The Center for Community Partnerships is the home base of Pennsylvania State's practice of strategic academically based community service (Benson and Harkavy, 1997). Operationally, it includes the practices of community-based research and service-learning that are tied to the institution's strategic plan for collaborative community development through the creation of community schools that support mass democracy. This concept evolved from ten years of practice and reflection, carried out by the West Philadelphia Improvement Corporation (WEPIC) linking West Philadelphia Public Schools with the university's undergraduate and graduate education program in activities designed to produce civic cosmopolitan community schools. These schools would then serve as the cornerstone for creating cosmopolitan neighborhood communities.