Public Engagement

This is part 2 of Karen Buhr's report on Civic Engagement in Graduate Education - Departments. Part 1 was posted yesterday.

Require an alternative format or press release for every thesis

Make your students think critically. Presenting their thesis or dissertation to a alternative audience like a high school class forces them to think differently about their chosen field and helps develop their ability to communicate with various people. It may also help recruit new students into your field.

Requiring a press release accomplishes similar objectives but also increases the visibility of the university, your department and your research in the community. Give the press release to both the local papers and the campus newspaper. Many press releases will not result in articles, but those that do are powerful tools to making your research more visible.

Incorporate civic engagement into tenure/ promotion requirements

While academics, teaching, and community engagement are seen as the three pillars of good professorship, few schools encourage civic engagement in promotions and tenure decisions. Without promotion incentive, few academics devote resources to civic engagement. However, with incentive they may find their research is a natural fit with community issues. Encouraging civic engagement may not take much time away from other pursuits but will provide valuable experience to your students and faculty and will help develop more meaningful relationships with the community you serve.

Civic engagement is particularly important in fields where research and theory often follow practice. By getting more engaged in the community, your professors will gain information that helps develop new ideas and they will be more informed about the value of their research to the community. After all, making a difference is the reason we chose the fields we love.

Provide department grants for student engagement

Offer students the opportunity to improve their program in ways they feel are important. Give small grants for social opportunities, community building, development of the field, and events that cross disciplinary lines. Even in tough economic times departments can usually find a couple of hundred dollars. Offer this money to students to make their programs and their communities more valuable. They may surprise you with the ideas they create, but they will certainly become more involved in their community.

Involve students with every department committee

Departments sometimes forget or don’t feel comfortable placing students on administrative committees, but students can provide a perspective not held by professors or administration. Put student representation on every appropriate administrative committee. Examples include:
* curriculum committees
* hiring or search committees
* accreditation visits
* visiting dignitaries
* grievance committees

Use students for recruiting into the profession

Part of civic engagement is engaging with your profession by bringing up the next generation of professionals. Grad students can be excellent for recruiting new students.
Have them present their thesis or the benefits of working in your field to high school classrooms. Most high school classes would love to hear about opportunities that await them after graduation.

Grad students can team with admissions office staff to attend high school presentations or recruiting fairs. The expertise of someone within the field can greatly enhance the effectiveness of recruiting efforts. Contact the admissions office to find out how they can help.

Your students may have other great ideas for recruiting students. Give them a chance and they may surprise you with their ingenuity.

Provide staff meetings for TAs/RAs/GAs

It’s difficult to be a Teaching Assistant, Research Assistant or Graduate Assistant. Juggling difficult professors, teaching, students and projects makes the work challenging. Most are given little or no training, which is particularly daunting when students are teaching for the first time. Some departments have found TA/ RA/ GA staff meetings to be helpful. Students have a chance to share ideas, gain strategies for difficult situations, and begin to build networks. It will make them better students and better teachers.

Posted by Victor Bloomfield at 9:57 PM | Permalink

Karen Buhr, last year's President of the University of Minnesota's Graduate and Professional Student Association (GAPSA) has done a study—supported by the Office for Public Engagement—of the ways departments can encourage the civic engagement of their graduate students, and how students can enhance their own engagement.

Civic engagement, in Karen's view (and in mine) means not just connections with the broader world outside the university. It also means active involvement with the university community itself. The University of Minnesota-Twin Cities has approximately 50,000 students, of whom about 15,000 are graduate or professional students, about 3,000 faculty, and perhaps 12,000 other employees. Thus we are, in ourselves, a medium-sized city of about 65,000 "citizens". Although our social and political organizations are different from "regular" cities, we struggle with many of the same issues: building friendships and communities, debating policies and resource allocations, providing services both economically and sensitively, recognizing difference and diversity, and interacting with the broader society.

Over the next several days, this blog will present Karen Buhr's study in serial fashion, beginning with the departmental perspective. I think it's a valuable collection of ideas about how universities and their graduate and professional students might go about about integrating public engagement into their regular activities, for education and for life.

Departments at the U are increasingly recognizing the importance of civic engagement to their graduate students. By becoming more civically engaged students receive a more holistic education and are better prepared for the challenging workplaces they will soon face. Departments often feel it is difficult to become more civically engaged because they do not have enough time or money. The good news is that there are a lot of simple ways you can get your students more engaged with their program, department, school, university and community that do not cost a lot of money.

Civic engagement is all about building links. Those links may be into the community, within your department or between undergraduate and graduate students. Find ways to build the links of community that help build a stronger university.

Below are some low cost, low time commitment suggestions to get your graduate students more engaged:

Got graduate students? Involve students in all research opportunities and special programs

Applying for a research grant? Do not forget the graduate students. Grad students can add breadth to your research and will greatly appreciate the opportunity to get more involved in “real research.� In addition they serve as powerful role models for undergraduate students. Involving both undergraduate and graduate students in research projects increases the opportunity for mentorship and will provide a valuable experience for both students. Give them the opportunity to get involved by including them in your projects, they will thank you for it later.

