Achieving mutually beneficial social interactions within culturally and racially diverse communities is a challenge. The Christiansburg Institute will construct ways to contribute to meeting this challenge as a permeating theme in all of its work. Specific program strategies and activities have been undertaken that aim to provide clear-cut indicators of effectiveness. One goal of community building is to bring diverse members of the community together in ways which are both rare and previously not experienced. Three routes will be taken to heighten communication and mutual learning among diverse peoples.
At left: Christiansburg Institute had a long tradition of community building. A program to train black teachers began with the establishment of summer teachers' institutes held on campus annually, Christiansburg Institute Collection.

Partnerships will be sought and formed that bring CII into long term relationships (3 to 10 years) with public and private organizations, those which define the range of interaction among community residents. Partnerships will focus on unmet community needs and capacity building in order to meet such needs. Mutuality in goals and gains, the cornerstone of the partnerships, will strengthen the partners as well as the community.
At left: Curator Anna Fariello meets with Executive Director Elaine Dowe Carter and Virginia Tech professor Peter Wallenstein to plan traveling exhibition "A Century of Contribution.", Christiansburg Institute Collection.

Collaborations -- again emphasizing mutuality -- will be short-term program ventures to address specific community and organization goals wherein the collaborating parties share the aim of community building. Examples of such collaborations are Radford and Virginia Tech universities service learning programs, Virginia Tech graduate school classes, the U.S. Agricultural Extension Service and 4-H clubs, Christiansburg Middle School, and college student groups, such as Theta Delta Chi, and the National Society for Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources and Related Sciences (MANNRS).
At left: John Kern, Dept. of Historic Resources (left) and CI Executive Director work with students from the Community Design Assistance Center to plan memorial garden, Christiansburg Institute Collection.

Community Involvement is the process in which CII includes an ever-widening range of informal community organizations and individuals within its program as service volunteers and program participants. This building will be achieved through door-to-door contacts, meetings, focus groups, targeted advertising (actual and virtual), word-of-mouth and other connection building tactics. To date, CII has involved over 100 local residents in focus groups aimed to provide direction for its initial Learning Center program offerings. It has consistently engaged groups and audiences with higher proportions of diversity than is characteristic of such gatherings in local areas.
At left: Melissa Matusevich, instructional supervisor for Montgomery County Public Schools, leads a teacher in-service training to explore curriculum opportunities using local history, Christiansburg Institute Collection.