Community Engagement and University Extension in Latin American Universities: New Paths between Legacy and Invention

Fall 2024 Harry ’51 and Joshua ’49 Tsujimoto Perspectives in Global Development Seminar Series

Abstract

In recent years, university extension and civic/community engagement of universities have aroused a growing interest in higher education research, from different theoretical-perspectives and methodological approaches. In Latin America, this has gone hand in hand with a new cycle of university extension and community engagement policies and practices, which recreate, and also strain, the historical legacy of political and social engagement of universities in this region. 

This presentation will place these experiences in the historical process of university extension and community engagement in Latin America, trying to broaden the framework of analysis. First, Agustín Cano Menoni will try to clarify community engagement as a problem of pedagogical study, which requires attention to the educational traditions that sustain it, the pedagogical subjects it builds, and the epistemological dimension of the relations it establishes with the production of knowledge. The presentation will also discuss community engagement as a “borderline concept” between university and society, which requires understanding its overdetermined relations with other fields such as cultural, economic, historical, etc. Finally, it is also necessary to pay attention to the political dimension of extension. This presentation will interpret its conceptual polysemy not as a negative feature, but as an expression of disputes, antagonisms and articulations between different political-pedagogical perspectives.

About the speaker

Agustín Cano Menoni is a professor at Universidad de la República (Udelar), the main public university of Uruguay. He is currently a Visiting Professor with the Polson Institute for Global Development at Cornell University.

In Uruguay, He works in the Institute of Education (School of Humanities and Education) and in the “Programa Integral Metropolitano”, an Udelar engagement program in Montevideo. Between 2008 and 2011 he served as coordinator of the Department of University Extension Projects of the Central Extension Service of Udelar. He is a Level I researcher in the National System of Researchers of the uruguayan “Agencia Nacional de Investigación e Innovación”. He is currently a member of the editorial board of several academic journals in Uruguay and Argentina dedicated to university engagement topics. His academic work is located in the field of education, with emphasis on higher education, and in particular on the subject of community engagement and university-society relations. His work has sought to articulate both a sociological and a pedagogical perspective. 

He has coordinated or participated in comparative research projects on community engagement and outreach policies of universities in the region, in research on the pedagogical dimension of university engagement, in systematizations of experiences, and in historical studies on Latin American extension. On these topics he has researched, published, cooperated and taught in undergraduate and graduate courses in Uruguay as well as in universities of Argentina, Chile, Brasil, Panama, Mexico and USA. He has also organized academic events both nationally and internationally, and has written books, chapters and scientific articles in academic journals. In addition to the purposes linked to the creation of knowledge, his work has also sought to contribute to the construction of pedagogical alternatives in higher education, particularly from his work at the “Programa Integral Metropolitano” of UdelaR. From this program, he has promoted interdisciplinary and intersectorial research, teaching and community engagement processes, aimed at strengthening educational communities and their capacity to respond to the problems and challenges they face. Dr. Cano received BS in Psychology from the Udelar - Uruguay (2007), MA in Social Projects from Lumsa Università di Roma – Italy (2007) and PhD in Pedagogy from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México – UNAM (2017).

About the seminar series

The Harry ’51 & Joshua ’49 Tsujimoto Perspectives in Global Development Seminar Series showcases innovative approaches to development with experts from around the globe. Each year, the series attracts online registrants from over 45 countries and more than 350 organizations. 

Seminars are held Wednesdays from 12:20-1:10 p.m. eastern time during the semester in 175 Warren Hall. Students, faculty and the general public are welcome to attend in-person or via Zoom.

The series is co-sponsored by the Department of Global Development, the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, and the School of Integrative Plant Science as part of courses GDEV 4961, AEM 4961, NTRES 4961, GDEV 6960, AEM 6960, and NTRES 6960.