Cornell University
EN-9: Community Partnerships

The Food Dignity Project is an action research initiative focused on engaging food insecure communities and universities in building sustainable community food systems. The project is led by Christine Porter, Ph.D. '10, an assistant professor of public health at the University of Wyoming. The project, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, grew out of Porter's Cornell Ph.D. dissertation in the field of nutritional sciences.
The Food Dignity Project is a five-year collaboration between Cornell, Ithaca College, the University of Wyoming, and five communities in three states that aims to engage students, faculty and staff in their local food movements through community-based learning and action research. The overarching goal of the Food Dignity Project is to invest in citizen solutions to food system issues. The research attempts to learn from all the wisdom on the ground, to help inform and connect the food systems movement in terms of what's missing, and use this information to inform the USDA and land-grant universities on how they can be partners to support this work.

In 2014, the Food Dignity Project received the 2014 Community-Campus Partnerships for Health Award (CCHP). The award highlights the power and potential of partnerships between communities and academic institutions as a strategy for social justice and health equity. It honors community-campus partnerships that are striving to achieve the systems and policy changes needed to overcome the root causes of health, social, environmental and economic inequalities.

The Ithaca initiative has involved the Whole Community Project of Cornell Cooperative Extension, a collaborative effort of organizations and individuals in Tompkins County to support the health and well-being of children and youth and address issues related to obesity, sedentary lifestyles, and food injustice. Each regional initiative has served as case models for how extension can be done more effectively. Also, small grants administered through these initiatives will continue to invest in citizen solutions to their own food system issues.
(http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2011/06/usda-grant-build-sustainable-community-food-systems, http://devsoc.cals.cornell.edu/sites/devsoc.cals.cornell.edu/files/shared/documents/pressrelease-award14.pdf)

Cornell's Civic Ecology Lab supports community gardening, community forestry, participatory watershed restoration, and other locally organized civic ecology practices that integrate community and environmental outcomes. The Lab builds awareness of these practices among practitioners in the fields of education; individual, community and ecosystem resilience, in particular after conflict and disaster; and natural resources management. The approach to extension includes participatory action research, working in partnerships with urban sustainability initiatives, and developing youth education programs. (http://civicecology.org/)

Garden Mosaics: Growing Communities. Cornell University Cooperative Extension-New York City (CUCE-NYC) planned and developed a professional development and informal science education program that involves multicultural and intergenerational learning among educators, youth, and adult gardeners in community garden settings. The program also includes action projects, science investigations, citizen science data collection and reporting on national databases. The program focuses on plants and planting practices with an emphasis on food security, nutrition, and environmental sustainability.

Local Roads Program (http://www.clrp.cornell.edu/)
The Cornell Local Roads Program's roots go back to the 1920s when in 1923 the Civil Engineering Department at Cornell University held a conference on highway engineering. The first School for Highway Superintendents was held in 1938, the second in 1940. A few years were skipped during the war, and then the School began annual meetings in 1947.

Today, the Local Roads Program is one of 58 Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP) Centers established by the Federal Highway Administration. We are sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration and the New York State Department of Transportation, with additional funding provided by Cornell University, and participants' training fees. We provide training and technical assistance to local highway and public works officials in New York State.

Professor Rebecca Schneider’s lab in Cornell’s Department of Natural Resources has studied how roadside ditches contribute to flooding, droughts, and degraded water quality in downstream waters. Her research lab has documented that roadside ditches are a significant, rapid conduit of E. coli, a fecal indicator bacteria, from different land uses, particularly from manure-amended agriculture, to streams and drinking water sources. The relevant stakeholders include town planners, local town government officials, and highway department staff. The results have been conveyed via in-person presentations and workshops with local (village, town and county) highway and public works supervisors and other local officials. Many of these workshops were hosted by the Cornell Local Roads Program.

Invasive Species Program (http://www.invasiveplants.net/)
The New York State Invasive Species Research Institute (ISRI), hosted by Cornell’s Department of Natural Resources and Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Invasive Species Outreach Program provide statewide programming on invasive species of concern to New York State. Research results are disseminated more broadly and readily through the ISRI, and multi-county collaborations of natural resource professionals (PRISMs) are served by the Invasive Species Outreach Program. For example, the Department of Natural Resources conducted more than 20 workshops across the state in 2010 on the emerald ash borer, including information on life cycle, detection, monitoring, and control. Audiences served included professional foresters, public natural resources managers, landowners, not-for-profits, and farmers. A Web site (nyis.info) provides detailed species descriptions, print on demand handouts, and partner information and contacts. Cornell Cooperative Extension educators are active in the PRISMs.

