Under Consideration for Publication; please do not reproduce further
Building and Sustaining Interdisciplinary Community Partnerships:
The Crabby Creek Initiative
*Melissa Terlecki1, Caroline Nielsen1, Lisa Ratmansky1, Nancy L. Watterson1, Cynthia McGauley1, Jon Hannum1, Kallyn Seidler1, Emily Bongiorno1; Owen Owens2, Pete Goodman2, Chuck Marshall2; Susan Gill3, Kristen Travers3, John Jackson3; *David Dunbar1
Cabrini College1
610 King of Prussia Road
Radnor, Pa 19087,
Valley Creek Restoration Partnership2
1403 Carroll Brown Way
West Chester, PA 19382
Stroud Water Research Center3
970 Spencer Road
Avondale, Pa 19311
*Melissa Terlecki and David Dunbar contributed equally to the work of this manuscript.
Absract:
In this article the authors identify the steps and strategies that emerged in an interdisciplinary, community-based participatory research (CBPR) project—the Crabby Creek Initiative. This initiative was undertaken jointly by Cabrini College faculty in biology and psychology, the Valley Creek Restoration Partnership, the Stroud Water Research Center, and local residents of this small region of eastern Pennsylvania. This paper examines the phases the partners have gone through and the strategies used in the process of of collaboration: trust, mutual design, shared implementation, joint ownership, and dissemination of knowledge: the building blocks of equitable partnerships. Ultimately, the lessons learned have the potential to galvanize practitioners to engage not only in citizen science, but also more broadly in the practice of applied and engaged democracy.
Keywords: campus-community partnerships, collaborative capacity-building, citizen science, interdisciplinary community based research, stream monitoring, macro-invertebrate testing, watershed restoration
Introduction
What do vanishing brook trout (Pennsylvania’sstate fish) and the possible flooding of George Washington’s headquarters (Valley Forge National Park) have to do with Cabrini College students learning about stream chemistry and macroinvertabrates, as well as local residents learning to do their own stream water monitoring? These experiences stand at the heart of an interdisciplinary Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) project known as the Crabby Creek Initiative. This initiative—undertaken jointly by Cabrini College faculty in biology and psychology, the Valley Creek Restoration Partnership, the Stroud Water Research Center, and local residents of this small region of eastern Pennsylvania—serves as more than a template of an effective local watershed management program. It also demonstrates the creation and maintenance of equitable partnerships in citizen science—the very roots of applied and engaged democracy.
For any project serious about cultivating the potential for applied democracy and, ideally, systemic social change—the underpinnings of social justice—the Crabby Creek Initiative offers a compelling story.The steps involved in creating sustainable partnerships are still often understudied or not widely shared with nascent practitioners (Adams, Miller-Korth and Brown, 2004), even though anticipating partnership as a series of progressive stages would not only enhance the success of such undertakings, but also hone the skills needed to ensure democratic, collaborative, mutual interactions—in short, to sustain equitable partnerships. To address these gaps, this article takes a closer look at one example, magnifying the processes through which complex partnerships unfold and develop. In so doing, we illuminate several core principles that characterize interdisciplinary partnership. The foundational steps we outline add to existing scholarship in multiple fields (Amuwo and Jenkins, 2001; Suarez-Balcazar et al, 2006; “Community-Institutional Partnerships", 2007). By reflecting on our processes of engagement, we reach toward long-term goals: increasing community access to scientific knowledge while sharing technical expertise and empowering people to engage civically—thereby enhancing environmental stewardship.[i] We underscore the importance of trust, mutual design and implementation, and creativity for effective, long-term community partnerships.
Our interdisciplinary work has bearing on several areas of scholarship in addition to psychology and biology. These include Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) and action research and studies of how best to build community capacity—research that crosses disciplines in areas as broad and encompassing as civic engagement, service learning, community organizing, social justice, social change, and activism.Finally, we address innovations for cross-sectoral practices that aspire to create comprehensive approaches through the means of equitable partnerships. Our work has immediate bearing for scholar-practitioners of community-campus engagement, whose projects benefit from the synergy of faculty's expertise and students' enthusiasm, and vice versa (Savan, 2004; Keen and Baldwin, 2004), but who likewise must grapple with potentially competing interests and diverse intentions of community stakeholders. These forces not only influence each constituent’s experience of engagement, but also affect the very practice of partnership. The sub-themes we raise here have import for multiple approaches: the growing scholarship on cross-sector partnerships, particularly those committed to co-defined outcomes (Dorado et al, 2009); studies of projects committed to enhancing “equitable partnerships,” as advocated in CBPR and community psychology (Rappaport, et al, 2008; Israel, Schulz, & Parker, 1998; Israel et al., 2003); and multi-modal approaches for creatively engaging community members to develop awareness and/or technical, social, political skills, whether these entail members in coalitions, students in college-courses, or citizens undertaking community actions (Dorado et al, 2009).
