Directors' Reflections

When UNP was created we did not realize how powerful and transformative the idea of valuing people’s strengths and investing in long-term relationships would be. The idea that University and community partners would work as equals around the table, to learn from each other and ask better questions and find better solutions, was energizing and complicated; a puzzle that looked different every day.

The best solutions come from having multiple perspectives around the table and, for UNP, the best way to lead is in some sense by stepping back, since it is by stepping back that you can best appreciate the talents of others. We see what happens to people when they realize that they have something important to contribute and when they are involved in an enterprise that says, “Yes! Let’s try!” even when so many things around us seem fixed and unchangeable. This is as true in the neighborhoods as in higher education. Neighbors are transformed into leaders; ideas into fledgling organizations; advocates into City Council members; students into mentors; individual faculty into teams; everyone into both teachers and learners.

~ Sarah Munro, Director 2015 - present

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Open Thy Heart

By Rosey Hunter

Open your Heart
Concentrate, visualize your heart opening
Feel it now, let go and in doing so,
feel it flow in abundance
Focus now; allow it to open, to stay open

One more time, you must practice it and physically feel it
Yes, it hurts at first – it is the intensity that you feel
Open your Heart…softly now, it is safe, completely now
– there is no other way
Open your heart and let in the love

The magic of UNP is “the people”…all the way back to the beginning…to President Bernie Machen, Dave Pershing, Lorris Betz, Fred Esplin, and Irene…who were and still are committed to centering and serving communities. They may all talk about it differently, but they were the Dream Team that came together and were dedicated, persistent and sincere. Then it begins…the amazing UNP staff, the people in the agencies, the families, the schools, the children, the grassroots movements, the folks in coffee houses, restaurants, grocery stores... and all the U folks who are engaged. It is about people who share common values about what is needed for healthy, thriving communities and spaces of justice. So, UNP began its work from a framework of justice, learning, and love…and that is magic and it continues today. It is difficult to convey all that is UNP in a few paragraphs. So, instead, I will use some creative license and share a poem as my expression of the essence of UNP.

~ Rosemarie Hunter, Director 2006 - 2015

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It all began in 2001, after several conversations with then U of U President Bernie Machen. I started work with a very general charge to create a partnership between the University and west Salt Lake City neighborhoods. We envisioned a future in which more and more west side youth would pursue higher education. We envisioned U of U participants – faculty, staff, students – working with west Salt Lake – schools, non-profits, community councils, residents – to address social issues that impacted these neighborhoods. We envisioned U of U and neighborhood partnerships that would help lead. At the formal opening of University Neighborhood Partners I remember President Machen making the statement that, “these neighborhoods represent the future of Salt Lake City.” As a participant in the birth of the friendships, the partnerships, the programs facilitated through UNP, I have come to see the strength and the accuracy of President Machen’s words. Together, people who have spent their entire lives in west Salt Lake, and others who have come from across the globe, are building a shared future that focuses on the best for their children and, in the process, they are a living example of “a community coming together.”

~ Irene Fisher, Founding Director 2001-2006