Northern Arizona University
EN-10: Community Partnerships

https://nau.edu/Provost/VP-TLDA/FYS/NENAU/ New Economy for Northern Arizona University strives to work locally and globally towards a more equitable, sustainable, resilient, and empowering economy through the study, practice, and promotion of a culture of awareness and cooperation in enterprise and entrepreneurship. The food choices we make everyday impact economies all over the world. We are currently working on empowering ourselves as students to take action for the food system we want to see on campus. We want our impact on those economies to encourage sustainability, equity, and justice. The first step is to understand what the student population at NAU envisions as a just and inclusive food system and then work to achieve this vision. The study, recognition, and shaping of our impact on the local economy in particular will continue to be a major part of our work moving forward.

https://nau.edu/Provost/VP-TLDA/FYS/WACBAT/ECO/ The Weatherization and Community Building Action Team (WACBAT) works to bridge the gap between campus and community while encouraging our students to engage in sustainable initiatives that promote democracy and democratic action. WACBAT focuses on where social and environmental justice align with the goal of addressing local issues, and then putting them into action to create lasting change. This student led group hopes to bring about culture change, policy change and community building around saving energy, money and jump-starting a greener economy based on renewable energy.

https://nau.edu/Provost/VP-TLDA/FYS/TL/ Total Liberation (TL) Action Learning Team is a collective of students, artists, and community members who have come together asking the questions: What can we do as activists to creatively address nonhuman oppression? What are the connections between nonhuman and human oppression? What can be done to help create alliances between animal liberation activists and other social justice activists? How is animal liberation inseparable from the cultivation of sustainable and just communities? Our choice of the name “Total Liberation” reflects our shared belief that all oppression is connected and our collective vision for a creative activism that is holistic, compassionate, and inclusive of all living beings. Our Action Learning Team “champions a politics of total liberation which grasps the need for, and the inseparability of, human, nonhuman animal, and Earth liberation and freedom for all in one comprehensive, though diverse, struggle” (Best, Nocella, Kahn, Gigliotti, & Kemmerer, 2007, p. 2). We are currently involved in several projects. These projects are: Veganic Gardening at NAU- We have just recently secured a veganic (no animal product) garden plot on campus. Volunteering at local animal shelters The Really Real Food Challenge – We are starting conversations to create more just, local, fairly traded, ecologically grown, and plant based food options on campus. Creating Art as Activism – We are creating and distributing zines about holistic justice and decolonizing veganism. We also create and share public art in the form of poetry, crafts, and painting about issues affecting humans, nonhuman animals, and the planet.

ALT: Community Gardens https://nau.edu/Provost/VP-TLDA/FYS/Community-Gardens/ Since its inception in 2012, the Community Garden ALT seeks to change the way we produce, consume, and value local food through educational outreach, increasing community participation in community gardens, and building innovative partnerships between Flagstaff businesses, non-profits, and community groups. Students from NAU visit Colton Community Garden weekly to do maintenance and upkeep, work with The Peaks Senior Living residents and Museum of Northern Arizona staff to gain landscaping and gardening, social, and professional skills, build compost bins, plant communal garden beds, learn about beneficial and harmful weeds and insects, and maintain a useful rain harvesting system.