Involve students in summer programs

Many departments offer summer programs designed to recruit potential students into their discipline. Graduate students can be an essential component of any summer program. They can serve as knowledgeable assistants, role models, powerful advocates for the profession and the program, and will gain valuable experience that will help them in their future profession.

Some departments offer professional development courses for the community. Grad students can be powerful assets to these programs as well. In addition to the advantages listed above, students can help your department build ties into the community and will make important contacts that may help them find employment upon graduation.

When the media calls, do not forget your graduate students

Press events often pop up at the last minute and professors are often too busy to organize student participation. However, gaining experience in media relations is valuable for every graduate student. When the news team calls, remember your students.

Actively connecting your research to the community through the media is also important. Community significance is what puts a friendly face on the U and shows our value to the community. Put an interesting spin on your research and write a press release. Or better yet, have your graduate students write the press release. Give the world a chance to see what you are working on and why it is important.

To be continued...

Posted by Victor Bloomfield at 6:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Summer, 2006 issue of Continuum, the magazine of the University of Minnesota Libraries, has "Reaching Out" as its theme. The introductory editorial by Wendy Pradt Lougee, the University Librarian, is entitled "The Engaged Library", describes the threefold mission: "We serve and support the learning of our students, faculty, and staff. We make our resources available to local, state, and global audiences. And we have an unwavering commitment to freedom of inquiry, bringing our collections and expertise to bear in helping individuals identify information they need for research or personal study."

Three articles elaborate the theme. The first describes MINITEX, "an Internet-based lending hub allowing patrons from a collaborative of nearly 300 libraries in Minnesota and North and South Dakota to choose from over 33 million titles in the region's libraries, to be delivered to their neighborhood or school library in an average of 48 to 72 hours."

The second article, "Libraries as Free Spaces" by Harry Boyte, considers libraries as creators of social capital, located in particular places within communities. On the West Side of Saint Paul, Boyte writes, "Riverside Library is a partner in the Neighborhood Learning Community (NLC), a neighborhood-wide collaboration which is about the reintegration of children's education into the life of a place and its relationships. It seeks to involve the whole community in creating a 'culture of learning'."

The third article, "Going Far by Going Local", describes a project by Linda Watson, Director of Health Science Libraries at the University of Minnesota, to develop a resource called "My Health Minnesota -> Go Local". It will build on MedlinePlus, "a health information website operated by the National Library of Medicine" and augment it with MedlinePlus Go Local, a "state-specific companion site that catalogs all the health resources in each state." Thirteen states already have Go Local sites, and Minnesota hopes to be the next.

There's also an article on the Institute for Early Career Librarians, "which provides a weeklong intensive developmental experience for minority librarians in the first three years of their professional careers, focusing on leadership, grantwriting, program assessment and evaluation, and creating a peer network. The Institute, which meets every other year, draws participants from across the country.

Far from being made obsolete by the Internet, libraries continue to serve vital community and societal functions.

Posted by Victor Bloomfield at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sunday's (August 26, 2006) StarTribune has an article about a new, free, online class about finances for the parents of students at the University of Minnesota. The idea is to give parents the tools to communicate more effectively with their off-to-college children about credit card debt, balancing a checkbook, gambling, and related topics.

This course follows one on the risks of binge drinking, and will be followed by others on sex and sexuality and on spirituality. It was developed by Marjorie Savage, director of the University Parent Program , and Jodi Dworkin, an assistant professor of Family Social Science who studies risky adolescent behavior.

Innovations such as this are important but not widely recognized contributions to the public engagement activities of colleges and universities: connecting the public (parents and students) to the realities of life on campus, with the goal of fostering responsible behavior and a more successful educational experience.

Posted by Victor Bloomfield at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A new corporation is being formed by three University of Minnesota faculty members, aided by the U's Office for Business Development (OBD), to commercialize software they developed that helps pharmacists manage drug therapies for patients.

According to the press release "The software, called the Assurance Pharmaceutical Care Systemâ„¢, helps pharmacists manage patients who take multiple medications and have multiple chronic conditions. The software allows pharmacists to develop care plans for each patient, create and manage patient-specific outcomes and personalize reports for healthcare patients and providers."

It goes on to note: "This spring, the Minnesota Legislature passed a law that requires new approaches to manage the effective use of medications, recognizes trained pharmacists as health care practitioners and allows Medicaid users to receive pharmaceutical care services through a reimbursement system. The Assurance System meets these requirements..."

Technology transfer is one of the important aspects of public engagement by universities, and this seems like a paradigmatic example. Faculty recognize a practical need—defined by community practitioners and government— that can be served by their expertise, do the R&D to turn it into a potentially viable product (software in this case), work with the university's Office of Patents and Technology Marketing to protect the intellectual property, and then with the OBD to "create a business plan, identify potential investors and locate board members."

There are still those who feel that universities have no business getting involved with business (pun intended). But many others (myself included) believe that universities exist to serve society not just by advancing the frontiers of knowledge, but also by helping to put those advances to good use. As Jessica Zeaske in the OBD said, “We aim to unite great university innovations with experienced management teams to fill unmet market needs." Developing and applying these uniting mechanisms is one appropriate way to implement our public engagement mission.

