scholarly journals “Community First” for Whom? Reflections on the Possibilities and Challenges of Community-Campus Engagement from the Community Food Sovereignty Hub

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-60
Author(s):  
Lauren Kepkiewicz ◽  
Charles Z. Levkoe ◽  
Abra Brynne
Keyword(s):  
Community Engagement ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Community Leadership ◽  
Postsecondary Institutions ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Campus Engagement ◽  
Difficult Conversations ◽  
Goals And Objectives ◽  
Do So

While community-campus engagement (CCE) has gained prominence in postsecondary institutions, critics have called for a more direct focus on community goals and objectives. In this paper, we explore the possibilities and limitations of community-centred research through our collective experiences with the Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement (CFICE) and the Community Food Sovereignty (CFS) Hub. Drawing on a four-year research project with twelve community-campus partnership projects across Canada, we outline three key areas for reflection. First, we examine the meanings of community-centred research—called “community first”—in our work. Second, we explore key tensions that resulted from putting “community first” research into practice. Third, we discuss possibilities that emerged from attempts to engage in “community first” CCE. We suggest that while putting “community first” presents an opportunity to challenge hierarchical relationships between academia, western ways of knowing, and community, it does not do so inherently. Rather, the CCE process is complex and contested, and in practice it often fails to meaningfully dismantle hierarchies and structures that limit grassroots community leadership and impact. Overall, we argue for the need to both champion and problematize “community first” approaches to CCE and through these critical, and sometimes difficult conversations, we aim to promote more respectful and reciprocal CCE that works towards putting “community first.”

scholarly journals Repeated Negative Teaching Evaluations: A Form of Habitual Behaviour?

2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 298-321
Author(s):  
J Paul Grayson
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Generational Status ◽  
First Year ◽  
Not Given ◽  
Campus Engagement ◽  
Teaching Evaluations ◽  
University Of British Columbia ◽  
Mcgill University ◽  
The University ◽  
Do So

Teaching evaluations have become part of life on Canadian campuses; however, there is no agreement among researchers as to their validity. In this article, comparisons were made between first- and third-year collective evaluations of professors’ performance at the University of British Columbia, York University, and McGill University. Overall, it was found that students who provided low evaluations in their first year were also likely to do so in their third year. This effect held independent of degree of campus engagement, sex, student status (domestic or international), and generational status (students who were the first in their families to attend university, compared to those who were not). Given that over the course of their studies, students likely would have been exposed to a range of different behaviours on the part of their professors, it is argued that the propensity of a large number of students to give consistently low evaluations was a form of “habitual behaviour.”  

Whose Post-Truth Era? Confronting the Epistemological Challenges of Teaching Journalism

2019 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeff Tischauser ◽  
Jesse Benn
Keyword(s):  
Professional Practice ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Professional Standards ◽  
Black Press ◽  
Reporting Practices ◽  
Communities Of Color ◽  
Ethnic Press ◽  
Journalism Students ◽  
Do So

While discussions on validity, professional standards, and routines have become more challenging to many educators of journalism, these challenges are old news to communities of color whose experiences are often discounted or erased by information gathering practices taught in journalism schools. We argue that using the label “post-truth” reinforces the privileged and entitled position of journalism educators, and curtails our responsibility as arbiters of professional practice and routine. In this article, we examine how journalism classrooms can bring in ways of knowing and seeing that can provide a refreshing counter to the staid dis-embedded outsider perspective that views journalism as the protector of one truth, liberal democracy. Borrowing ideas from press theory that places journalism inside community, and counterpublic theory that places agency inside culture, we explore an opportunity for journalists to become mediators and translators between publics as a way to strengthen understanding between communities. To do so, we identify and examine reporting practices used in the Black press to understand how to confront the multiplicity of truth. By unpacking how the ethnic press examines the diverse conditions and experiences that lead to alternative versions of events, we can better gauge what reporting practices are relevant to our students today. Indeed, the so-called post-truth era is part of a larger sociohistoric process of truth-making that reflects the dynamics of power and authority in civil society, which we unpack in this article. In the end, we argue that it is more valuable for journalism students to view their work as mediators and translators of truths between communities.

scholarly journals 3511 Adapting Community Engagement Studios to Accommodate Participants from Diverse and Rural/Frontier Communities

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (s1) ◽  
pp. 81-82
Author(s):  
Barbara Heather Coulter ◽  
Brieanne Witte ◽  
Louisa A Stark
Keyword(s):  
Health Disparities ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
Staff Member ◽  
Research Participation ◽  
Community Leader ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
Dissemination Of Research ◽  
Strongly Agree ◽  
Almost All

OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: Our goals in developing adaptations to the Community Engagement Studio model have been to: (1) enable investigators to consult with as broad a range of community “experts” (stakeholders) as possible, (2) make Studio participation feasible for stakeholders from rural and frontier areas, (3) create a safe environment for stakeholders from communities facing health disparities, who have had low participation in research, and (4) enable stakeholders to speak in the language in which they are most comfortable. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: We have used several strategies to enable investigators to gain input from stakeholders in rural and frontier areas. If the research focuses on rural populations, we hold the Studio at a central location, usually at a restaurant in a private room, if this is available. If the investigator wants to hear from both rural and urban residents, we use videoconferencing via Skype or FaceTime when individuals have enough bandwidth to support it and/or feel comfortable using this technology. For those who have dial-up or no internet access, we provide a conference call line Trusting relationships are essential to creating a safe space in which stakeholders from communities facing health disparities can provide consultations to researchers. When an investigator wishes to consult with stakeholders from one racial/ethnic community, we contract with a leader or trusted member of that community to recruit appropriate stakeholders. The Studio is co-facilitated by a CCET staff member and a community leader in the community’s preferred language, with the leader translating for the CCET staff member. For Studios that involve stakeholders from multiple communities and that are conducted in English, we provide translators, if appropriate. Stakeholders using translation may be present in the room with other Studio participants or may be on the phone. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Of the 35 Studios we have held, five have been held in rural locations and another five have included one or more rural/frontier stakeholders participating via phone or videoconferencing. Six Studios have been co-facilitated with community leaders and four others have included translators. Almost all Studios we have held in English have included individuals representing diverse communities. Anonymous surveys completed at the end of Studios show that participants report the following on 5-point Likert scales:. The facilitator managed the allotted time so that my voice was heard (67% strongly agree; 33% agree). The relevant experts were present at the Studio (78% strongly agree; 22% agree). I was satisfied with the Studio session (78% strongly agree; 22% agree). The Studio process was worth my time (89% strongly agree; 11% agree). The feedback provided by the community experts will improve the research project (68% strongly agree; 44% agree). Participants were also asked what they felt was their contribution to the research project. Among the most common themes were: increased researcher’s understanding of the community, increased researcher’s sensitivity to the community, provided feedback on the feasibility of the project, provided ideas on recruiting research participants, provided ideas for how to use the project results to benefit the community, and provided ideas on how to inform the community about the project. All participants said that they would participate in a Studio again. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: Studies at all stages in the research life cycle can be strengthened through consultations with community experts. These stakeholders can inform needs assessments, provide input on study design, supply critical information on supports and barriers to research participation, review study instruments for readability and cultural appropriateness, provide feedback on recruitment and educational materials, and inform dissemination of research results, among others. These consultations provide the most benefit to researchers when they include the voices of as broad a range of stakeholders as possible. We have shown that it is feasible to include stakeholders who live in rural and frontier areas in Studio consultations. We also have developed successful methods for holding Studio consultations with stakeholders who are members of communities facing health disparities and who speak multiple languages. This expanded representation in Community Engagement Studios strengthens research studies.

scholarly journals Agroecological Formación in Rural Social Movements

2014 ◽  
Vol 98 ◽  
pp. 31-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nils McCune ◽  
Juan Reardon ◽  
Peter Rosset
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Food System ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Agricultural Landscapes ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Local Circuits ◽  
Rural Social Movements

Among the many sectors currently engaged in struggle against the corporate food system, small farmers play a particularly important role—not only do they constitute a legitimate alternative to global agribusiness, but also they are the heirs to long traditions of local knowledge and practice. In defending peasant agriculture, rural social movements defend popular control over seeds and genetic resources, water, land and territory against the onslaught of globalized financial capital. A framework called food sovereignty has been developed by the international peasant movement La Via Campesina (LVC), to encompass the various elements of a food system alternative based on reclaiming popular resource control, defending small-scale agriculture and traditional knowledge, rebuilding local circuits of food and labor, and recovering the ecological processes that can make farming sustainable. Recognizing the need to develop “movement people” capable of integrating many ecological, social, cultural and political criteria into their organizational activities, LVC increasingly has articulated processes of popular education and consciousness-raising as part of the global social movement for agroecology and food sovereignty. Given the enormous diversity of organizations and actors in LVC, an underlying feature known in Spanish as diálogo de saberes (roughly the equivalent of “dialogue between ways of knowing”) has characterized LVC processes of education, training, formation and exchange in agroecology. The diálogo de saberes takes place at the level of training centers and schools of the LVC organizations, as well as the larger scale of agricultural landscapes and peasant territories. The interactions between peasant, family or communal farmers, their organizations, their youth and their agroecology create social processes that assume the form and dynamic of a social movement in several countries of Latin America.

scholarly journals Community engagement in health research: two decades of experience from a research project on HIV in rural Uganda

2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Nakibinge ◽  
D. Maher ◽  
J. Katende ◽  
A. Kamali ◽  
H. Grosskurth ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Community Engagement ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Research Project

Functional-Communicative Grammar (Spanish-German) for Translators and/or Interpreters

