Sovereign Bank on April 29 signed a partnership with Tufts to support the Talloires Network — an international association of 164 institutions seeking to enhance the civic role of higher education — in an effort to help global higher institutions spread the idea of social responsibility.
The Talloires Network, which has a combined student enrollment of five million, aims to encourage civic engagement in colleges and universities around the world.
Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service Dean Robert Hollister explained that the network's goals are to educate future leaders of change, mobilize faculty and students to pursue projects that foster civic engagement, and implement socially responsible institutional practices.
"[The network] supports academics and policy makers who support civic engagement, as well as funds professional development," Talloires Network Coordinator Elizabeth Babcock said.
The hope is that this collaboration with the bank will facilitate the expansion of the network, for which Tufts serves as secretariat, according to Hollister.
"[The partnership will] provide valuable financial support, but also collaboration in expanding the Talloires Network," Hollister said.
The Talloires Network funds a number of global projects, most notably an Africa Partnerships project that pairs up African universities with universities in the United States and Western Europe.
The partnership with Sovereign Bank, which is part of the Banco Santander group, will increase and strengthen such regional partnerships, Hollister said.
Banco Santander has a Santander Universities Global Division that forms supporting alliances with higher education sectors in Latin America, China and Russia, among other areas.
"The collaboration will specifically help member institutions strengthen regional associations of higher education and fund regional conferences in Latin America and the Middle East," Hollister said.
Babcock added that the bank brings its own web of universities to the network, connecting it to the Santander University system.
"Santander Bank has a lot of partnerships with universities globally," Babcock said.
Funding from the partnership will also go toward supporting the Talloires Network's main core operations, including maintaining its website and sending out a monthly newsletter, according to Babcock.
The recognition that both institutions share a commitment to similar core values guided the formation of this partnership. Babcock noted that both parties have strong humanitarian interests.
The founding conference for the Talloires Network was held in September 2005 at the Tufts University European Center. The conference was the first international gathering of leaders of higher education focusing on civic engagement and social responsibility, according to Hollister.
The conference led to the Talloires Declaration on the Civic Roles and Social Responsibilities of Higher Education. The declaration's signatories commit the institutions they represent to equip students to be socially responsible and to apply the resources of universities to better both local and global communities.
There were initially 29 university presidents from 23 countries in the network; it has now grown to include over 164 universities in 55 countries, which network officials cite as a testament to the program's strength.
"There is a global movement within the higher education sector to support civic and community engagement," Babcock said. "There has been growing momentum, particularly within the past few years."
The global movement toward active citizenship that the Talloires Network supports is both bottom-up and top-down, Hollister said.
"There is an increasing number of university heads exerting dynamic leadership, as well as students with leadership and energy to create social change," he said. "The goal is for the engaged university to replace the ivory tower."