Posted by Victor Bloomfield at 9:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At a meeting yesterday, one of the participants brought up an issue that's crucial but easy to overlook: how transportation options affect school choice.

The No Child Left Behind Act requires that "children in schools in need of improvement must be given the opportunity to transfer to other public schools in their district, including public charter schools. School districts must tell parents about this option, as well as pay for transportation to the other schools."

The Act further requires that "children from low-income families who attend schools that have been identified as "in need of improvement" for two or more consecutive years are given the opportunity to receive free supplemental services—such as tutoring and other academic services provided outside the regular school day—from a variety of State-approved providers. Parents have the opportunity to choose the provider that best meets the needs of their children." And it mandates that "Districts must set aside an amount equal to 20 percent of their Title I allocation for supplemental services and transportation for public school choice."

I don't know the statistics, but I suspect that many school districts have trouble implementing these requirements in any but the most minimal way. Using school buses for all such transportation needs is expensive and inflexible. An intensive and reliable public transportation system—as in New York City and Chicago—is an invaluable alternative. Ironically, in Minnesota, where fervor for school choice is perhaps the greatest in the nation, the public transportation system (most notably in the Twin Cities and surrounding suburbs) is woefully inadequate. It's a fine example of one socio-political priority undermining another.

Posted by Victor Bloomfield at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Center for Transportation Studies ( CTS ) at the University of Minnesota is a model for how a university research and policy center can engage productively with government and the private center to serve important public purposes. Transportation has many facets and connections with other parts of life, but one key aspect is our dependence -- many would say over-dependence -- on cars and other motorized transportation.

Hence the interest in the topic of the 2006 James L. Oberstar Forum on Transportation Policy and Technology, held April 9-10, 2006. (Oberstar, serving his 16th term as the representative from Minnesota's 8th Congressional District, is the senior Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and a long-time vigorous advocate of sensible transportation policies.)

The topic of the Forum was "Transportation Choices: Walking and Biking". The abstract of the report on the Forum, recently published by the CTS and available online, summarizes these choices in the appropriate broad societal context:

"The 2006 Oberstar Forum explored the value of integrating non-motorized transportation into communities. SAFETEA-LU (the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users) has provided substantial federal funding to advance and evaluate walking and biking systems. The forum considered several key aspects of investing in these modes, including:
• the integration of the design of non-motorized facilities into the community and transportation network
• the value of increased accessibility on economic activity, livability, and community identity
• recreation and health benefits, and safety concerns
• the role of local, state, and federal government, and the impacts of geography and culture
The featured speaker of this year’s forum was Berthold Tillmann, the mayor of Münster, Germany. Münster looks like the medieval village it once was but features a highly effective transportation network to allow quick and easy access to work, shopping, entertainment, and schools. Münster boasts of a daily mode share of bicycling approaching 40 percent, and recently received a global “Most Livable Community� award."

Posted by Victor Bloomfield at 8:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

To deal adequately with the complexities of the real world, engaged research must often be strongly multidisciplinary. Although multidisciplinary research can be important, productive, and fun, it is not without its potential pitfalls. Lawrence Baker, Senior Fellow in the Water Resources Center at the University of Minnesota, has written a witty and insightful essay on the topic: "Perils and Pleasures of Multidisciplinary Research", in Urban Ecosyst. (2006) 9: 45-47. The full article is well worth reading, but here I'll just summarize some of the "perils" that Baker identifies.

"The Escher Staircase": The tendency for the practitioners of each discipline in a collaboration to view their own specialty as superior, while looking down on the others.

"The Emperor Has No Clothes": The weakness of established paradigms in one field when exposed to the questioning from another.

"The Tower of Babel": The difficulty of translating jargon from one field to another, when even the same word may have different meanings.

"Trusting strangers": The need to take the time -- often quite a long time -- "to fully appreciate the key paradigms and methods of the assembled disciplines."

"Dividing the loaf": The misunderstandings that may arise from different funding standards in different fields, e.g., in the support of graduate students.

"Playing with others": The need to relax expectations of small-group hierarchies in a single discipline, in favor of the often chaotic structure of a large, multidisciplinary group.

"Publish or perish": The different expectations regarding publication in different fields -- books vs. articles -- and the difficulty in doing the cross-disciplinary synthetic thinking from the very beginning that will lead to an integrated, cohesive product at the end.

Despite noting these very real obstacles to successful multidisciplinary research, Baker ends on a more positive note:

"Finding Nirvana. Over the long run, I think most of my colleagues who have engaged in multidisciplinary efforts and stuck with it for a few years have no regrets. This is particularly true when the research “takes it up a notch� to the level of transdisciplinary understanding— understanding that requires disciplinary insights but transcends knowledge that could be gained within any single discipline. In fact, most new knowledge is achieved in this way. It is also rewarding in more tangible ways. The sustained hard work and congeniality can result in considerable synergy, resulting in enhanced productivity for all participants over the long run. More importantly, it is simply fun, learning for the sake of learning, presumably the reason most of us went into academia. And it sure beats getting old."

