California State University, Channel Islands
EN-9: Community Partnerships

CSU Channel Islands has many sustainability partnerships including the National park Service, Ventura County Resource Conservation District, Business & Technology Partnership, Underwood Family Farms, and Ventura County Emergency Planning Council Member.

We provide students, faculty, researchers, and our local community with the resources and opportunities to engage in natural and cultural resource based research and education via a partnership between the US National Park Service and CSU Channel Islands.

CSU Channel Islands has a strong community partnership with Central Coast Alliance United for A Sustainable Economy (CAUSE). Working through hundreds of community residents and in collaboration with many of the region's community, labor, environmental and interfaith organizations, CAUSE's activities focus on six areas: 1. Improving civic engagement in low income communities: Work with us on this non-partisan effort to increase voter turnout of new and occasional voters in primarily Latino precincts across the Central Coast region to achieve state tax and fiscal reform in California. 2. Empowering youth: Help us work with youth in South Oxnard and Santa Paula to improve the school learning environment and make school lunches healthier. We also work with youth on film projects to document issues affecting their community. 3. Promoting Environmental Justice: Engage the community to protect low income communities such as South Oxnard from pollution and health threats while increasing access to open space by protecting the Ormond Beach Wetlands and advocating for the Gateway Park to the Ormond Beach Wetlands. We are also working to create new urban parks in the Westside neighborhood of Ventura. 4. Encouraging green and accountable development: We established the triple bottom line network of businesses that goes beyond the economic bottom line to include a business’s ecological and social costs and benefits. We are also working to establish community benefit agreements to hold developers accountable to the local community through jobs and investment. 5. Increasing access to healthy food: CAUSE is working to establish community gardens on public lands, improving meals in public schools, and activating school wellness committees to improve the health of students. We are also looking at completing a farm to institution study. 6. Women’s Economic Justice Project-Centro Mujer: Students can assist in the leadership development component of Centro Mujer. Preparing and conducting thematic lessons to share with participants. Students can also assist in the development of English as a Second Language (ESL) classes using popular education techniques and focusing on "the language of justice" in teaching English to immigrant women. In addition we have three neighborhood-based organizing projects: The Green and Healthy South Oxnard Project/Voz Hueneme, Vecinos Unidos in Santa Paula, and the Ventura Avenue Leadership Team.