Cornell Cooperative Extension, Tompkins County, Local Foods
The concept “local foods” refers to foods produced close to the point of consumption. Cornell Cooperative Extension promotes local foods in its nutrition, agriculture, and community development programs, connecting producers, consumers, and local economic developers, supporting farmers markets, producing guides to local foods, and educating consumers on preparation of fresh foods. Expansion of local foods has implications for local economic development and sustainability in addition to potential nutritional benefits. (http://ccetompkins.org/agriculture/buy-local)

The Whole Community Project
The Cornell Division of Nutritional Sciences is taking an ecological approach to obesity prevention. Traditional approaches focus on education and individual behavior change, which may be hampered by environment, such as presence of vending machines in schools, family eating habits, or lack of access to exercise opportunities. An ecological approach includes changing food and activity environments to support and enable healthy eating and active living. Extension educators receive professional development and have access to materials and other support from researchers and Extension faculty. The ecological approach to preventing childhood obesity is supported by Farm to School and 4-H Youth Development programs on healthy eating. http://www.ithaca.com/news/local_news/ithaca-s-whole-community-project-provides-healthy-food/image_44335c00-8fec-58d1-9d6b-25d4a0fc34dd.html, http://nyevents.us/ithaca-thousands-of-one-congo-square-market/134731

Cornell Cooperative Extension, Tompkins County, Energy
Energy and Workforce Development. In partnership with local Building Performance Institute-accredited contractors, the Energy Corps trains student interns in building science, energy diagnostics, home energy assessments, and communication. Energy Corps members gain leadership skills and practical experience in home energy efficiency that leads to jobs after graduation. (http://ccetompkins.org/energy)

Get Your GreenBack Tompkins facilitates and supports collaborations between local businesses, community members, non-profits, governments and changemakers that are working on food, transportation, waste and energy sustainability issues. These collaborations: are inclusive of and responsive to the needs of people with limited incomes; contribute to local living wage jobs; and help people and organizations save money. http://ccetompkins.org/energy/get-your-green-back-tompkins

Cornell Cooperative Extension, Tompkins County,Community
Communities are defined in many different ways by the diverse people who belong to them. Here at CCE-Tompkins, we work with communities of all kinds and configurations, providing training, resources and faciltiation to help individuals, groups and municipalities identify the issues that are most important to them, to envision potential strategies and solutions, and to organize and take action for change. http://ccetompkins.org/community

Way2Go
Way2Go is transforming the culture of transportation among users, providers and decision makers, so that everyone can get where they need to go in a fair and sustainable community. Through collaborative workshops, projects and events, Way2Go helps people save money, stress less, go green and improve mobility options. See our How-To-Videos, and Talk to us! - See more at: http://ccetompkins.org/community/way2go#sthash.4GPuAoBR.dpuf

Agroforestry Resource Center, Greene County|
The Agroforestry Resource Center provides educational programs, supports research, and promotes collaboration among organizations concerned with sustaining the forest-dominated landscape of the Catskill Mountain/Hudson Valley Region. Agroforestry is the art and science of integrating timber production with other crops and forest related income opportunities. (http://www.agroforestrycenter.org/)

Southern Finger Lakes Region Land Use Leadership Training
In 2010, CCE Schuyler County worked with Cornell's Community and Regional Planning Development Institute (CaRDI) and the Cooperative Extension Associations and Planning Departments in Tompkins, Tioga, Chemung and Steuben counties to bring Land Use Leadership Alliance (LULA) training to the five-county region. (http://cardi.cornell.edu/cals/devsoc/outreach/cardi/programs/land-use/training.cfm)

Forest Connect. We connect forest users to the knowledge and resources needed to ensure sustainable production and ecological function on private forest lands. http://www2.dnr.cornell.edu/ext/forestconnect/

The Tompkins County Environmental Management Council (EMC) has been the Tompkins County Legislature's official citizen advisory board on local environmental issues since 1971.

Its membership consists of citizens with a variety of interests and backgrounds and the common bond is a commitment to the environment.

A staff person from Cornell’s Office of Community Relations has served as a county-appointed member of the EMC for a number of years, and has frequently brought Cornell-related sustainability initiatives to the EMC for an overview and collaboration conversations.

The purpose of the EMC is to identify problems, propose priorities and promote coordination of activities in the development and management of our natural resources and to provide a public forum for the discussion and resolution of these problems and completion of proposed projects.

EMC Bylaws and other background information are available at http://tompkinscountyny.gov/emc

The Tompkins County Planning Department provides financial assistance and staff support to the EMC.

The Tompkins County Climate Protection Initiative is an award-winning coalition of community leaders from the education, business, local government, youth, and nonprofit sectors that provides a place to meet and network around climate and energy issues.

Building on the climate action commitments made by Cornell University, Ithaca College, Tompkins Cortland Community College, Tompkins County, the City of Ithaca, and the towns of Caroline, Dryden, and Ithaca, TCCPI seeks to foster a more climate resilient community and accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy. TCCPI is committed to helping Tompkins County achieve a dynamic economy, healthy environment, and resilient community through a focus on climate protection, energy efficiency, and renewable energy. It is a transformative organization through its focus on solutions and resources for the average family in Tompkins County NY — http://www.tccpi.org/Solutions.html and http://www.tccpi.org/Resources.html — and Cornell is a major player in this initiative.

Cornell is a member of International Town & Gown Association that is a key information resource point for common issues between institutions of higher learning and the communities in which they reside. Shared information among campuses and their host communities include sustainability, housing and community development. campus/master plans, parking and transportation and related topics. Cornell pays for the City of Ithaca to be a member of the Association, as well.

See the following website for more information: http://www.itgau.org