Babel ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-120
Author(s):  
Karin Vilar Sánchez
Keyword(s):  
Good Knowledge ◽  
Ministry Of Education ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Cd Rom ◽  
Linguistic Form ◽  
Linguistic Resources ◽  
Communicative Intention ◽  
Accessible Information ◽  
Frequency Of Use ◽  
Do So

In the present research project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Culture we are working on the elaboration of a contrastive functional-communicative grammar (Spanish-German) for translators and/or interpreters on CD Rom which is considered a valuable working tool for this group. It is well-known that one does not translate words and structures but tekst or discourse. In order to do so, the translator/interpreter must understand the communicative intention of the original tekst or discourse and reproduce it in the target tekst. That means, not only does he/she need a solid idiomatic knowledge (knowledge of grammar, vocabulary, phonology, suprasegmental and extralinguistic elements)in both languages but also a good knowledge of the expressive aspect of all these linguistic resources (i.e. which resources are used to express which function in what kind of situation or tekst and with what effect). However, the existing grammar books do not help him/her in an effective way because none of them offer him/her easily accessible information about the resources (lexical, grammatical, phonological, orthographic, suprasegmental, extralinguistic) that exist in each language for the expression of specific functions (e.g. “make a request”), determined by the type of tekst or discourse and adding information about the frequency of use and the pragmatic connotations of each linguistic form.

scholarly journals Shared voices, different worlds: Process and product in the Food Dignity action research project

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine M. Porter ◽  
Hank Herrera ◽  
Daryl Marshall ◽  
Gayle M. Woodsum
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Community Based Participatory Research ◽  
Food Justice ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Research Project ◽  
University Partnerships ◽  
Personal Strengths ◽  
True Diversity

Diversity of perspective makes for greater depth when painting a portrait of community life. But embracing the idea of representing true diversity in a formal research project is a whole lot easier than putting it into practice. The three dozen members of the Food Dignity action research team, now entering the fourth year of a five-year project, are intimately familiar with this challenge. In this article, four of the collaborators explore the intricacies of navigating what it means to bring together a genuine cross-section of community-based activists and academics in an effort to draw on one another’s professional and personal strengths to collect and disseminate research findings that represent the truth of a community’s experiences, and are ultimately disseminated in a way that brings tangible benefit to the heart and soul of that community. The authors include Food Dignity’s principal investigator (Porter) and three community organisers (Marshall, Herrera and Woodsum) in organisations that have partnered with Food Dignity. Two of the organisers (Herrera and Woodsum) also serve project-wide roles. These collaborators share their personal and professional hopes, struggles, concerns, successes and failures as participants in this cutting-edge effort to equalise community and university partnerships in research. Keywords: community-based participatory research (CBPR), food justice, equitable community-campus partnerships, food sovereignty, case study, action research

scholarly journals Transformations through “Community-First” Engagement

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. i-x
Author(s):  
Peter Andrée ◽  
Isobel Findlay ◽  
David Peacock
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
Research Council ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Partnership Research ◽  
Short Video

The content in this special issue was created in the context of the Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement (CFICE, pronounced “suffice”) partnership research project, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada beginning in 2012. As you will see in this short video, our project seeks to develop strong community-campus partnerships “by putting community first”.

scholarly journals Common Worlding Pedagogies: Opening Up to Learning with Worlds

2021 ◽  
pp. 74-88
Author(s):  
Affrica Taylor ◽  
Tatiana Zakharova ◽  
Maureen Cullen
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Pedagogical Approach ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Early Childhood Research ◽  
Guiding Principles ◽  
Opening Up ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Do So

Common worlding is a collective pedagogical approach. It is also a deliberate move to open up education to worlds beyond narrow human preoccupations and concerns and beyond its standard framing as an exclusively social practice. In this article, we identify some of the guiding principles that underpin this approach and explain how they work out in practice. We do so by offering a selection of illustrative vignettes drawn from the Walking with Wildlife in Wild Weather Times early childhood research project in Canberra, Australia, and from the Witnessing the Ruins of Progress early childhood research collaboratory in Ontario, Canada.

Canada in a Global System of Higher Education

2019 ◽  
pp. 267-280
Author(s):  
Brent Epperson ◽  
Britta Baron ◽  
Carl G. Amrhein
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
Postsecondary Institutions ◽  
Global System ◽  
Vision Statements ◽  
Engagement Strategies ◽  
Key Stakeholders ◽  
Global University ◽  
History Of ◽  
University Leaders

In the last decade, many leading universities throughout the world have modified their mission and vision statements to emphasize community service and broader societal aspirations. Examining the case of Canada within the global system of higher education, this chapter explores the community engagement approaches of Canadian postsecondary institutions. Following an analysis of the communities within and surrounding campuses and a summary of key stakeholders, it outlines the unique history of extension faculties and the special relationships with Indigenous peoples and linguistic minorities that have become pivotal to community engagement strategies. The chapter emphasizes lessons from the Canadian context that may serve global university leaders. It concludes with a synopsis of challenges and threats to navigate in the pursuit of effective and enriching university–community relationships.

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