Leadership as Partnership

Karen Hutchins Bieluch describes what she has learned about leadership from her experiences participating in a number of university-community/nonprofit part­nerships and her studies of these partnerships

Sustainability science graduate students as boundary spanners

Graduate training in sustainability science (SS) focuses on interdisciplinary research, stakeholder-researcher partnerships, and creating solutions from knowledge. But becoming a sustainability scientist also requires specialized training that addresses the complex boundaries implicit in sustainability science approaches to solving social-ecological system challenges. Using boundary spanning as a framework, we use a case study of the Sustainability Solutions Initiative (SSI) at the University of Maine to explicate key elements for graduate education training in SS. We used a mixed-methods approach, including a quantitative survey and autoethnographic reflection, to analyze our experiences as SSI doctoral students. Through this research, we identified four essential SS boundaries that build on core sustainability competencies which need to be addressed in SS graduate programs, including: disciplines within academia, students and their advisors, researchers and stakeholders, and place-based and generalizable research. We identified key elements of training necessary to help students understand and navigate these boundaries using core competencies. We then offer six best practice recommendations to provide a basis for a SS education framework. Our reflections are intended for academic leaders in SS who are training new scientists to solve complex sustainability challenges. Our experiences as a cohort of doctoral students with diverse academic and professional backgrounds provide a unique opportunity to reflect not only on the challenges of SS but also on the specific needs of students and programs striving to provide solutions

Communication and sustainability science teams as complex systems

Communication is essential to resilience, as interactions among humans influence how social-ecological systems (SES) respond to change. Our research focuses on how specific communication interactions on sustainability science teams, such as how people meet with each other; the ways in which they categorize themselves and others; the decision-making models they use; and their communication competencies affect outcomes. We describe research from a two-year study of communication in Maine\u27s Sustainability Solutions Initiative, a statewide network of sustainability science teams. Our results demonstrate that decision making and communication competencies influenced mutual understanding, inclusion of diverse ideas, and progress toward sustainability-related goals. We discuss our results in light of key resilience themes and conclude with recommendations for communication design in sustainability teams for improved collaborative process and outcomes

The Complexities of Counting Fish: Engaging Citizen Scientists in Fish Monitoring

Data gathered by citizen scientists can help ecologists understand long-term trends and can improve the quality and quantity of data about a resource. In Maine and Massa­chusetts, numerous citizen science programs collect data on river herring, anadromous fish that migrate each spring from the ocean to spawn in rivers and lakes. In collabora­tion with state and local resource managers and academic institutions, these programs aim to protect and restore river herring, improve local watersheds, and in some cases, support commercial harvesting. To better understand how programs are run and how data are used by managers, we interviewed program coordinators and resource manag­ers. Interviews revealed that resource managers consider citizen science–generated river herring data in decision making, but that their concerns about data quality affect if and how data are used. Although not without challenges, standardizing monitoring approaches could improve data collection and use. We offer six considerations related to standardization for managers

The Complexities of Counting Fish: Engaging Citizen Scientists in Fish Monitoring

Data gathered by citizen scientists can help ecologists understand long-term trends and can improve the quality and quantity of data about a resource. In Maine and Massa­chusetts, numerous citizen science programs collect data on river herring, anadromous fish that migrate each spring from the ocean to spawn in rivers and lakes. In collabora­tion with state and local resource managers and academic institutions, these programs aim to protect and restore river herring, improve local watersheds, and in some cases, support commercial harvesting. To better understand how programs are run and how data are used by managers, we interviewed program coordinators and resource manag­ers. Interviews revealed that resource managers consider citizen science–generated river herring data in decision making, but that their concerns about data quality affect if and how data are used. Although not without challenges, standardizing monitoring approaches could improve data collection and use. We offer six considerations related to standardization for managers

Communication and sustainability science teams as complex systems

Communication is essential to resilience, as interactions among humans influence how social-ecological systems (SES) respond to change. Our research focuses on how specific communication interactions on sustainability science teams, such as how people meet with each other; the ways in which they categorize themselves and others; the decision-making models they use; and their communication competencies affect outcomes. We describe research from a two-year study of communication in Maine's Sustainability Solutions Initiative, a statewide network of sustainability science teams. Our results demonstrate that decision making and communication competencies influenced mutual understanding, inclusion of diverse ideas, and progress toward sustainability-related goals. We discuss our results in light of key resilience themes and conclude with recommendations for communication design in sustainability teams for improved collaborative process and outcomes

Communication and sustainability science teams as complex systems

Communication is essential to resilience, as interactions among humans influence how social-ecological systems (SES) respond to change. Our research focuses on how specific communication interactions on sustainability science teams, such as how people meet with each other; the ways in which they categorize themselves and others; the decision-making models they use; and their communication competencies affect outcomes. We describe research from a two-year study of communication in Maine's Sustainability Solutions Initiative, a statewide network of sustainability science teams. Our results demonstrate that decision making and communication competencies influenced mutual understanding, inclusion of diverse ideas, and progress toward sustainability-related goals. We discuss our results in light of key resilience themes and conclude with recommendations for communication design in sustainability teams for improved collaborative process and outcomes

Designing a Real-World Course for Environmental Studies Students: Entering a Social-Ecological System

There is increasing interest in using “real-world pedagogy” to train students in ways that make them better able to contribute toward a more sustainable society. While there is a robust body of literature on the competencies that students need as sustainability professionals, there is a lack of specific guidance in the literature on how to teach for competency development or on how to structure a program or course to support competency development. Our research addresses this gap in the literature through a description and autoethnographic reflection on the design and early implementation of a “real-world” course. The course is from the Environmental Studies Program at Dartmouth College (Hanover, NH, USA), but it takes place in the environs of the Gobabeb Research and Training Centre in the Namib Desert of Namibia and in nearby Topnaar settlements. Our research objective was to articulate strategies to address the primary pedagogical challenges that we faced during the design and first five iterations of the course. These include: How do we frame this course and communicate it to students in a way that is understandable and works within the particular context and constraints of the course? Can we provide students with a coherent framework that helps them to understand the approach and also provides a platform for thoughtful consideration, acquisition, and retention of appropriate competencies? How do we develop collaborations with our community partners that are ethical and effective? How do we frame these real-world experiences in a way that allows for students to integrate their experience with the theory and broader empiricism they learn on campus? To address these pedagogic challenges, we framed the course as a research-based course, more specifically community-based research (CBR), conducted in a social-ecological system (SES). We developed lower-level strategies for implementing this framing, including preparing students for collaborative research, encouraging student ownership of their learning, linking theory to research, and thoughtfully navigating time constraints. Furthermore, program-level and student-level engagement with community have been critical for avoiding becoming “helicopter researchers.” Drawing on our personal reflections and those of our community partners, we conclude with a discussion of emergent outcomes and the next steps for continual improvement and adaptation