The big challenges facing us today require widespread collaboration. No one group or institution or country can solve them alone. At the same time, we’re seeing trends away from collaboration toward increasing isolation, loneliness, and division. Our social lives are becoming more fragmented. There’s been a resurgence of political rhetoric arguing that those who don’t live, or believe, or look like us are something less than human.
Fortunately, wherever there are people putting up a wall between “us” and “them,” you’ll find someone else trying to break it down.
Partnership Work is a podcast about the art and science of collaboration. What does it take to reach across the walls that divide us and get people working together to improve our world? Host Paul Kuttner explores this question through in-depth conversations with people who are out there doing the day-to-day work of building coalitions, partnerships, and alliances, as well as those who study and write about it.
Here at Partnership Work, we’re building a hub of knowledge, philosophy, and practical wisdom. We’re offering hope, but not with rose-tinted glasses. Rather, we’re putting a spotlight on the slow, challenging, often invisible work of human connection.
Meet the Team
Paul Kuttner, Host
I am all about partnerships. I direct the Center for Education Partnerships and the Tsongas Industrial History Center at University of Massachusetts Lowell. Prior to this, I served as Director of Partnerships at the nonprofit organization Community-Campus Partnerships for Health and Associate Director at University Neighborhood Partners at the University of Utah. I also research and write about partnership work and community engagement. You can find many of my publications here. I live in the Boston area with my family.
Charisse Iglesias, Substack Editor
I create shared educational spaces to expand the depths and intersections of our lived experiences, and I enjoy writing about the processes for creating those spaces with and for other education-minded practitioners.