History and Background

In 2018, the University of Mississippi unveiled its formal community engagement and municipal partnership program, M Partner. This innovative, collaborative program has sought to match diverse and comprehensive university resources with community goals and needs. Whether those needs relate to health care and education, economic development and policy, marketing and tourism, resiliency, or core government systems, the goal of M Partner is to create substantial and sustainable results that will be viable in the community for decades to come.

The program seeks to marry three aspects of formal community partnerships to create a mutually beneficial relationship in which both the university and the community work together to attain sustainable results. The three lanes of effort include:

• A robust student service-learning component in which students and professors work alongside community members to achieve meaningful results in the community and enhance learning and teaching in the university.
• Research and scholarship fueled by real world challenges and informed by lessons learned from partners at the community level.
• Engagement of university and community leaders to apply best practices and creative problem-solving that will enhance community life and inform university outreach and service activities.

2018 served as a pilot year for M Partner, during which the university partnered with Charleston, Lexington, and New Albany, MS for a period of 18 months. Over 100 projects, classes, and co-curricular activities took place during this pilot phase. After this, M Partner partnered with Pontotoc and Ecru, MS in Pontotoc County. Despite the onset of the pandemic, even more projects were conducted and students engaged than in the pilot phase. As the Grisham-McLean Institute moves towards new partnerships, its values and goals remain steadfast.

In the future, the university will continue to use a competitive selection process to find ideal partner communities. Such partnerships will be secured through a memorandum of understanding between the university and the community following a tailored assessment of the community’s readiness and suitability for a formal partnering arrangement. M Partner is guided by Laura Martin, Ph.D., associate director of the Grisham-McLean Institute for Public Service and Community Engagement and director of M Partner. She can be reached at lemartin@olemiss.edu or (662) 915-2078.

 

M Partner is a member of the Educational Partnerships for Innovation in Communities – Network (EPIC-N), an international network of institutions across the globe who use the EPIC Model to partner existing course work and university human capital with the needs of local governments, and communities, to improve quality of life. Learn more at www.epicn.org.