New Sustainability Course Puts Students in the Thick of Stakeholder Engagement
If sustainability science is about reaching beyond the borders of academia into communities, then it follows that a class focused on the growing discipline might land a student in a group of fishermen concerned about their livelihoods.
Students at UMaine and University of New Hampshire taking the newly offered Sustainability Science and Stakeholder Engagement course this spring were asked to engage directly with stakeholders. And, reflecting sustainability’s focus on urgent, real world issues, they went right into the thick of it. Working with shellfish harvesters in Frenchman’s Bay, Emma Fox, found she was a valued member of the academic team collaborating with the fishermen on complex issues related to bacterial contamination and the closing of shellfish flats. But there was a lot more to it than that. For instance, there were tides.
“I learned a lot about partnership and stakeholder engagement; learned a lot about transparency and trust and different communication issues. Working the tides was one of the themes, like making sure meetings with shellfish harvesters occur at mid-tide times,” she said, noting the low and high tides are prime working times for groups of these stakeholders. “Partnerships take time; they’re difficult. So, you have to keep coming back and respecting the opinions of other people and listening.” See more on this story