| Overall Rating | Silver |
|---|---|
| Overall Score | 59.21 |
| Liaison | Elaine Durr |
| Submission Date | Feb. 11, 2022 |
Elon University
EN-10: Community Partnerships
| Status | Score | Responsible Party |
|---|---|---|
|
3.00 / 3.00 |
Elaine
Durr Senior Director of Sustainability Office of Sustainability |
Name of the institution’s formal community partnership to advance sustainability :
Does the institution provide financial or material support for the partnership? :
Which of the following best describes the partnership timeframe?:
Which of the following best describes the partnership?:
Are underrepresented groups and/or vulnerable populations engaged as equal partners? :
A brief description of the institution’s formal community partnership to advance sustainability:
The Elon Year of Service Graduate Fellows program (formerly Elon-Alamance Health Partners [EAHP] and Kenan Community Impact Fellows) is a partnership between Elon University and several organizations in Alamance County, which offers six recent Elon graduates the opportunity to engage in one year of meaningful service work to improve the health, education, and economic well-being of residents in Alamance County.
Based on their strengths, interests and professional goals, these recent graduates are matched with one of the following agencies: Alamance Achieves, Alamance County Health Department, Alamance Regional Medical Center, Economic Development - City of Burlington, Healthy Alamance, Impact Alamance.
Program participants are considered Elon University non-exempt employees and given a contract for the one-year fellowship. In addition, they are entitled to all of the benefits, including the option to participate in health insurance, available to a full-time Elon University employee. Throughout their year of service, the Elon graduates receive strong mentorship from faculty and their supervisors, as well as professional development opportunities. Participants are also eligible for an incentive stipend at the completion of the one year program if they attend graduate school in North Carolina or accept employment in Alamance or a surrounding county.
https://www.elon.edu/u/spdc/service-year/elon-year-of-service-graduate-fellows-program/
Name of the institution’s formal community partnership to advance sustainability (2nd partnership):
Does the institution provide financial or material support for the partnership? (2nd partnership):
Which of the following best describes the partnership timeframe? (2nd partnership):
Which of the following best describes the partnership’s sustainability focus? (2nd partnership):
Are underrepresented groups and/or vulnerable populations engaged as equal partners? (2nd partnership):
A brief description of the institution’s formal community partnership to advance sustainability (2nd partnership):
The Loy Farm at the Elon Environmental Center has a formal multi-year partnership with the Asheville-based Utopian Seed Project. Loy Farm is one of Utopian Seed Project's 'trial partners,' which are farms throughout the Southeast growing and providing feedback on crops to ascertain useful traits, such as flavor, hardiness, vigor, flood resistance and other interesting traits. Loy Farm is conducting variety trials of tropical crops to determine their viability in the changing climate of the Southeast. Utopian Seed Project provides Loy Farm with plant material in exchange for feedback on variety trials that informs their mission and goals.
Various Environmental Studies courses, including ENS 3140 – Agroecology and ENS 3110 – Sustainable Food Production, are involved in the variety trials as a form of active learning. Students learn about the impacts to the agricultural system due to climate change and then apply that knowledge by helping start different tropical crops in the greenhouse, planting them out in the spring and helping maintain and monitor crops throughout the summer and fall. Students, faculty and Elon Dining staff help assess the crops' viability in a production sense but also from the supply-side. Through recipe development, taste testing and integration into the dining halls, students are exposed to understanding the challenges of the supply and demand side of investigating new crops that will provide Southeastern farmers resiliency tactics in the face of a changing climate. Feedback is provided to Utopian Seed Project through course project deliverables and direct feedback from Environmental Studies faculty and the Loy Farm Manager.
Underrepresented groups and/or vulnerable populations are forefronted in the work of the Utopian Seed Project. For example, for the Taro project, Carter Family Farms (a Black owned farm that specializes in crops of the African Diaspora in southwest Virginia) is one of the primary stakeholders and is providing agronomic guidance on taro varieties to grow. They have recorded informational videos about the crops and are receiving plant material from the Utopian Seed Project.
There is not a website URL for this partnership.
Name of the institution’s formal community partnership to advance sustainability (3rd partnership):
Does the institution provide financial or material support for the partnership? (3rd partnership):
Which of the following best describes the partnership timeframe? (3rd partnership):
Which of the following best describes the partnership? (3rd partnership):
Are underrepresented groups and/or vulnerable populations engaged as equal partners? (3rd partnership):
A brief description of the institution’s formal community partnership to advance sustainability (3rd partnership):
A brief description of the institution’s other community partnerships to advance sustainability:
Website URL where information about the institution’s community partnerships to advance sustainability is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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