Posted by Victor Bloomfield at 8:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday's (8/20/06) StarTribune had an editorial entitled "Welfare reform's unfinished agenda". The editorial summarizes the history of welfare reform, pointing out that the number of people on welfare has fallen in the ten years since the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program was enacted, but that the poverty rate has increased since 2000. The next phase of TANF, according to the Strib, "... simply pretends that people aren't working enough. It requires adults on cash aid to work longer hours and requires states to push recipients into the workforce faster."

The editorial goes on to assert that this is "the wrong strategy for a population of poor, single mothers who are trying to raise small children while finishing vocational degrees, visiting doctors or battling off violent husbands." It quotes Nancy Cauthen, deputy director of Columbia University's National Center for Children in Poverty, as saying "Simply putting more pressure on a poor, troubled mom doesn't help the states, it doesn't help the families and it doesn't help the children.

It's easy -- and perhaps not wildly off the mark -- to blame cold-hearted legislators for this situation. However, the welfare problem is an extraordinarily difficult one. The interlocking variables of low wages, insufficient affordable housing, poor public transportation and education, limited child care, family dysfunction, and deficient mental health services and health insurance mean that any single solution is likely to be inadequate.

A systems approach is needed to find optimal solutions, and this is just the sort of complex problem to which the objectivity and multidisciplinary capabilities of universities could be well-suited. Imagine an institute that brings together economists, family social scientists, mathematicians and statisticians and computer modelers, psychologists, educators, ethicists, public health and transportation experts, sociologists, lawyers, political scientists, and demographers to research these issues. Imagine the opportunities to partner with government and NGOs, as well as with community members who are experts in the most direct sense. Imagine the teaching opportunities that would arise.

One can also imagine the political pressures on any university that undertook such an ambitious effort, and the dissatisfactions of the discipline-bound faculty and students who might fret about a lack of focus and rigor. Such ambitious engaged scholarship is not to be undertaken lightly, but could pay great rewards both to society and to the university's sense of itself.

Posted by Victor Bloomfield at 9:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An interesting experiment in "open source" biomedical research is underway at an online organization called "The Synaptic Leap". The group initially is focused on important but under-researched tropical diseases that do not hold large profit potential for pharmaceutical companies - malaria, schistosomiasis, and tuberculosis - but the approach is applicable in any field.

The web site gives the rationale: "Biomedical science is indivisible.  The physical and psychological barriers that divide scientific communities are ultimately artificial and counterproductive.  We see online collaboration as a natural way to bridge these gaps and pool information that is currently too fragmented for anyone to use.  An open, collaborative research community will find new ways to do science, answering questions that current institutions find difficult or impossible."

An article in the July 24, 2006 issue of Chemical & Engineering News (pp. 34-35) describes the process: "Online discussions will prioritize a list of experiments that anyone can take on. Raw data will be posted online and discussed. Members of the consortium will solicit further ideas and expertise, hoping the greater research community steps up to the plate. The group ... hopes that volunteered time, computer power, and reagents will eventually result in a portfolio of drug leads that will be made freely available for development."

The article also discusses some of the potential down-sides, notably the possible negation of the ability to publish in peer reviewed journals or to patent discoveries, due to prior on-line disclosure which place the work in the public domain.

These issues will undoubtedly get sorted out, but the basic idea seems attractive and applicable to many other areas of research and scholarship. Research is built on a delicate balance of individual priority-seeking effort and open discussion within the interested research community. The Synaptic Leap project shifts the balance to the public side, but need not eliminate individual motivation. It provides an opportunity for broader public input into establishing research priorities and suggesting new approaches. Many of these may not pan out; but as more than one world-class scientist has said, the way to have good ideas is to have lots of ideas and then winnow down to the most promising.

http://thesynapticleap.org/?q=

Posted by Victor Bloomfield at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The University of Minnesota has begun a program, called the Front Door, to make its expertise more accessible and transparent to outside organizations such as local industries and civic organizations. The program is a service of the U's Academic and Corporate Relations Center.

An article in the August 12 Chronicle of Higher Education gives some details:

As part of the new effort, the university has hired five "relationship managers" with expertise in areas like health care and engineering, each of whom has been assigned about 20 companies and organizations that are considered their accounts.

The managers learn about the research needs of their accounts. If the companies or organizations need research or other assistance from the university, the managers can help them identify appropriate people to take on the work, either as consultants or in sponsored-research.

Companies and other organizations not designated as accounts can also contact the Front Door office for help. Mr. Mulcahy [the U's Vice President for Research] says the staff members there will make sure inquiries get a clear and quick response. "We do not play phone tag with you," he says.

Since the university is part of the 20-member Midwest Research University Network, Front Door personnel will also draw upon faculty researchers at other institutions in the region.

Some offices in the University, such as the Children, Youth, and Family Consortium and the Minnesota Extension Service, already provide similar services. But the advantage of a single front door, in helping the public navigate our complex structures, is clear.

Posted by Victor Bloomfield at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The latest (September 2006) issue of Scientific American is devoted to perhaps the most difficult scientific and technical issue that the world has had to face: How to accommodate growing energy demands while cutting the output of carbon dioxide that contributes to global warming. Most of the authors in this special issue are university faculty who are leaders in the scientific, engineering, economic, and policy aspects of energy. But one cannot help but be struck by how important it is that all segments of the population join in this debate. If this isn't an appropriate topic for public engagement, nothing is. Like so much else in modern life, the issues are as much political and behavioral as they are technical.

