Community research seminar: Are academics irrelevant?

dublin | environment | event notice Tuesday March 23, 2004 17:12 by Laurence Cox - community-research group laurence.cox at may dot ie

Case studies of university-based collaboration with community-based environmental advocates

Friday, April 2nd 2004, 11 am - 1 pm
Crolly Room, St Patrick's building,
South Campus, NUI Maynooth

Admission free - all welcome

This is a discussion seminar on the possibilities of co-operation between university researchers and community-based environmental groups, based on innovative projects developed between Griffith University in Australia and the regional environmental movement.

Academics are irrelevant, concluded American union organiser Saul Alinsky thirty years ago. More recently, Ernest Boyer urged universities to engage with community problem solving and action for social justice. Despite these observations, academics remain strangely silent on many social and environmental issues. Although speaking out may not be discouraged in the higher education sector, the pressures to publish, teach and keep pace with administrivia inevitably mitigate against academics’ active engagement in civil society. A variety of factors isolate civil society groups and social scientists from each other. Academics encounter research-funding arrangements that increasingly reflect industry priorities and reward structures that offer little if any recognition for civil engagement. Activists seeking short-term support from universities often experience frustration and disappointment. The cultures of the tertiary and community sectors entail different values, timeframes and hierarchies. Griffith University’s Australian School for Environmental Studies has recently established several partnership initiatives with the regional environment movement. In 2003, the School sponsored a series of workshops for engaged and experienced environmental advocates. These workshops offer personal and professional development in a sector predisposed primarily toward action rather than reflection. Newcomers to the environment movement rarely receive education or training to equip them for the demands of effective advocacy. In conjunction with this workshop series, the School has introduced a new Environmental Advocacy elective for postgraduate students. The course emerged from a three-year collaborative action research project. Its six-month curriculum entails a significant service-learning element during which students undertake an internship with an environmental advocacy organisation in their region. This first-hand experience helps students develop a critical appraisal of particular environmental campaigns and foster action learning within the activist community. This paper discusses the challenges of establishing these initiatives within the university environment and presents feedback from postgraduate and activist participants in both the course and workshops.