{"id":7261,"date":"2015-05-18T13:33:22","date_gmt":"2015-05-18T17:33:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/?page_id=7261"},"modified":"2024-06-21T13:43:23","modified_gmt":"2024-06-21T17:43:23","slug":"new-sustainability-course-puts-students-in-the-thick-of-of-stakeholder-engagement","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/new-sustainability-course-puts-students-in-the-thick-of-of-stakeholder-engagement\/","title":{"rendered":"New Sustainability Course Puts Students in the Thick of Stakeholder Engagement"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"OLYMPUS<\/a>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.<\/p>\n

Students at UMaine and University of New Hampshire<\/a> taking the newly offered Sustainability Science and Stakeholder Engagement course this spring were asked to engage directly with stakeholders. And, reflecting sustainability\u2019s focus on urgent, real world issues, they went right into the thick of it. Working with shellfish harvesters in Frenchman\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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 fishermen occur at mid-tide times,\u201d she said, noting the low and high tides are prime working times for groups of these stakeholders. \u201cPartnerships take time; they\u2019re difficult. So, you have to keep coming back and respecting the opinions of other people and listening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fox is one of 12 students from diverse disciplines and academic levels who completed Sustainability Science and Stakeholder Engagement, a class offered jointly by UMaine, UNH and the New England Sustainability Consortium <\/a>(NEST). NEST, a multi-institutional project that aims to strengthen the scientific basis for decision making for the management of recreational beaches and shellfish harvesting. The focus of the course is trifold: application of sustainability science concepts to stakeholder-engagement projects, the development of working relationships with researchers across academic disciplines as well as stakeholder partners and the opportunity to establish a sense of cohesion and belonging to a larger system through these hands-on projects.<\/p>\n

The goal is, say course instructors, is not merely to impart ideas, but to involve students in the discovery process. Student ideas can effect change in a dynamic collaborative process.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you talk to stakeholders like fishermen and see the kinds of issues they are dealing with everyday and see how willing they are to help us, I think it motivates students go beyond the simple goal of writing a thesis and getting a degree,\u201d said Bridie McGreavy<\/a>, a NEST Postdoctoral Researcher and newly-appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication & Journalism, who designed and now teaches the NEST class along with Laura Lindenfeld<\/a>, Associate Professor in the Department of Communication & Journalism and Director of the Margaret\u00a0Chase Smith Policy Center and Kevin Gardner<\/a>, Professor of Civil Engineering at UNH.<\/p>\n

In the spirit of collaborative sustainability work, the course included students at the undergraduate, masters and doctoral levels from disciplines as varied as economics, communication, business and biology. Students at UMaine, UNH, and Plymouth State University connected each week via live feed.<\/p>\n

The unique benefits of course\u2019s bandwidth became clear when students and instructors went on a writing retreat: \u201cWe had in-depth discussion about interdisciplinary collaboration and how to make research relevant for decision making. In addition to talking about products like public websites, maps for municipal planning, and technical reports for partners we also came away with six solid academic paper concepts,\u201d McGreavy said. \u201cStudents from across disciplines had a lot to contribute.<\/p>\n

For their course project, students were asked to participate in a stakeholder-engagement project. Several helped plan, design and participate in a session at the Maine Fishermen\u2019s forum. There was a chance to collaborate with stakeholders at a regional conference or to develop individual projects.<\/p>\n

A doctoral student in the Department of Biology and Ecology, Kalyn Bickerman focused on the work she is doing to promote native pollinators in blueberry fields in Downeast Maine. Bickerman recently began work with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW ) on the Maine Bumble Bee Atlas (MBBA). The project relies on citizen science volunteers to collect bumblebees, so researchers can record species numbers and compare them to historical data<\/p>\n

Bickerman, whose previous bee research was narrowly focused within her discipline, said her advisor recommended the class as a way to learn about engagement with citizen scientists. But Bickerman found the course useful in a multitude of ways, especially the emphasis on listening and compromise.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat really drew me to this course was the application of sustainability science concepts to stakeholder engagement \u2013 as well as building professional networks,\u201d Bickerman said. \u201cAs a scientist, I’ve felt very insular in my work thus far and I looked at this course as helping me to bridge the divide between the science that I do and the people who may be affected by my findings on bumble bee declines, as well as how to connect with citizen scientists.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the biggest themes we discussed in the course was partnerships and how navigating these can be tricky,\u201d Bickerman said. \u201cIt’s definitely been interesting trying to match what MDIFW needs as a government organization with the needs of those at a public university. There was also some back and forth over how to best collect the data and what kinds of data we should be encouraging our volunteers to bring back.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sustainability Science and Stakeholder Engagement course began in the Fall 2014 semester and will be offered again in the 2015-16 academic year.<\/p>\n

Tagwongo Obomsawin, graduating senior in Economics, was happy the course came along just in time.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cOne of things that I\u2019ve learned is the importance of being sincere and genuinely wanting to help people and not just presenting your data, but really finding ways you can present to people and reach out to different audiences.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":957,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7261","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"taxonomy_info":[],"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"mitchellcenter","author_link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/author\/mitchellcenter\/"},"comment_info":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/957"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7261"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31684,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7261\/revisions\/31684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}