The Clean Energy Resource Teams (CERT) project discussed in the previous two blogs provides an important model for how to approach these issues. To quote from Monday's blog: " The purpose of CERTs is to engage communities in determining their energy future by giving citizens a voice in energy planning and by matching community stakeholders with the necessary technical resources to identify and carry out the best bet community-scale energy efficiency and renewable energy projects within their region."

Posted by Victor Bloomfield at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Installment Five of Five: The UMN Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships: Determining the impacts of a public partnering

Contributed by Kathryn Draeger, Statewide Director of the UMN Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships and Melissa Pawlisch, Statewide Coordinator for the UMN Partnerships’ Clean Energy Resource Teams (CERTs)

To follow on the Regional Partnership’s discussion of evaluation, we submitted a description of the Clean Energy Resource Team program. This next piece presents the summary and conclusion sections from the CERTs’ 2005 Evaluation conducted by Drs. Steven Hoffman and Angela High-Pippert of the University of St. Thomas’ Department of Political Science. It focuses more on how community-based energy initiatives foster broader community citizenship than on the role of the University in staffing the effort but should provide food for thought on how community-based projects, in general, can help build civil society. As a UMN Regional Partnership program, this evaluation and future evaluations of CERTs will feed into the Regional Partnership impact evaluation.

SUMMARY OF THE CERTs EVALUATION

According to former United States Senator Bill Bradley, the government and the market are two legs of a three-legged stool and that without the third leg of civil society, without “a healthy robust civic sector, a space in which the bonds of community can flourish,� the stool is inherently unstable. In the United States, this “third leg� is disproportionately weak in relation to the legs of government and the private sector. Community-based energy initiatives provide one opportunity for citizens to work together to build up and repair this third and weakest leg.

This report explores the civic potential of community-based energy by carefully examining the work of the Clean Energy Resource Teams (CERTs) project. The report begins by elaborating on the problem of civic engagement and the opportunities for the reinvigoration of civic culture. The report then examines the success of the CERTs project in creating and maintaining incentives for sustained deliberation by citizens on the shape and character of their energy system. The report concludes that the CERTS program has created a sustained dialogue about the nature of the electricity system amongst an informed and engaged citizenry.

CONCLUSIONS

The nature of community-based energy and the role that such initiatives might play in the general fabric of civic life is not well understood. This report makes it clear that several conceptual models are available. Community-based energy initiatives might, for instance, perform the intermediate role envisioned by so-called “stealth democratic theorists,� allowing the mass of citizens to avoid the sort of engagement preferred by a select group of citizens actively and continuously involved in intense, democratic debate (Hibbing and Theiss-Morse, 2002). Participation within the community-based energy initiative would be confined to a fairly narrow set of citizens, namely those citizens with the requisite education and knowledge. Interaction with the larger community would be confined to message development (“wind is good/nuclear is bad�), and the mass of citizens would have only limited personal involvement, say, a willingness to participate in a community-sponsored energy conservation program. Only very rarely would the majority of citizens be expected to aggressively participate in public policy making or in any sort of sustained political process.

A more robust conceptualization of community-based energy might be guided by Barber’s notion of “strong democracy� (1984). As Barber warns, democratic participation cannot become a full-time job. Yet, programs based upon this model would draw upon a much broader citizen base, involving people from many walks of life. In this case, participants would not operate in a public sphere intermediate between the state and the mass of citizens. Instead, the mass of citizens themselves, communicating directly with policymakers at all levels, would constitute the membership for the initiative.

Properly conceptualizing community-based energy is not a strictly academic matter. If the grid-integration model of distributed generation becomes the operant version of community-based energy, then the “stealth� version of democratic participation would seem to be sufficient. A more robust form of community-based energy, however, would seem to demand the development of strong democracy out of which would emerge a host of difficult problems. How citizens might be brought into the process, the incentives they are given to remain, the reason for their loyalty and/or exit (Hirschman, 1970), the kind of work that is required of them, how best to facilitate an aggressive form of grassroots organizing, crafting long-term and well-structured public education campaigns, communicating complex ideas to a largely non-technical audience, forging the appropriate technical and expert networks, and striking the right balance between the expert and the citizen, will all emerge as central challenges for those who seriously think about community-based energy as a viable systemic alternative.

The CERTS program offers important insights in how deal with these and many other challenges. It has brought together a wide variety of citizens in a sustained dialogue about the nature of the electricity system and it has laid the foundation for substantial discussions amongst an informed and engaged citizenry. It now faces the daunting task of building upon that foundation as it helps facilitate the transition to a sensible electricity system.

Link: http://www.cleanenergyresourceteams.org

Posted by Victor Bloomfield at 9:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Installment Four of Five: The UMN Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships: Determining the impacts of a public partnering

Contributed by Kathryn Draeger, Statewide Director of the UMN Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships and Melissa Pawlisch, Statewide Coordinator for the UMN Partnerships’ Clean Energy Resource Teams (CERTs)

As mentioned in the Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships evaluation the Partnerships are heavily involved in the Clean Energy Resource Teams project. The Partnerships actually staff 5 of the 6 regional teams with two statewide CERT coordinators and additional contributions from each of the five regional directors. In this installment we describe what the Clean Energy Resource Teams are and how these citizen-based teams relate to the University of Minnesota.

