Experiential Research to Advance Engaged Civic Learning

Daniel Response to our feedback regarding Mei Fu’s Experimental Research to Advance Engaged Civic Learning @Untitled @Untitled

After meeting with Mei Fu and discussing her course development project , Mei is going to be working with on-going community partners through collaboration to have research be done. Students will be engaged as research assistants and through these research projects they will provide community assessments and provide recommendations and solutions to the community problems identified by the assessment. This Community Based Research will be focused on Advancing Health Equity in Cancer Screenings in Environmental Justice Camden communities working with specific engagement activities that have already begun as we developed this proposal, evidenced by the list of relationships and partnerships of our community partners who will be a part of the community based research Mei Fu will be conducting with her students. In addition to the commitment of our Camden community partners in our project team that include the Joint Board, CCP and CCHP, we also listed the following individuals and organizations who are willing to participate in the stakeholder engagement and contribute to the success of the project, who will be recruited into our community based research project. Their supports will help us to jump start the stakeholder engagement processes. Here are the list of the community partners we have signed up to continue to work on this project:

‣

partner list

Camden Residents. Cheryl Heatwole Shenk, Tracey Powell, Ellen Pavlacka and Michael Morgan expressed their concerns and experiences over the industrial pollution, poor air quality, environmental racism, flooding damages, and poor health outcomes in their neighborhood and their willingness to participate in the project as stakeholders to make effective changes.

Camden County Soil Conservation District has worked for over 40 years in Camden City helping control soil erosion from developing and re-developing parcels and recently to address storm-water runoff and combined sewer overflows through storm-water infrastructure improvement and green infrastructure retrofits. Craig McGee, District Manager, expressed the willingness to serve in PAC or SAG.

Camden City School District. Asthma is highly prevalent among school children and represents a big community health concern. The Camden City School Nurse Robin Cogan asked for more research and solution to the problem and expressed her willingness of being a stakeholder.

School of Nursing at Rutgers-Camden not only is the academic partner of the project team, but also wants to be a changing agent for the community. Dean Donna Nickitas pledged her wholehearted support to the project and expressed her willingness to act on the project findings to help improve the community health outcomes through its presence in the community.

Cooper Children’s Regional Hospital. Dr. April Douglass-Bright, Head of the Division of General Pediatrics at the hospital, expressed her observation over decades on the impacts of the environmental health on the health of children especially the occurrence of childhood asthma called for practical solutions to those problems and voiced her support to the project as a stakeholder to ensure its success.

The Center for Environmental Transformation is an environmental justice organization based in the Waterfront South neighborhood of Camden, New Jersey and seeks to engage, educate, and inspire people to practice a more environmentally responsible way of living on the planet. Its Interim Executive Direct Jonathan Compton wrote to support the project in its full capacity as a stakeholder.

Hopeworks is a social enterprise that uses technology, healing, and entrepreneurship to transform lives of the unemployed youths and their families in Camden. It Executive Director Dan Rhoton wrote to support the project as a stakeholder, help recruit the residents to participate in the project and being a change agent to implement the recommended actions to advance the community.

St. Joseph’s Carpenter Society focuses on issues of affordable housing and community development, working directly with residents to empower them with financial knowledge and education and leadership skills and its new neighborhood plan also calls out the present threat of climate change. Its Executive Direct Pilar Hogan Closkey expressed his strong support for the project and his willingness to collaborate with the project team as a stakeholder.

The National Institute for Healthy Human Spaces, Inc is an environmental justice organization based in Camden. Its Executive Director Roy L Jones with 40 years of EJ experience in the region pledged his full endorsement on this submission and initiative and expressed his willingness to work as stakeholder with the project team in different ways to ensure the success of the project.

The Camden County Municipal Utilities Authority (CCMUA) is the Camden County’s regional wastewater utility provider located in the Waterfront South neighborhood of Camden City and has invested millions of dollars in reducing the combined sewer overflow and flooding to improve the environmental outcomes of the city. Its Executive Director Scott Schreiber expressed the support of CCMUA as stakeholder to identify the effective actions and policies to mitigate climate risk, enhance community resilience and improve community health.

Based on community based research that will be conducted, we hope to host webinar recordings of the guest lectures to be posted online for both educational and sustainability of the project impact for future cohorts of faculty going through the ECL Faculty Fellows program.