Community-Engaged Sustainability Education: Research, Education, and Outreach

GEN100 is a required course for all first-semester freshmen in the College of Agriculture, Food, and Environment (CAFÉ). As part of the Community-Engaged Sustainability Education project each of the twenty-two GEN100... [ view full abstract ]

GEN100 is a required course for all first-semester freshmen in the College of Agriculture, Food, and Environment (CAFÉ). As part of the Community-Engaged Sustainability Education project each of the twenty-two GEN100 Instructors chose a REO (research-education-outreach) track topic and facilitated a semester-long set of activities and assignments. REO track topics included (1) Hunger, Malnutrition and Food Security, (2) Urban Forestry, (3) Community Gardens, (4) Diversified Organic Vegetable Production, (5) School Nutrition, and (5) Watersheds. This project provided commonality across sections, helped emphasize sustainability and the land-grant mission, and increased first-semester students' sense of community in the classroom, the College, the University, and the region. It also provided benefits for the community stakeholders including volunteer hours, message dissemination, and funding for materials and programs.  Many Universities are discussing how to enhancing the first-year experience in rigorous and inspiring ways, and this project may have some lessons for  similar initiatives. It's difficult to examine whether this project affected Spring-to-Fall retention rates but we argue that being a contributing member of the community does have an impact on these numbers.