Funny, This Does Not Look Like a Community: Working Collaboratively Across Borders and Institutions

Abstract

I think our collaboration gave me wings and helped me achieve things that I wouldn't have done by myself. Anne The term learning community (LC) could conjure up one of the following images: a group of faculty gathered in an office developing a new program; a team of teachers sitting around a table in the library working on a school-wide initiative; a cohort of students celebrating the end of their program; or a research team huddled over transcripts, discussing their coding categories. Common to all of these images is a physical closeness of the participants. In this chapter, we present our LC, affectionately named Best Friends, where the four participants, Clive, Anne, Anastasia, and Clare, are separated by thousands of miles, at times, working in four different universities, and only meeting once or twice a year. Are we still a com-munity? We would answer with a resounding, yes! But the unusual arrangement raises questions: Has distance limited our collaborative efforts? How did we overcome the problems of distance? Did communicating mainly by e-mail, create ten-sions? In general, how were tensions resolved? This chapter aims to respond to these questions, and many others, by describing the ways our tiny community has thrived and the impact of the long-term collaboration.