordinative levels of the program and their institutions had in the rational model. From the perspective offered by that model, the failure of actions in the field could be interpreted as a failure to apply knowledge ap- propriately. Conversely, when success was achieved, it could be interpreted as the result of the appropriate application of knowledge. Neither success nor failure, then, need alter belief in the model. A summary of how each of the levels of the program worked demonstrates these points. Work in the Communities

The most common project of the WCRCP staff involved technical assistance. In these cases, the community recognized a problem whose solution seemed to lie in gather- ing specific information. The information offered was assumed to be value-free: i.e., based on technical analysis rather than on local values or perceptions. Its utility, however, would be evaluated by the community. Examples of technical assistance projects in- clude those involving physical mapping or conducting a survey for human services pro- viders. Since no new knowledge was apparently being developed through these types of projects, their legitimacy - from the point of view of the WCRCP institutional administrators - was seen in terms of providing students with the chance to apply skills in a community context, i.e., the communities functioned as training laboratories. In short, these projects were perceived as operating under the assumptions of the rational model.

Other types of projects required establishment of a dialogue between community- client and staff. The definition of the problem to be addressed, as well as the character of the solution, emerged out of this dialogue. In addition, the validity of the knowledge produced was mutually affirmed by both staff and client. Some members of the staff preferred to label this approach community development, as distinct from technical assistance. They viewed a community development project as one in which the capabilities

RATIONAL AND REFLECTIVE MODELS 41 1

of local leaders were enhanced as a result of their work with the staff. The success of such projects would have to be measured not by the delivery of a report with requested information, but on evidence of subsequent actions taken by community leaders demonstrating a new level of skill and understanding.

In one project, concerning the analysis of the social impacts of a proposed natural gas pipeline, the residents involved became so conscious of the process they had used to understand these impacts, that they wanted to train leaders from other communities facing similar situations. The perceived role of the WCRCP staff was to facilitate community dialogue and self-evaluation, rather than to provide answers or solutions. In general, projects that involved community members directly in problem formulation, as well as in the execution of recommendations, developed a strong sense of identity among community members with the project and its results. This was particularly evident in communities that had received services from professional consultants in previous years and had done nothing to implement them although similar projects in which they were directly involved were more often carried out.

For their part, WCRCP staff seemed to learn more from projects involving community dialogue. They felt that this involvement provided them with personal knowledge that extended beyond professional knowledge and provided a basis for integrating the facts of a situation into a more coherent understanding of the community’s needs and character. Two key staff members, writing about their attempts to integrate professional and personal knowledge, referred to this integration as a “community practice process” (Heath, Burns, & Wallis, 1983). They described this process as nonlinear and characterized by double-loop learning (a term developed by Schon & Argyris, 1975). The community practice process, they wrote, “has the following attributes”:

-it is based on member control rather than professional control; -it relies on member knowledge to provide content; -it uses community rather than professional design questions to define the ap-

-it is characterized by mutuality with rather than dependence on professional

-it is educational in that it ensures mutual transfer of knowledge between com-

-it makes communities legible to members and therefore to professionals; -finally, it solves community problems. (Heath, Burns, & Wallis, 1983, p. 89)

These statements of principles, as well as process, suggest that at least some of the WCRCP staff in the field approached their work following the assumptions of the reflective model.

It might be expected that the demand characteristics of the projects themselves in- fluenced the type of interaction that developed between staff and community-clients; that the rational model would guide conventional technical assistance work, whereas the reflective model would guide more complex projects. But this was not the case. The way staff related to a community and approached a project depended more on how they were trained, their own professional beliefs, the reward system of their institution, and where their program was located structurally within the institution (e.g., as part of an instructional unit, or a designated service unit).

propriate categories of analysis;

assistance;

munity members and professionals;


Work within Institutions One of the first tasks in making the WCRCP operational was to determine where

the program would be located within the structure of the participating institutions. Did it belong in continuing education, in an academic unit, or as an independent center? Early decisions made regarding location would have significant consequences for staffing, evaluation, and eventual institutionalization. For example, if a program was to be located in an academic unit, key staff would have to have appropriate teaching credentials, whereas a program located in a continuing education unit might have staff with no academic title and only a bachelor’s degree.

