Report based on Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement (CFICE) research, posted on Community Campus Engage Canada.
Abstract:
While many studies have addressed the successes and challenges of participatory action research, few have documented how community campus engagement (CCE) works and how partnerships can be designed for strong community impact. This paper responds to increasing calls for ‘community first’ approaches to CCE. Our analysis draws on experiences and research from Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement (CFICE), a collaborative action research project that ran from 2012-2020 in Canada and aimed to better understand how community-campus partnerships might be designed and implemented to maximize the value for community-based organizations. As five of the project’s co-leads, we reflect on our experiences, drawing on research and practice in three of CFICE’s thematic hubs (food sovereignty, poverty reduction, and community environmental sustainability) to identify achievements and articulate preliminary lessons about how to build stronger and more meaningful relationships. We identify the need to: strive towards equitable and mutually beneficial partnerships; work with boundary spanners from both the academy and civil society to facilitate such relationships; be transparent and self-reflexive about power differentials; and look continuously for ways to mitigate inequities.
Edited by Karen Schwartz, Liz Weaver, Aaron Kozak & Magdalene Goemans.
Produced by the Poverty Reduction Hub of Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement (CFICE), a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)-funded project, coled by Carleton University and Vibrant Communities (an imprint of Tamarack Institute). CFICE website: https://carleton.ca/communityfirst/
Abstract:
Contents:
Preface - Pathways to Poverty Reduction through Community-Campus Partnerships
Chapter One: Creating Strategic Partnerships to Influence Policy (Liz Weaver)
Chapter Two: Models of Community-Campus Engagement in the Poverty Reduction Hub of CFICE (Karen Schwartz)
Chapter Three: University and Community Collaboration: Achieving Social Change (Erin Bigney, Tracey Chiasson, Melanie Hientz, Robert MacKinnon and Cathy Wright)
Chapter Four: On a Path of True Reconciliation: Investing in a Poverty-free Saskatoon (Colleen Christopherson-Côté, Lisa Erickson, Isobel M. Findlay and Vanessa Charles)
Chapter Five: Using Campus Community Engagement to Build Capacity for Poverty Reduction (Amanda Lefrancois)
Chapter Six: Shifting Societal Attitudes Regarding Poverty: Reflections on a Successful Community-University Partnership (
Mary MacKeigan, Jessica Wiese, Terry Mitchell, Colleen Loomis and Alexa Stovold)
Chapter Seven: Models of Collaboration: Does Community Engagement with University Colleges Have an Impact on Poverty Reduction? (Polly Leonard and Karen Schwartz)
Chapter Eight: A Peephole into the Student Experience: Student Research Assistants on their Experiences in the Poverty Reduction Hub (Aaron Kozak, Zhaocheng Zeng and Natasha Pei)
Chapter Nine: Poverty Reduction Hub Evaluation (Aaron Kozak, Karen Schwartz, Amanda Lefrancois and Liz Weaver)
Chapter Ten: Conclusion (Magdalene Goemans)
This paper is intended to inform discussions between industry and government policymakers in and beyond Ottawa, Canada about climate change and potential impacts on residential development regulations and corresponding industry practices. Ultimately, both private and public stakeholders must acknowledge the impacts of urban form on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and, conversely, the impacts of climate change on cities, for any meaningful progress on urban sustainability to ensue. Section 1 introduces the basic relationships between urban development and climate change. Urban form is directly tied to energy consumption and GHG emissions, mainly through building and transportation energy consumption. Section 2 summarizes regional changes from climate change projected by various research organizations. Projected weather changes include more severe heat waves, rain and freezing rain in the future, with flooding identified repeatedly as the main concern for the Ottawa region. Section 3 reflects on the potential impacts of more severe weather on buildings and on the building industry. Impacts may include risks to structures and workers, as well as shifting regulations and insurance liabilities. Section 4 provides an overview of changes to government environmental policies that may signal future regulatory change. And finally, Sections 5 and 6 pose questions of interest for future regulators and builders.
Wondering what the Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement (CFICE) project has been up to for the past four years? Well you’re in luck. We just completed and submitted our SSHRC Midterm report on February 29, 2016 and it’s chock full of details about CFICE’s activities and learnings from Phase I!
Closing the Loop: Community Engaged Pedagogy in Business Courses is a CACSL and Carleton Raven’s Den-funded CFICE evaluation project that looks at the impact on Sprott School of Business’s community partners of adopting a community service learning approach to pedagogy.
Over a number of years and across a variety of courses, Sprott has implemented projects ranging in duration and topic in order to facilitate a ‘practice’ perspective for the students in Sprott’s Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of International Business programs. Sprott has received lots of feedback from students, in the form of anecdotal accounts and more structured feedback exercises, and some feedback from community partners, but mostly the latter was limited to student performance during the actual project and anticipated benefits should the organization adopt the recommendations made by the student teams. Sprott therefore undertook this study to determine the impact their CSL projects made on community partners over a longer term.
This project is still ongoing, with evaluations scheduled for the Fall/Winter term from 2016 – 2017.