'Call to Service' Grant Supports New Sustainability Program
The CSU Chancellor's Office awarded the Center for Regional Sustainability a grant for a community-engagement project.
San Diego State’s Center for Regional Sustainability (CRS) will begin a pilot community engagement project this spring, thanks to a recently awarded $45,000 grant by the CSU Chancellor’s Office.
Promoting sustainability
The project, dubbed “Public Conversations for a Sustainable Future,” aims to advance sustainability in higher education and the community, and to offer experiential learning opportunities through community-centered coursework and fieldwork.
Partnering with the Sweetwater Union High School District, San Diego State faculty members David Larom (Asia Pacific studies), Kimberly Feilen (child and family development) and Janet Tempelton (rhetoric and writing studies) will work with about 40 SDSU students.
The service-learning course program will focus on developing students’ abilities to lead, understand and facilitate community dialogue in the Sweetwater district. Dialogue topics may include sustainability and food, social justice and connection to the local environment—all issues facing the San Diego region.
Project goals
The project’s pilot hopes to link learning with community service and sustainability issues while using community interests and concerns to establish a community engagement model. It also plans to enhance students’ abilities for effective community engagement while building partnerships between SDSU and the Sweetwater Union School District.
To accomplish these goals, the project will use a framework provided by the Public Conversations Project, a nonprofit organization that has developed a training model to facilitate community dialogue on critical issues. The model has already been used by more than 200 universities and public entities around the world.
With the Public Conversations Project also providing input, SDSU’s Division of Undergraduate Studies will coordinate the pilot program, and the CRS will help in the project’s planning and oversight.
"Public Conversations for a Sustainable Future" will build on current student engagement projects in the Faculty-Student Mentoring Program, an SDSU program that uses undergraduate research, scholarship and creative initiatives to support student engagement and development.
About the Center for Regional Sustainability
SDSU's Center for Regional Sustainability provides a community forum that brings together the area stakeholders to advance sustainability collaborations in higher education, research, stewardship and outreach. The center’s mission is to ensure that generations of students will gain the skills and abilities that will allow the San Diego region to grow, prosper and become sustainable in the long term.