At research universities, public service was recognized as a legitimate activity for faculty, but its significance relative to decisions on merit pay, promotion, and tenure was minor. WCRCP staff in the universities were faculty members. In order for them to gain recognition for their public service activities in the program, it was necessary to demonstrate the value of those activities in enhancing instruction, or in generating research publications. The latter meant sharing results with peers through refereed publications. Publications designed for the use of community-clients were not regarded as legitimate research publications. The value of those publications for the communities was often perceived by administrators in terms of improved public relations for the institutions. All of these expectations and perceptions, as previously suggested, followed the assumptions of the rational model.

In those cases where university-based staff attempted to interact with community- clients on the basis of mutual knowledge formation, the reward for their work came from a sense that they were learning something and that they were genuinely helping the communities with which they worked. Although their style of interaction was nonhierarchical, their positions within their institutions required reporting to a hierarchy. This meant translating what they did in terms that could be evaluated with respect to the main missions of the institution. In this process, the distinction that they held between “community development,” “technical assistance,” and “public relations” was often lost. This difficulty was compounded in attempts to institutionalize the program as foundation funding was reduced. Purely public service activities seemed to be a luxury that would have to find their own source of support.

For staff operating out of community and 4-year colleges, the missions of their institutions were more directly related to promoting the welfare of their immediate geographic communities. Consequently, projects that could be seen as providing technical assistance in response to clearly defined local problems supported the traditional role of the WCRCP institutions within their communities. Technical assistance could be equated as a form of community education. Just as it was necessary for universities to translate service in terms of research in order to fully legitimate the activity, in the community and 4-year colleges it was necessary to translate service in terms of community education. Even in these cases, technical assistance often had to be presented with the additional justification that it was being sponsored by external funds. Institu- tionalization, in turn, seemed to depend on securing additional external funding.

The structural location of programs affected their ability to build resource networks within their institutions. One of the ideas presented in the proposal for funding the WCRCP was that field staff could tap into the vast resources of expert knowledge housed in the participating institutions, in order to solve technical problems. In practice, if the WCRCP coordinator at an institution was a staff person rather than a faculty member,


his or her standing in the eyes of the faculty could jeopardize the process of network formation within the institution. A similar problem was encountered in attempting to establish networks in the communities to be served. If the college was regarded with suspicion by the community, vis-a-vis its interest in providing service, it would benefit WCRCP staff to develop an identity distinct from the traditional mission of their institution. Having followed this strategy, however, it would be more difficult to then develop and maintain the network within the institution which continued to be guided by the traditional definition of its mission.

The WCRCP had been funded by the Kellogg Foundation on a sliding scale that transferred an increasing burden for program support onto the participating institutions over successive years. In this process, institutional adminstrators who might have casually accepted the program and its funds at the outset found it necessary to define more clearly the place of the program with respect to the established missions of their institution. For the community colleges, which received funding directly from a local tax levy, what the program was about became defined in terms of adult and community education. When questioned as to what these meant, it became clear that administrators regarded anything that their college did in the community as a form of education. No distinction was made between offering evening courses in accounting, performing con- certs in local towns, or helping communities to address issues related to rapid growth. In all of these cases, the college placed itself in the position of being a cultural institution disseminating knowledge, but not receiving knowledge from the communities within which it worked. If the colleges were successful in making their presence in the community known, their mill levy would continue to be supported.

The research universities were removed geographically and in terms of their funding from the local communities served by the WCRCP. They had to legitimate program support as service that was useful in promoting better public relations and ultimately support in the legislature. They could also see it in terms of instructional enhancement. The most important claim to legitimacy, however, would lie in the generation of research and publications. Projects providing straight technical assistance could not claim to be research, and those based on interaction and knowledge-through-reflection were regarded as lacking in quantitative and methodological rigor. The fact that the foundation that supported the effort was not research but service oriented further fueled their suspicions about the legitimacy of the work.

