Community Engagement
Faculty Advisor: Jennifer Hurley
Field Site: Pennsylvania Horticultural Society
Field Supervisors: Lauren Medsker, Liane Sullivan, and Casey Kuklick
Course Description:
The course explores the ways in which nonprofits engaged in urban greening initiatives navigate community engagement, especially in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Examining both past practices of community engagement and current literature on this topic, certain values and best practices arise in enabling a wider pool of participants in the process. By truly encompassing a wider audience, future urban greening efforts will garner community support, something for which this course lays the framework for.
Praxis Poster:
Owen Deitcher_Community EngagementPlease click here to access a PDF version of the poster.
I found your description of how effective community engagement puts listening to the wants and needs of constituents at the center to be very astute. Too often organizations, including nonprofits that I’ve personally worked at, try to tell their intended populations what they should want instead of allowing them the agency to help shape the change they want to see. Thanks for sharing!
I appreciated your thoughtful reflection – especially on listening first (so important!) as well as using research and theory to ground your approach. You also showed resilience in how you shifted gears mid-semester. Nice work, Owen!
Owen
Your topic was very interesting: how nonprofits engaged in urban greening initiatives can navigate community engagement, especially in disadvantaged neighborhoods. This was an issue that we explored in the Climate Change 360 and the Tri-Co Philly fall 2019 program. We also learned the importance of listening to the community and building on their local expertise.
Wow, Owen, nice poster!
I really like how you show the learning goals, as well as the research project. This way I understand what the purpose of the project is, for PHS and for the community…which often times, as I’m sure you’ve learned, are not the same goal!
It’s really interesting to see the revision process to get the community engaged. Im interested in seeing how PHS will combat the need for environmental green space and the issue of funding, priorities, and /real/ solutions– not just what will make the most profit.
Owen, thanks for sharing your experience with PHS. A shared framework can be a very powerful operating tool! Listening is so important, as you point out!
Owen, this is a very thoughtful look at the Community Engagement revision process at PHS. I appreciate the value of listening to the community and examining research on what’s worked in similar communities. I was curious about how CE processes will be evaluated by teams and whether evaluation included feedback from community. Also loved that you attended a charrette on the pop up garden at Drexel to see firsthand what community engagement process looks like!