The University Beyond its Walls: Expectations of Community Leaders

Abstract

This study aimed to assess the community’s perception of the impact of a university, and to contribute to the consolidation of mechanisms that aim to assess the perception of the impact of the university community. To this end, 30 interviews were carried out with community Leaders from different segments of society. The themes involved in the interviews were guided by a conceptual model that considers three types of impact: socioeconomic, scientific-technological and cultural and image of the region. The model also addresses the idea of outputs and inputs of a university. The exits are products and services that universities generate for the community, and the inputs are the demands that a university has from the community. The answers were systematized searching evolving to identify the positive, negative impacts and aspects that the university sees it as the university’s mission. The positive impact highlighted the following aspects: existence of projects, impact on the economy, education available formal status and image of the region associated with the university’s positive actions. The negative impact is related to the connection made to the presence of university with an increase in drug use, loud noise, and disturbance of the peace in addition to the increase in the cost of living and the negative image of the region associated with the facts negative events that occurred at the university. Finally, they highlighted as a mission, the absence of the university in the community, the difficulty of the institution in inserting itself in the local context, the difficulty of carrying out projects, little effectiveness of the means of university communication and little effectiveness of university participation university in municipal bodies and councils.