This article thus moves through the following arc: offering a brief overview of the Crabby Creek Initiative’s background, we articulate some of the steps or phases—both the unexpected and planned for—through which our interdisciplinary partnership has evolved. Building on initial successes among our coalition of partners, we then explain how we developed an adaptive, interdependent infrastructure. At the heart of this discussion we provide details about the interlocking actions binding the core constituents: the Cabrini College faculty and their students, the Valley Creek Restoration Partnership (VCRP), the Stroud Water Research Center (SWRC), and the Crabby Creek residents. This framework provides a useful lens through which to examine how research partnerships may emerge, evolve, develop, and become sustainable. By article’s end, readers should have a deeper grasp of how to begin building the capacity to partner, as well as what it means to become more involved in “Citizen Science”—a process which empowers individuals to move from nascent participants to ever-more-engaged actors in improving the environment.[ii] To the extent that we continue to sustain our partnership, develop residents’ awareness of environmental issues, and enhance all parties' capacity for more comprehensive social change actions, we succeed in a mission both lofty and pragmatic: equipping global citizens to confront issues of world-wide environmental justice.
Review of the Literature
Working together as equal partners in interdisciplinary research may seem patently obvious: would not all parties involved wish to develop new knowledge, capabilities and opportunities for ongoing, shared learning?But implementing meaningful community-based collaboration is not as straightforward as it may seem, especially when those involved are cross-sector and interdisciplinary partners new to campus-community partnerships. Two recent studies further knowledge of the iterative, relational aspects of community partnerships essential to understand, particularly during the first year or developmental phase. Participants in new initiatives may have a limited understanding of the notion of “community partnership” as a collaborative process that is emergent—still in its formative stages.First, "Lessons Learned through the Creative and Iterative Process of Community-Based Participatory Research" (Power, Cumbie, and Weinert, 2006) offers an apt touchstone for our work. T evolutionary process of CBR partnership the article describes parallels closely the gradually unfolding and recursive process that has characterized the Crabby Creek Initiative. As in Power et al's findings, the Crabby Creek partners did not know at the outset the extent to which the initiative would become an inter-organizational, collaborative arrangement.Moreover, Drs. Dunbar and Terlecki had not necessarily set out to use or apply CBPR principles and protocols, though they did later incorporate such principles into the design of their course.[1] The symbiotic, interdependent roles that have evolved among the Crabby Creek partners is discussed in current scholarship such as "Staying at the Table: Building Sustainable Community-Research Partnerships" (Rappaport, Alegria, Mulvaney-Day, and Boyle, 2008).These authors name viable ingredients for "equitable partnership", central among them "practicing cultural humility": an attitude and approach to inquiry in which we, as professionals, should enter communities with a humble stance; demonstrate our openness to others' worldviews and local wisdom; be willing to share mistakes and growth; maintain empathic interactions among collaboraters; be honest about motives; and be willing to address conflict and potentially uncomfortable moments of disagreement—all with the eye toward developing trust and, ultimately, keeping people "at the table." (694-695).
Other conceptual frameworks for creating and maintaining such productive relationships hail from a variety of fields. Health practitioners, for example, have amassed an impressive range of orienting documents with Community-Campus Partnerships for Health (CCPH), such as those provided on “Community-Institutional Partnerships" and "Understanding Trust among Partners” ( Practitioners grounded both in community development and community organizing experience and well-versedin academic conventions provide specific nuts-and-bolt worksheets. "Developing and Sustaining Community-based Participatory Research: Partnerships: A Skill-building Curriculum,” is one comprehensive “toolkit." These studies provide an experiential backdrop as well as theoretical framework that echoes and underscores the pragmatic emphases in our Crabby Creek Initiative.
Results
Building positive, long-term, mutually committed relationships is a hallmark for highly effective CBPR projects; moreover, collaborative, community-based research is a process, one best done in “baby steps”—while keeping “an eye toward the full participation of community partners” (Stoecker and Schmidt, 2008). Such insights held true for the Crabby Creek Initiative, as community members and academic partners proceeded in precisely this sort of iterative, adaptive process--a process best characterized by three (3) steps or phases. The initial phase of partnership development was catalyzed by externalities (ie., grant funding, a 'forced' impetus to find a community partner), primarily based on only one or two individuals. However, it evolved quickly past this first phase to involve people who could bring diverse expertise to the table. The middle phase established preliminary operating structures: connecting organizations with shared interests. Conversations among these partners thus spurred a longer-term relationship which would eventually tackle an array of inter-related environmental issues and methods for addressing them: macroinvertebrate testing, stream chemistry/water monitoring; stormwater damage minimilization, community attitude survey, and a backyard ecology program. The third—and currently emerging—phase demonstrates how the Crabby Creek Initiative is moving toward greater sustainability among and across all partners. Having established precedence for good follow-through with actions and products in the first stages, we are now widening the scope to expand and deepen the residents' level of involvement. In other words, we are moving more toward “Citizen Science”, raising awareness at the grassroots level through educational initiatives that help people learn about key issues and engage them to make changes in their regular practices.
