Josh Carpenter is the Director of the newly formed Department of Innovation and Economic Opportunity for the City of Birmingham. Formerly, Josh was Director of External Affairs in the Office of the President at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), where he worked on strategic projects at the intersection of community engagement and economic development.

This interview is part of the Aspen Institute Center for Urban Innovation’s series of conversations with inclusive innovation practitioners.

Jennifer Bradley:  How do you define civic engagement?

Josh Carpenter: We define civic engagement as a university as meaningful and mutually beneficial contributions to the public good.  What’s most important to us is this notion of mutually beneficial.  Particularly for institutions of higher education, there is the serious task of closing the power distance between the institution and the people that we often serve.

JB:  Say a little bit more about how you need the community.

JC:  As an academic research university, we have to find solutions to issues like high obesity and diabetes rates, but we can only do studies with the people who actually are experiencing them.  They work with our physicians and we work with them to understand what might be affecting that over time.

JB:  Why does civic engagement matter?

Civic engagement is important because ultimately it’s the best version of every single person in the community.  Most people just want to be known and understood more effectively, and engaging with other people often allows us to learn things we didn’t know.

We can live in these customized communities that have allowed us to be around people who look, and feel, and act like us.  That’s not living a fulfilled or complete life in my view.

Read the full interview with Josh Carpenter about the importance of civic engagement by Jennifer Bradley at The Aspen Institute.