CERTs
Energy is a hot topic in the media right now. It seems to come up every time we hear about gas prices, global warming, the war in Iraq and even farming reports. So what’s the U got to do with energy? Well actually, quite a bit. The University does some tremendous research about alternative energy resources and the economic and environmental impacts of our energy choices. For instance, most of you probably know about the West Central Research and Outreach Center’s 1.65 MW wind turbine and associated research projects. You may also have heard about IREE – the University’s Initiative on Renewable Energy and Environment, Dr. Lanny Schmidt’s work on cellulosic ethanol, Dr. David Tilman’s research about the impact of plant diversity on biomass production, or Dr. Steven Taff’s model that assesses the impact of various policies designed to address climate change.

The University is also a critical partner in a community-driven energy project that you may not have heard about; it’s called the Clean Energy Resource Teams – or CERTs. The purpose of CERTs is to engage communities in determining their energy future by giving citizens a voice in energy planning and by matching community stakeholders with the necessary technical resources to identify and carry out the best bet community-scale energy efficiency and renewable energy projects within their region. The program is a collaboration between the University of Minnesota Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships, Minnesota Department of Commerce, Minnesota Project, Rural Minnesota Energy Board, Minnesota Resource Conservation and Development Councils, and citizens and stakeholders in six rural regions around the state.

It’s a different way to approach energy issues for a University, but as a program of the U’s Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships mimics their approach to linking community-identified needs with technical resources. It’s also a different approach within the not-for-profit renewable energy community. It’s not an advocacy organization. Instead of advocacy, the CERTs allow citizens to directly impact their energy future from the grassroots using education, consensus building, and a regional planning process focused on project development. The ready availability of technical resources, through the regional teams, including local installers, educators and utilities, Department of Commerce, University, and non-profits, allows citizens to access the resources and expertise needed to advance clean energy in Minnesota.

CERTs was awarded the Minnesota Environmental Initiative’s Partnership of the Year Award for 2006 in no small measure because it has sought to bring together such a broad and diverse a group of citizens to discuss energy issues, connect these people to resources and networks, and implement renewable energy projects in rural communities. The CERTs approach is one of pragmatism and cooperation. It’s a model for how tangible environmental benefits can be achieved by reaching across traditional interest groups and taking a true, community-based approach. This is made possible, in no small way, because of CERTs affiliation with the University – an entity that’s generally seen as an honest and neutral broker (as mentioned in the Partnerships evaluation).

There are big changes coming down the pipe with regard to energy – due to myriad factors – and land grant universities naturally play a role in helping society “gear up� for change, but not just around technical change. We also need to work with and in communities to ensure that we’re addressing the certain economic, social and environmental alterations that will accompany these changes. CERTs are attempting to do just that.

Link: http://www.cleanenergyresourceteams.org


Posted by Victor Bloomfield at 8:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The UMN Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships: Determining the impacts of a public partnering

This is the third in a series of contributions by Kathryn Draeger, Statewide Director of the UMN Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships based on the work of program evaluators Richard Krueger, Mary Anne Casey, Randi Nelson and Okey Ukaga.

In this installment, the community members and evaluators advised the UMN Regional Partnerships on how to create a broader impact. Some of the suggestions, as you will see, are specific and practical suggestions for running an effective organization in any sector. Other suggestions are unique to the University of Minnesota.

On June 5, 2006 Richard Krueger, consulting evaluator, reported:

Things to consider

The focus group participants offered each Partnership specific advice. The one theme that crossed all five regions is that the Partnerships need to increase their visibility.

Focus group participants said the Partnerships should do a better job of getting the word out about the Partnerships and the projects they fund.

• Band together and enlist the help of U of M marketing or communications specialists.
  
• Define what you want as an outcome of increased visibility.
  
• Define your audiences. They may include:
  
  • Current funders (e.g., legislators, University administrators, regents).
    
  • Potential funders (e.g., county commissioners, foundations).
    
  • Potential partners (e.g., government agencies, nonprofits, faculty, and students interested in sustainability; the U of M Office of Public Engagement).
    
  • The general public.
  
  
• Increase promotions to targeted audiences.
  
• Reconsider the Partnerships’ branding (e.g., name, logo, tagline).
  
• Improve the website.
  
  • Use short, clear statements about who you are, your goals, what you fund, why you fund it, how the process works, deadlines, who can apply, and who to contact for help.
    
  • Improve the dissemination of project outcomes.
    
  • Highlight one project. Invite University administrators to visit that project as a way of showing what the Partnerships are doing.
    
  • Provide training and expertise to projects on how to better promote their own work.
    
  • Have projects share their findings with similar audiences (e.g., share outcomes of a school renewable energy project with other school districts).

The focus group evaluation team offers the Partnerships these observations:

Board members within Partnerships interpret goals differently. Board members were able to identify successful projects, but were less able to describe the significance of the project or meaningful outcomes.

