Rita A. Hodges is Assistant Director of the Barbara and Edward Netter Center for Community Partnerships at the University of Pennsylvania. Hodges supports all aspects of the Center’s mission and operations to improve the quality of life in the community while simultaneously advancing research, teaching, learning, and service at the University. Her writing and doctoral research has focused on the democratic engagement of colleges and universities as anchor institutions. She is co-author of two books: The Road Half Traveled: University Engagement at a Crossroads (2012, with Steve Dubb); and Knowledge for Social Change: Bacon, Dewey and the Revolutionary Transformation of Research Universities in the Twenty-First Century (2017, with Lee Benson, Ira Harkavy, John Puckett, Matthew Hartley, Francis E. Johnston, and Joann Weeks).