Building upon early definitions of collective impact, the special issue is dedicated to exploring the phenomenon and practice of collective impact to promote social change, specifically from the perspective of universities.

Guest Editor: Joe Allen, PhD, University of Nebraska Omaha

While a 21st century education provides exceptional benefits, it can also present challenges. An increasingly diverse student population coming from complex societies coupled with tightening of resources leave universities from across the country asking, “How can we better meet the needs of our students?” Peer mentoring is a remedy for schools lacking sufficient external resources to support student bodies that are increasingly diverse and complex in educational needs.

Guest Editor: Peter Collier, PhD, Portland State University

At the height of pre-election anxieties and amid conversation among faculty and higher education administrators about how post-election policies would impact the efforts of higher education, the 2016 Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities (CUMU) held its annual meeting in Washington DC. Focused, as always, on higher education and community engagement, the 2016 conference gave particular emphasis to future needs and issues. These conversations are especially critical now, as urban and metropolitan institutions, regardless of type or size, increasingly face new social justice challenges both on their campus and in their local communities. These societal and structural disparities range from access to services due to rising costs of living to the impact of the national tone of racial and citizenship inequities that continue to deeply divide our nation.

Guest Editor: Mary Ann Villarreal, PhD, California State University, Fullerton

This issue of Metropolitan Universities journal illustrates how urban universities lead and contribute to food system teaching and learning; research and innovation; outreach and engagement; and resource stewardship. Common themes emerging in this issue include the essential approach of collaboration; the value of diverse voices and perspectives; the influence of distinct urban contexts; and the complexity of food security and other system issues.

Guest Editor: Julie M. Fox, PhD, The Ohio State University

Engaging with communities to focus on urban issues represents one way that higher education institutions are transforming into the 21st century. The Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities (CUMU) member institutions have made intentional and innovative investments in place-based and shared learning spaces. There is growing attention to the role that physical and practical spaces plays in our interactions with communities, particularly as we work to deepen those interactions and search for effective approaches to urban opportunities and challenges. Understanding how we share space calls attention to (and aids in moving away from) transactional or episodic work toward sustained work with measurable results. And, our institutions have both distinctive and common approaches in our design, purpose and operations of spaces intended to enhance shared work and interaction between campus and communities.

The articles crafted for this issue on shared spaces describe the structure, operations and funding for multiple ways of approaching the idea of shared space for shared work. In addition, those who contributed their stories have reflected deeply on impacts, successes, and challenges.

Guest Editor: Heidi Lasley Barajas, PhD, University of Minnesota

This special issue of Metropolitan Universities aims to examine institutional approaches to the recognition of community-engaged scholarship in faculty RPT policies and processes. The papers that comprise this volume provide a snapshot of policies, practices, and strategies for achieving change across a range of institutions. In the first three papers, we see efforts focused at a different organizational levels and institutional types: college (within a large comprehensive university), university (within a doctoral granting, research-intensive university), and the system (within a large state university system). In each of these cases, authors address both the need to change and align policies, and the need for culture change to support implementation.

Guest Editor: Claire C. Cavallaro, PhD, California State University, Fullerton

The theme for the 2015 CUMU Annual Conference in Omaha, NE was “Love of Place: The Metropolitan University Advantage”.  This theme celebrates the identity of metropolitan universities as places where opportunities for students, faculty, and the community are realized and achieved. Specifically, the notion of stewardship is essential to the theme and promotes the general identity that metropolitan universities care for the communities they dwell in and seek to lift those they serve in the community. This special issue of the Metropolitan Universities Journal provides an overview of the stewardship displayed at the Omaha conference and includes articles from many faculty and staff members making this work happen every day at their respective institutions.

Guest Editors: Joseph A. Allen, PhD; Kelly A. Prange, PhD; Deborah Smith-Howell, PhD; Sara Woods, PhD; and B. J. Reed, PhD; University of Nebraska at Omaha