Beyond Reciprocity: An Ecology of Couplings in University–Community Engagement at Chilean State Universities

Universities are often imagined as isolated towers of knowledge, where scholars produce ideas that are then handed down to the rest of society. In recent decades, however, a different vision has taken hold: the idea that universities should work alongside their local communities, solving problems together rather than just delivering solutions. This shift is often called "community engagement." In many places, including Chile, a specific expectation has become central to this work: that the relationship must be reciprocal. This means the flow of help and learning should go both ways, with the community influencing the university just as much as the university influences the community. The challenge for researchers is that while everyone agrees reciprocity sounds good, it is incredibly difficult to see how it actually works inside a massive, complex organization like a university. It is one thing to say two groups are working together; it is another to understand how a university, with its own rules, budgets, and departments, actually makes that two-way street real.

A new study by Diego Verdejo-Cariaga, a researcher at the Universidad de Playa Ancha in Chile, dives into this exact problem. He looked at how Chilean state universities try to put the idea of "reciprocity" into practice. In Chile, this concept is officially called "bidirectionality." The researcher wanted to know how this abstract idea travels through the university's paperwork, its funding systems, its classrooms, and its relationships with local towns. He did not just ask people what they thought reciprocity meant; he asked how they actually used the word to make decisions, how they recorded their work, and how they kept projects going over time. By interviewing twenty-five people, including university managers and professors from four different regional universities, he uncovered a surprising truth: the idea of "two-way" engagement does not stay the same as it moves through the organization. Instead, it changes shape depending on where it is and who is using it.

The study began with a simple observation. In the official documents and policies of these universities, "bidirectionality" is a required standard. To get accreditation or funding, a university project must prove it is not just a one-way street where the university teaches the community. However, when the researcher spoke to the people doing the work, he found that they did not all agree on what the word meant. For a university manager, the term might be a checklist item, a way to categorize a project so it can be counted in a report for the government. For a professor, it might mean changing a lesson plan because a local community member suggested a different approach. For another, it might simply mean listening to a community's needs before designing a project. The researcher found that the word "bidirectionality" is not a fixed rule that everyone follows in the same way. Instead, it is a flexible tool that different people use to solve different problems. Sometimes it helps a university prove it is doing good work; other times, it helps a teacher adjust a course to fit local realities.

To understand how this works, the researcher looked at three specific areas where these relationships get "dense" or concentrated. The first area is the organizational and record-keeping side. Here, the university uses forms and databases to track what is happening. When a professor fills out a form to register a community project, the act of writing it down changes the project. It forces the professor to define the work in specific categories that the university understands, such as "intercultural" or "economic impact." This process makes the work visible to the administration, but it can also limit it. If a project is too messy or unpredictable to fit into the boxes on the form, it might not get registered, even if it is a great partnership. The researcher found that these forms do not just record what happened; they often decide what can happen in the future, because professors know they have to fit their work into these categories to get support.

The second area is the academic and disciplinary side, which happens inside the classrooms and research labs. This is where the actual teaching and learning occur. Here, the idea of reciprocity looks very different. A professor might take a problem raised by a local school and turn it into a research question or a student assignment. In this space, the relationship is less about filling out forms and more about changing how knowledge is created. The researcher found that in these moments, the "two-way" nature of the work is often real and powerful. Students might change their instruments or methods because a community member told them their original idea was wrong. However, the study showed that these changes often stay inside the classroom. They might improve the students' learning, but they do not always get recorded in the official university systems or recognized as part of the university's formal mission.

The third area is the territorial and relational side, which is the actual connection between the university and the community. This is where trust is built over time. The researcher heard stories from professors who said that trust is not built by sending an email or making a single visit. It is built by showing up again and again, even when there is no specific project or funding. This kind of relationship is the most fragile in the eyes of the university system. It relies on personal connections and long-term commitment, which are hard to capture in a spreadsheet. The study found that these relationships often continue even when the official university support stops, or conversely, that a project might look very successful on paper but fail in the community because the trust was never there.

The most important finding of the study is that these three areas do not always work together smoothly. The researcher calls this an "ecology of couplings." Imagine a system where different parts are connected, but sometimes they pull in different directions. A project might be very strong in the community (the territorial side) and very strong in the classroom (the academic side), but if it does not fit the university's registration system (the organizational side), it might not get the funding or time it needs to survive. The study showed that a project can be highly visible to the university administration but weak in its actual relationship with the community. Or, a project can have a deep, lasting impact on a town but remain invisible to the university because it was never properly recorded. The success of the work depends on how well these different parts are linked. If the connections are broken, the project might fail, not because the idea was bad, but because the different parts of the university were not working together.

The researcher argues that we should stop looking for a single, perfect definition of reciprocity. Instead, we should look at how these different parts of the university connect. The study suggests that the problem is not that universities are failing to be reciprocal. The problem is that the different systems within the university—how they record things, how they teach, and how they build relationships—often operate on different schedules and with different rules. A funding deadline might force a professor to rush a project, which breaks the trust needed to build a real relationship with a community. A registration form might force a professor to simplify a complex problem, which makes it harder to teach students how to deal with real-world messiness.

This research changes how we should think about university engagement. It suggests that simply having a policy that says "we must be reciprocal" is not enough. The real work happens in the connections between the different parts of the organization. If a university wants to support community engagement, it needs to look at how its forms, its funding, and its teaching schedules fit together. It needs to make sure that the things that happen in the classroom and the community are recognized and supported by the administration. The study does not say that the current system is broken, but it does show that the system is complex and that the idea of "two-way" engagement is not a simple switch that can be turned on. It is a living thing that grows or shrinks depending on how the different parts of the university support it.

In the end, the study offers a new way to look at the relationship between universities and society. It moves away from asking "are they being reciprocal?" and starts asking "how are the different parts of the university connected?" The answer is that the strength of the relationship depends on the links between the paperwork, the classroom, and the community. When these links are strong, the university can truly work with its community. When they are weak, the university might look like it is doing great work on paper, while the actual relationships on the ground struggle to survive. This insight helps explain why some projects succeed and others fail, not because of the people involved, but because of how the organization is put together. It is a reminder that for a university to truly engage with its community, it must first learn to engage with itself.