Community innovation and small liberal arts colleges: lessons learned from local partnerships and sustainable community development

Rapid Community Innovation: a Small Urban Liberal Arts Community Response to COVID-19

“…During the climb, local colleges and universities were cited as sources of economic recovery and resilience, especially for small to mid-size cities (Bach 2019 ; Davis 2016 ). In terms of social and community resilience, college towns have served as anchor institutions for many municipalities, their constituents, and their enterprises (i.e., nonprofit, public, among others) to collectively work towards enhancing community well-being (Talmage et al 2020a ).…”

“…The large exogenous shift caused by COVID-19 has shocked communities both socially and economically, and this crisis has required rapid innovation. Colleges and universities can serve as hubs for localized community innovation aimed towards enriching community well-being (Talmage et al 2019 , 2020a , b ). These innovations need not be aimed at large radical social change; they can be meaningfully small in scale (Talmage et al 2020b ).…”

“…However, more progress is needed. Local children and youth also have improved in regard to summer learning and social well-being, which will indirectly have lasting positive impacts on local well-being (Geneva 2030 2019 ; Talmage et al 2020a , b ).…”