Discussion: Incremental Building of Partnerships—Making Initial Connections and Taking Baby Steps
As do many CBR projects, the Crabby Creek Initiative began with one faculty member stumbling into a local issue through the back door. In 2005, having inherited an EPA grant from a fellow Cabrini College faculty member, Dr. David Dunbar, Associate Professor of Biology, was in search of a local environmental issue that would fit the grant's parameters:he is also an avid trout fisherman. Through his contacts at the local chapter of Trout Unlimited, Dr. Dunbar was put in touch with Dr. Owen Owens, Chair of Valley Creek Restoration Project (VCRP)—a local coalition bound together by its commitment to ecological issues in the area, most notably the diminishing health of Valley Creek—and the dialogue began.
The Valley Creek Restoration Partnership (VCRP)1consists ofs key stakeholders from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the local community including the following non-profit organizations: Valley Forge Chapter of Trout Unlimited (TU), Green Valleys Association, Open Lands Conservancy, West Chester Fish, Game & Wildlife Association, and the Chester County League of Women Voters. The VCRP also is comprised of several organizations serving an advisor role.[iii] The VCRP formed in 2001 for the purpose of addressing negative environmental impacts resulting from development activities in the Valley Creek watershed.The Valley Creek watershed is a 23.4 square mile system of streams and tributaries within the Philadelphia Metropolitan area including Cabrini College, located in Radnor Township. The stream flows through Valley Forge National Park and provides important habitat for many species of fish, birds, mammals, and amphibians. The Valley Creek Watershed is classified as a "Class A" wild trout stream as designated by the Pennsylvania Boat & Fish Commission, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania awarded its highest protection level of Exceptional Value to the watershed. Nonetheless, the Valley Creek Watershed has experienced dramatic change due to rapid suburban development. Specifically, the increase of impervious surface and inadequate stormwater management has resulted in bank erosion, flooding, and siltation, negatively impacting the physical habitat and biological community of the creek. In fact, as a direct result of storm-water runoff issues arising from Valley Creek tributaries, several historic buildings in Valley Forge National Historical Park, including Washington's and Lafayette's headquarters, are in danger of being flooded within a decade from now (National Park Service, 2005).
The VCRP has been working for a number of years to maintain, improve, and enhance the Valley Creek watershed. Crabby Creek, a smaller, yet critical tributary of Valley Creek, has furthermore sustained ongoing stormwater runoff problems because of poorly planned for housing development that occurred over the last two decades. Additionally, a sewerline pipe crossed a section of Crabby Creek and due to stream bank erosion, the sewer pipe was endangered to break and release raw sewage into Crabby Creek, which would subsequently flow directly into Valley Creek. To manage the consequent problems caused by stormwater runoff and the potential harm to the stream if the sewer pipe were to be damaged by stream bank erosion, in 2004 the VCRP, having received a WilliamPenn Foundation grant, began work to restore a section of Crabby Creek. The intent of restoration was twofold, to increase the creek’s capacity to deal with the added runoff and to rechannel the creek to bypass the sewer line thereby protecting the creek from sewer pipe damage. Ultimately, the VCRP desired the restoration work would increase the health of the creek as well. It was into this juncture that Dr. Dunbar stepped. Having recently attended an academic conference on undergraduate research (CUR) on interdisciplinary Community Based Research (CBR), and looking to act on the EPA grant, Dr. Dunbar was excited to have Cabrini College students from different disciplines bring their minds to bear on a shared problem; he found a kindred spirit in Psychology professor Dr. Melissa (Missy) Terlecki.
Reflecting on Formative Stages
In the initial stages Dr. Dunbar set out armed mostly with enthusiasm, but as he reflects now, without an explicit idea of how his work as a Primary Investigator would fit with current environmental issues in the region. Nonetheless, he embraced the chance to work with others open to such an adventure. One of the most fortuitous catalysts for the initiative came about through the seemingly surprising addition of a Psychology professor to the team; after all, psychology and biology are not necessarily the first disciplines one might think to bring together for a new collaboration.In retrospect, Dr. Terlecki's insight that the VCRP, as an organization, could reach its potential by understanding the local constituents—their attitudes and behaviors- more fully.Dr. Dunbar and Dr. Terlecki began serving as volunteer advisers to the VCRP, determining ways in which Cabrini College undergraduate students might work with the community partners. The two faculty members, in conjunction with Dr. Owens and others, fleshed out how Cabrini College, as an institution of higher education, could bring to bear its resources: intellectual capital, student energy and interest, and perhaps some grant-supported funding to assist with basic research. Although neither of the two faculty initially involved had training specifically in environmental sciences, both were highly motivated to learn and adapt. Drs. Dunbar's and Terlecki's knowledge in the sciences and social sciences respectively, complemented their commitment to meaningful undergraduate research; this combination of prior knowledge and social infrastructure can be seen to have been key building blocks for the project from the outset.