Community resilience is facing Its greatest threat, and colleges are helping | Opinion – pennlive.com

Throughout history, the nations colleges and universities have set the foundation for innovation and social change. Weve uncovered the secrets of DNA. Weve unleashed bioengineering. We have harnessed intellectual power to create new technologyoften through the partnerships between land grant colleges and local industries and agriculturebringing the latest science to where it was needed. And we have done it all while demanding intellectual rigor and a sharp focus on the common good for society.

At Boston University, the Center for Regenerative Medicine at BUs Medical Center, alerted by colleagues at the University of Washington in Seattle, coordinated with MITs Broad Institute as well as Harvard to produce a test for the virus with a turn around time of within 24 hours. More than 50 volunteered in this round the clock effort. Testing is now underway. Rutgers University has launched its own virus testing program. Its RUCDR Infinite Biologicsa part of the Universitys Human Genetics Institute of New Jerseyis now capable of testing tens of thousands.

Tiny Bay Mills Community College, a Michigan tribal college of fewer than 500 students, has used 3-D technology to design and now produce 1,000 face masks for first responders every week.

Institutions of higher education, large and small, can and do play a significant role in serving our country and our world at this critical moment in history. But our work starts at home. Whats required is a community approach, as local areas are impacted in distinct ways while this crisis unfolds.

I learned the power of community response to overwhelming challenges at the American University of Nigeria. I served there as president when Boko Haram began to surge near the campus and federal assistance was nowhere to be found. The university brought the community together and kept the terrorist group at bay and fed refugees.

Drawing on that experience, when I arrived at Dickinson three years ago, I immediately began to gather with community members to identify their most pressing issues and to connect them with college resources. What started out as a dozen people has now grown to more than 50 representing nearly every sectornonprofits, school districts, health care, government and business. We are meeting remotely in the age of COVID-19, but the relationships we have built have allowed us to respond quickly in a coordinated manner to the communitys growing needs.

Working with Carlisle Borough, the Chamber of Commerce and Community CARES partnered to convert the Stuart Community Center into a shelter for the homeless. UPMC Carlisle anticipated a potential need for housing and shelter for its exhausted medical workers; Dickinson stepped up and agreed to make space available in our vacated residence halls. Local businesses needed an online presence to offer goods and services, but lacked the know-how; Dickinson students are developing e-commerce websites for those businesses. Our organic farm is supplying much-needed fresh produce for the community.

Colleges areand should beat the epicenter of community responses to COVID. They can and should be the assembly point for community action. Its imperative that colleges start building or strengthening relationships with leaders in their communities now, to help in recovery and before the next crisis or disaster occurs.

When students return to class, they will return to communities that have changed in myriad ways. The old ideas, approaches and leadership simply wont do. Our students and young people are the ones we will need to help us with the necessary reconstruction. Those students will rely on the knowledge and problem-solving skills our institutions of higher learning should be providing.

In these difficult times, the country must demand much of its colleges and universities. Communities must know that we are in the trenches with you, and that we are all of us prepared to do more. When students return to our campuses we should work together to build a program of national service. This is how we will rebuild America and prepare the next generation for more unprecedented challenges.

Margee M. Ensign is president of Dickinson College, in Carlisle. Previously, Ensign served as president of the American University of Nigeria, where she developed aid and relief programs for hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people fleeing Boko Haram.

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Community resilience is facing Its greatest threat, and colleges are helping | Opinion - pennlive.com