The easiest path toward institutionalization would follow the assumptions of the rational model. It required no new learning on the part of institutional administrators and it was consistent with the way they saw the general mission of their institutions. This model, however, did not help to legitimate the most effective projects in the field, projects that followed the reflective model. The full recognition of these projects and their approach would require acceptance of the assumptions of the reflective model. What would such acceptance mean? First, that research and service activities are legitimately integrated when service involves communities and when the research methods employed involve community dialogue. Second, it would mean support for instructional programs that actively combine classroom instruction in theory and field-based learning. The analog here is with clinical education, rather than with laboratory instruction. Third, there should be allocation of institutional rewards (e.g., merit pay, promotion, and tenure) to encourage instruction which successfully combines field-based learning and theory development.


The possibilities of following the path of the reflective model toward institutionalization were demonstrated in one of the participating colleges. The local WCRCP program director had been instrumental in setting up the sociology program at his college. He was able to structure options in the program that involved field-based learning related to community service projects. He had a chairman who was sympathetic to his ethnographic approach to community studies and who was willing to recognize its value in the allocation of rewards. Such understanding and acceptance, however, were not evident at the level of the dean’s office or the president, where more conventional no- tions of instruction and research prevailed. In the research universities, departmental and peer recognition were also the first tests of acceptance. Here, senior faculty who had won their rank under criteria established by the rational model were usually less generous in acknowledging the value of the alternative model and the type of research and instruction justified by the reflective model. Relations between Institutions

Relations between institutions participating in the WCRCP operated at two levels: between program staff and between institutional administrators. The daily operation of the program could profit from exchanges between staff, but the ultimate institutionalization of the program could only take place in the dialogue between administrators.

Program staff were brought together at meetings whose principal function was mutual accountability, but which also served as a forum for the exchange of ideas and methods. Many of the staff had been hired or assigned to the program by their institutions without having prior experience in community work. They requested and received formal training in community development theory and method. As a result of meetings and training, the members of the program developed a relatively common definition of their mission and work. At the outset, project funds were allocated fairly equally among institutions, but as the work of the program developed, and especially as standards for what constituted a successful project emerged among the staff, allocations could be based on performance and merit. Because many of the strongest projects followed the assumptions of the reflective model, a system of performance- and merit-based allocations could serve as incentive for operating under that model. Institutional administrators, however, tried to pressure the program to maintain a less discriminating division of funds.

Contact between the central administrators of the participating institutions was less frequent than that among staff and focused primarily on an obligatory meeting of the presidents held once a year. At the inception of the program, this meeting concentrated on trying to define the elements of the program and how the participating institutions would operate as a network. Underlying these discussions was a concern over turf and seniority. Intervention by the universities located on the Front Range of the state was regarded with suspicion. Would those institutions really function to provide expert assistance to communities through the local colleges and under their direction, or would the local colleges be used in a way that might undermine their credibility with consti- tuent communities?

Implicit in these discussions were the assumptions of the rational model that provided the institutional administrators with justification for their assumptions of seniority. The rational model assigns authority to those with expertise, but it defines that expertise narrowly in terms of traditional scholarly research. The reflective model suggests that knowledge-through-action also constitutes a special kind of expertise and, in this


case, it would be generated by those working most directly with the communities of the region. Acceptance of this assumption would put the participating institutions on more of an equal footing, but at the cost of an implicit loss of status by the research universities.

In the end, the ability of the program to build an interinstitutional network was the least successful aspect of its performance. When foundation funding for the program ran out, all of the institutions pledged to continue their participation and support. In fact, those institutions that had participated only marginally (three out of the seven) became even more marginal. Contacts between administrators from the participating institutions had been established, but genuine dialogue had not occurred. Never- theless, several of the presidents offered the opinion that the very fact that lines of com- munications had been opened, and that they had met repeatedly to discuss their respon- sibilities to offer community services to rural areas, was a significant accomplishment.

