Dickinson College
IN-25: Innovation B

Sixteen Dickinson students worked with The Greater Carlisle Project and the Borough of Carlisle to measure community resilience in fall 2016 as part of a course, Building Sustainable Communities. Three of the students continued the research in spring 2017 for 500-level independent research credit. The research identified areas of resilience and of weakness in Carlisle and produced recommendations for action. The work is also helping to provide a broad organizing framework for Dickinson’s work with the community. Results of the project were highlighted in an article in NACUBO’s Business Officer Magazine, “Joining Forces,” February 2018, https://www.businessofficermagazine.org/features/joining-forces/. The students were the first in the world to use the online City Resilience Index (CRI) to construct a profile of community resilience. The CRI is a tool that was developed by Arup International Development for the Rockefeller Foundation through research in 26 cities around the world. Arup and the Rockefeller Foundation granted Dickinson permission to use the CRI online-tool in its pilot phase. To gather information for input to the CRI tool, the student research team conducted interviews with roughly 30 leaders from local government, non-profit organizations, community development corporations and businesses, as well as collect and review numerous public reports and databases. The students presented their results at a workshop that was attended by 35 members of the Carlisle community, and they also led four roundtable discussions to get feedback on the approach and findings of the research, learn more about community perspectives on resilience, and explore possible next steps. The feedback from participants in the community workshop was very positive. Dickinson College, The Greater Carlisle Project and Carlisle Borough government were encouraged to build on the initial research with the goal of developing recommendations for building community resilience in Carlisle. Responding to this encouragement, three of the students continued the research on community resilience in spring 2017 as for-credit independent research projects. They conducted a series of focus group discussions with members of the community to refine understanding of community resilience in Carlisle and develop recommendations. The students presented their results and recommendations and discussed them with the community at a meeting of the Greater Carlisle Project in April 2017. Information about the community resilience project can be found online: https://www.dickinson.edu/news/article/2308/reacting_to_change https://www.businessofficermagazine.org/features/joining-forces/

Article about the project in February 2018 edition of NACUBO's Business Officer magazine: https://www.businessofficermagazine.org/features/joining-forces/