Dear PB

Dear PB

Honest conversations about partnership and practice

Welcome to Dear PB, a reflection and advice series grounded in real-world experiences at the intersection of community engagement, research, and public health practice. These letters are inspired by common tensions, questions, and lived experiences shared by faculty, staff, students, and community partners working in health-focused community–academic partnerships. Each story is a composite—drawn from patterns, not people—to protect relationships while naming the realities of this work. This space is meant to be honest, reflective, and practical. Community-engaged work has the potential to improve health and strengthen communities—but it also requires navigating complexity, misalignment, and the often invisible labor of building and sustaining partnerships.

About the Author

Priscilla Barnes, PhD, MPH is a community-engaged researcher and pracademic who works at the intersection of community and academia. She is the founding director of the Center for Community-Engaged Dissemination and Implementation Research (CCEDIR) at Indiana University and focuses on building health-focused community–academic partnerships that improve population health.

Dear PB,

I feel like I’m the only one doing all the work to keep this community–academic partnership going, particularly in health-focused work where we’re trying to improve programs and outcomes in real time. I’m an assistant professor and deeply committed to grounding my work in community voice—whether that’s CBPR or something close to it. At the same time, I’m trying to meet the expectations of tenure. Between constant emails and scheduling with academic partners and my community lead, and managing a full teaching load, I’m starting to feel like I can’t keep up. I care about this work and don’t want everything to fall apart—but I’m stretched thin. Everyone says they’re interested in what I’m doing, but it doesn’t feel that way in practice. Is this normal?

— Carrying Too Much  

Dear "Carrying too Much,"

What you’re describing is more common than people admit - especially for early-career faculty trying to do community-engaged scholarship with integrity.

This is especially true in health-focused community–academic partnerships, where the work often involves real-time coordination, service delivery, and responsiveness to community needs.

You’re holding multiple systems at once: community relationships, academic expectations, teaching, and the invisible labor of coordination. And often, those systems are not aligned in how they value your time.

So yes - this can be normal.  
But that doesn’t mean it’s sustainable.

Here’s the tension: community-engaged scholarship requires trust, relationships, and a team. Academia often rewards outputs, timelines, and individual productivity. When those collide, someone ends up carrying more than their share - and it’s often the person most committed to doing the work right.

So what can you do?

Think about building a team that can help you broker two things:

  • Community-facing support (relationships, trust, capacity)  
    • You don’t have to hold this alone. If your partners are interested, consider bringing them into your teaching. A community-engaged course can create alignment between your classroom, your scholarship, and your partnership. Your commnity partner becomes more than a collaborator - they become a co-educator and a bridge between knowledge and practice.
    • Students can:
      • Work on real projects that support your partner’s programs or strategic goals
      • Help generate content or products that benefit both your research and the organization
      • See firsthand how what they learn applies in real-world settings 
  • Academic-facing support (tenure, writing, positioning your work)  
    • You also need people who understand how to translate this work into what academia values.
    • This might look like:
      • Identifying a tenured faculty member who can mentor you or serve as a co-PI 
      • Finding collaborators who can support writing, grants, or framing your work for publication 
      • Connecting with centers or programs focused on community-engaged scholarship 

You are doing rigorous work—but it needs to be seen, named, and documented in ways that align with promotion and tenure expectations.

And finally, narrow your focus.

What are the top three things you want to move forward in the next 90–120 days?  Not everything—just three.That level of clarity can help shift this from overwhelming to actionable.

You are not failing the work.  

You are seeing it clearly.

Closing thought:  

If the partnership depends on you doing everything, it’s worth asking whether it’s truly a partnership—and whether you have the team in place to sustain both the work and the health impact you’re working toward.

— PB

How to Submit a Letter

Have a question, tension, or experience navigating community–academic partnerships in health? We welcome submissions from faculty, staff, students, and community partners. Send your “Dear PB” letters to ccedir@iu.edu. Submissions may be featured in future columns and will be adapted to protect confidentiality.
**Disclaimer: These letters are based on composite experiences across multiple community–academic partnerships. Details have been adapted to protect individuals and organizations.