Student‐community partnerships: advocating community enterprise projects in geography

Abstract

The changing context of higher education has prompted a fundamental rethink of the way in which students learn effectively. Community enterprise projects offer an opportunity for students to develop academic, personal and transferable skills whilst at the same time enabling poorly resourced, not‐for‐profit groups to achieve some of their goals. This partnership creates greater mutual understanding which is likely to have positive immediate and longer term benefits. Examples of community enterprise projects undertaken by geography undergraduates are reviewed to suggest ways of best incorporating community enterprise in geography departments. Whilst not all projects are unproblematic, the lessons which can be learned are instructive in creating a successful programme to strengthen the teaching and learning experience.

Keywords:

• Community enterprise
• transferable skills
• relevance
• citizenship
• assessment