• Select and evaluate exemplary projects with the purpose of clearly identifying the outcomes and significance of a project and describing these in powerful ways.
• Use stories about these projects to illustrate goals and outcomes.
• Develop talking points for executive directors and board members, so they can easily describe 1) the goals and 2) the outcomes/significance of the Partnership.
• Claim, honor, and highlight what the RSDP’s are doing related to the Clean Energy Resource Teams. Some people see CERTs as the RSDP’s most exciting and promising work. But it is not easy to determine what role the Partnerships play in CERTs. (For example, the Minnesota Project hosts the CERTs web page, and the RSDP is listed as one of six organizations involved in the effort.)
• Consider national publicity. This experiment is a new model of outreach for a land-grant university. Is it the only model of this type in the nation? What implications does the model have for outreach? For civic engagement? For a unique approach to promoting sustainable development?
• Study the best examples of University of Minnesota involvement to find out what the University and the Partnerships can learn from those examples.
• Invite University administrators and faculty to talk about what it takes for faculty to get excited about community projects.

The UMN Partnerships welcome any comments, suggestions, thoughts on scholarship of public engagement and sustainable development, and your involvement with our efforts around the State. Please contact Kathy Draeger, statewide director, UMN Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships at Draeg001@umn.edu or 612-625-3148.

Posted by Victor Bloomfield at 9:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The UMN Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships: Determining the impacts of a public partnering

This is the second in a series of three contributions by Kathryn Draeger, Statewide Director of the UMN Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships based on the work of program evaluators Richard Krueger, Mary Anne Casey, Randi Nelson and Okey Ukaga

While it is always enjoyable to share the successes of one’s work, it can seem risky to be forthright with the challenges. We are, however, sharing the results entitled “What’s not working well?� since the questions raised here are probably echoed by other programs and even the University’s own Office of Public Engagement. Some of Richard Krueger’s observations are unique to the UMN Regional Partnerships, but there are also opportunities to address these challenges together within the University.

On June 5, 2006 Richard Krueger, consulting evaluator, reported:

Challenges. What’s not working well?

The Partnerships lack visibility.

• Too few people know about the Partnerships, their goals, and the good work they are doing. Focus group participants believe that funding will be cut if the Partnerships do not highlight what they doing.
  
• Major audiences, including legislators, county commissioners, regents, University administrators, and potential partners, lack information about the Partnerships.

It is difficult to get the word out about the significance of the Partnership and its projects.

• It is difficult to describe what the Partnerships do. Are they grantmakers? Matchmakers? Catalysts? Conveners?
  
• It is difficult to convey the significance of the Partnerships to people who have not been directly involved. For example, how does supporting a farmers’ market contribute to citizen leadership, sustainable development, or building University relationships? Or how do renewable energy projects bring hope to a region?
  
• It is difficult to describe the Partnerships’ intentions because board members interpret the goals differently. Some people described the Partnerships goals as “fuzzy.â€?
  
  • Some people say “active citizen leadershipâ€? refers to the boards’ leadership, but not necessarily the projects. Some switch from talking about “citizen leadershipâ€? to “citizen involvement.â€? Some related active citizen leadership to citizen initiated projects or citizen directed research.
    
  • When discussing sustainable development, some board members talked about the sustainability of projects (would they continue after funding). Some talked about sustainability as it relates to the impact on the next generation. And some board members talked about the three-legged stool of sustainability.
    
  • Sustainability is a subject for some and a process for others.
  
  
• Some say the name—Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships—is hard to remember, is hard to say, and doesn’t convey the essence of the Partnerships.
  
• The individual Partnerships do not have the time, expertise, or money to adequately publicize what they are doing.
  
• Some board members worry that the Partnerships will be unable to support the additional requests that publicity will generate—causing ill will. Others argue that the quality of proposals would increase and the Partnerships could “creamâ€? the best proposals.

Some people question University administrators’ commitment to outreach, civic engagement, and rural Minnesota.

• Some people say it is difficult to tap into University expertise because there are few incentives for faculty to do outreach.
  
• People do not feel they can easily access Twin Cities campus resources. While people are quite positive about connections with local campuses, and to some extent with local research and outreach centers, they are less positive about connections with the Twin Cities campuses.
  
• They wonder why Partnership budgets are being cut if one of President Bruininks’ priorities is civic engagement.
  
• They worry that the University’s push to become one of the top three public research universities in the world will come at the expense of local needs.

Funding for the Partnerships has decreased substantially, while networks, understanding, and vision are increasing.

• Just as the boards are increasing their capacity to do good work, they have fewer dollars to support building relationships between communities and the University.
  
• Because funding has decreased substantially and most administrative costs are fixed, some regions are now spending more on administration than on projects.
  
• The small budgets limit what can be done. Small budgets limit who is willing to be involved, the extent of University involvement, and the kind of outcomes that can be expected.

Posted by Victor Bloomfield at 9:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This and the next few blogs are contributed by Kathryn Draeger, Statewide Director of the UMN Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships based on the work of program evaluators Richard Krueger, Mary Anne Casey, Randi Nelson and Okey Ukaga. They provide important insights into what works, and what needs improvement, in community-university partnerships.

