Collaboratory’s Shining the Light series highlights the amazing work of our institutional partners and shares examples of community engagement and public service activities captured in Collaboratory.
Recognizing that community engagement is an integral strategy through which campuses contribute to and achieve the mission and goals of their institutions, this series is guided by the Benefits of Civic and Community Engagement Primer co-edited by Collaboratory’s own Kristin Medlin and published by our partners, North Carolina Campus Compact’s Community of Practice, Inquiry & Learning (COPIL).
The primer:
- Assembles evidence of how civic and community engagement (CCE), when done well, contributes to the overarching goals of higher education
- Highlights the range of CCE activities occurring in community-campus partnerships throughout the state of North Carolina
- Provides a tool to aid in deepening the practice of engagement, and
- Makes the case for investment in and commitment to CCE
This installment of Shining the Light features community engagement and public service activities with a focus on environmental sustainability.
Don’t Build Where it Floods Data Initiative
Dr. Kirstie Lynn Dobbs collaborates with climate sustainability and resiliency groups on a campaign to gather more data related to development and flooding at the local level across the United States. This initiative has three major agendas: 1) gather data assessing the impact of development on flooding in local communities across the United States, 2) raise national awareness regarding development and flooding, 3) develop strategies and policy recommendations that support local community advocacy groups fighting development and climate change.
Waste for Life – Upcycling in the Tijuana Estuary
A team of students from the Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering alongside the Engineering Exchange for Social Justice, are partnering with the Tijuana River National Estuary Research Reserve to implement a poverty reducing solution to an environmental problem identified in the Tijuana Estuary. Waste for Life seeks to co-create a process with the community that will take worthless waste and convert it to a process that will allow these members to take that worthless waste and produce high quality products to generate income within the community.
Innovation Consulting Community: Market Assessment for Global Mining Equipment
The global mining industry is undergoing transformation with mine operators seeking lower emissions for the underground extraction process. This project will ask the team to identify a country in Latin America and assess mining operations to assess how ripe existing and new mine operators are to using electric-powered machines to extract ore from underground.
Want to learn more about Collaboratory?
Email [email protected] to learn more about how to leverage Collaboratory to tell your institution’s story of engagement.