Conclusions

In hindsight, it might appear that the problems encountered in attempting to establish the WCRCP related primarily to logistics. The difficulties involved in establishing the inventory of problems and resources were underestimated, whereas the willingness of communities to engage in goal-setting charettes was overestimated. Some of the proposed activities should have been sequential, but they were all scheduled to commence at the same time. Staff hiring was inconsistent, and training was introduced after people were already in the field. As a test model of cooperative interinstitutional action, the WCRCP was severely flawed by its execution.

Quite apart from the operation of the network, there was the external factor of economic development, which was expected to provide the catalyst for community involvement. At the beginning of the energy development boom, considerable money for planning and facility construction was made available to affected communities. Fre- quently, they chose to hire outside consultants rather than to turn to their local colleges. Toward the end of the grant period, the energy boom turned into a bust. The communities were facing a serious recession, and their attention turned to economic diversification. By this time, the network had established some local credibility, but the sources of its own funding were drying up.

Although the logistics of the system were flawed, and the economy of the region reversed from what was expected, evaluation of the program suggests that its most serious problems lay in the rational model that guided its conception and ultimately thwarted its institutionalization. This model contrasted sharply with the actions of staff in the field. For many of them, the production of knowledge was related to the situation at hand. The character of that knowledge was transactive: i.e., developed in the course of dialogue between community and staff in response to a problem situation. The function of the field staff, as they came to understand it, was knowledge generation and not simply dissemination or translation.

Given the amount of money the program received and the duration of its operation, more significant results might have been expected. Nevertheless, both the successful aspects of its operation (e.g., in developing dialogues with local communities) and its failures (e.g., in communicating program accomplishments through the institutional hierarchy) suggest ways in which efforts like the WCRCP might be reformulated. The


objective of such a reformulation would be to create a network better able to learn or to reflect on its action, and to adjust its efforts and structure accordingly. The ability to develop such a system could be enhanced by the following:

Establishing opportunities at every level of the system that allow the parties involved in an action or decision to perceive themselves as being of equal status vis-A- vis the generation and valuation of knowledge. From this point of view, community members are valid sources of knowledge and not just of information. Likewise, staff members from junior institutions are accepted as having knowledge that is equally valid with respect to the mission of the program as do staff and administrators from senior institutions.

2. Establish service programs within instructional units. Such a location helps administrators and faculty to accept service activities as integral to the instructional mission of their institution.

Encourage program staff to reflect on the consequences of their actions and to examine them in light of their implicit and explicit theories. Just as staff are trained to engage community members in dialogue to help clarify problems, the staff itself must engage in dialogue that openly illuminates problems and common concerns. Staff meetings that focus on mutual evaluation of projects are useful in facilitating such dialogue, but not if staff members feel threatened by the prospect that open discussion will reveal incompetencies.

Award project funding based on the merits of past performance and on the character of proposed activities. In this way, projects involving the development of community dialogue can be recognized and rewarded for their greater complexity and effectiveness.

Encourage reflection at all three levels of the system, and especially at the level of central administration where decisions regarding institutionalization are made. Here external evaluation is useful in engaging administrators in reflection. They are sensitive to the comparative performance of their institution and are more inclined to study their performance if it is being scrutinized by a third party.

Start small. Commencing all program efforts simultaneously compounds the problem of establishing an effective organization capable of reflecting on its own actions. A reverse pattern of foundation funding, which starts small and rewards the system for its successes, might provide better incentives for more effective development.

The WCRCP was flawed by operational problems but, more significantly, it was caught in conflicting conceptual models. This conflict appears to underlie similar social service programs, especially those housed within academic institutions. Despite its limited success, programs like the WCRCP suggest alternative ways of relating community service and the traditional objectives of teaching and research in higher education. In making the underlying models of such programs explicit, it may be possible to design future efforts that will be more effective.

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