The UMN Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships: Determining the impacts of a public partnering

The following series of articles are part of an impact evaluation of the UMN Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships. The UMN Regional Partnerships are located in five regions of the state and their mission is to support sustainable development in greater Minnesota through community and University partnerships in outreach, education, and research. The three bedrock principles of this initiative are:

• Develop and sustain a richer and more vibrant partnership with the citizens of each region and their land grant university.
  
• Address agricultural, natural resources, and tourism issues consistent with sustainable development principles identified as central to our work.
  
• Promote the concept of active citizenship, which calls on us to think first and foremost as citizens with a commitment to working through issues and exploring opportunities in an integrated and democratic manner.

On June 5, 2006 Richard Krueger, consulting evaluator, reported:

A grand experiment has been quietly unfolding across the Minnesota countryside. Since 1997, small groups of citizens and University employees have been building and testing a new model of land-grant university outreach. It is called the University of Minnesota Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships. In this model, regional citizen-led boards match locally identified needs with University resources. The boards provide support to these projects, including limited funding for citizen groups to “buy� University help. Citizens work in partnerships with University faculty, staff, and students to solve local problems. In this model local citizens make the decisions. They decide which needs to address and then access University resources to help them address those needs.

So how well is this model working? In the spring of 2006, we held 15 focus groups across Minnesota. They were designed to help evaluate the Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships (also known as the Partnerships).

The executive directors of each of the five regions invite three types of people to join in the evaluation:

• Board members
  
• Partners (these are people who represented a project that received a grant from the Partnerships)
  
• Community Observers (these are people who are considered to be keen observers of what is happening in the region)

We asked what’s working well, what’s not working well, and what should be done to make the Partnerships better. This is what we heard.

What’s working well?

Each Partnership has deeply committed and active citizen leadership.

• There is a network of enthusiastic, hardworking people within each of these regions that is committed to these Partnerships and their projects.
  
• Board members work well together. They feel free to share diverse opinions. They are respectful. They seem to enjoy working together.
  
• The Partnerships are also learning more about how to foster citizen-driven projects.

• They believe the Partnerships have great potential to be a catalyst in the revival of rural areas.
  
• They believe in citizen-driven decision making.
  
• They believe in creating equal partnerships between communities and the University.
  
• They already see successes and outcomes.
  
• They have a vision of how the Partnership and its Clean Energy Resource Teams can revitalize their regions.

• They believe the University is one of the treasures of the state.
  
• They feel ownership. “It’s our University.â€?
  
• They believe in the land-grant university concept and they want to be able to access the University’s resources.
  
• They believe that the University has valuable resources that can be used to make their regions better places to live, work, and play.
  
• They believe the University brings credibility to issues like sustainable development and alternative energy.

• Board members believe their relationships with the University have evolved to be more cooperative and less contentious.
  
• Initially, some boards found it difficult to balance the goals of active citizen leadership and university involvement in projects. Some projects had extensive citizen leadership but little university involvement. Other projects had extensive university involvement but little citizen leadership. Boards said they are now better able to recognize potential problems and steer projects to develop better community/university relationships.
  
• The Northeast, Northwest, and West Central Partnerships have created strong partnerships with their local campus. Some people said projects that involve local University of Minnesota faculty and staff are better examples of true partnerships. It seems that local University employees are seen as citizens bringing expertise rather than University experts.
  
• Partnerships have learned better strategies for accessing and involving University faculty, staff, and students. They’ve learned more about what works and what doesn’t.

• Sustainable development is no longer seen as a fringe issue belonging to “tree huggers.â€?
  
• There is still debate about the definition, but not about its importance.
  
• The boards’ understanding of sustainability has grown over time.

• Some people see renewable energy as the future of rural Minnesota.
  
• This is a win-win effort that benefits individuals, rural communities, Minnesota, and the nation.

• The regions have created an organizational structure, goals, boards, and systems for operationalizing the model.
  
• As of April 2006, a total of 273 projects have been funded by the Partnerships.
  
• In general, people think the Partnerships have been “moderately successfulâ€? at accomplishing their three goals: to promote active citizen leadership in strengthening the long-term social, economic, and environmental health of greater Minnesota; to advance the understanding and achievement in regional sustainability; and to build and strengthen effective relationships between citizens, communities, and their university. They believe they have made tremendous progress, but they also believe there is a long way to go before these goals are achieved.
  
• Board members are proud of what has been accomplished.

Posted by Victor Bloomfield at 7:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My wife and I just returned from a wonderful Elderhostel-sponsored hiking vacation in Glacier National Park. Although it was certainly not our primary intention, we encountered a good example of public engagement even on our vacation. The local organizer was the Flathead Valley Community College in Kalispell, Montana - an institution of higher education. The lead instructor was Dave Streeter, not an academic but a very knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and effective instructor who engaged us all in active (in all senses of the word) learning. Our involvement in environmental issues made us focus on important issues of public policy and democratic politics.

Many of our colleges and universities participate in such continuing education activities using our facilities and staff and a combination of university and community faculty. They may be called Elderhostel or Elder Learning Institutes or something else; but they are an important component of our public engagement with the broader society.

Link: http://www.fvcc.edu/about_fvcc/dept_pages/elderhostel/index.html

Posted by Victor Bloomfield at 7:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)