Western Washington University
EN-10: Community Partnerships

Western's Sustainable Communities Partnership (SCP) program connects WWU faculty and students with nearby communities to address climate resilience, promote well-being, strive for social justice, improve livability, further environmental protection, and maintain economic vitality. SCP supports and coordinates projects identified by community partners, particularly in regions that are most vulnerable to climate change. Two recent and successful project examples include providing consistent and coordinated recommendations for climate resilience goals and policies in comprehensive plans for several small cities in Whatcom County and surveying rural communities on their perceptions of air quality with the East Whatcom Regional Resource Center and East Whatcom Community Council Clean Air Committee.

Western's Sustainability Engagement Institute received grant funding to host a Graduate Student Coordinator for the SCP program for the past two years. The Graduate Student Coordinator provides partnership recruitment and coordination, project management, report editing, and logistical support for faculty and community partners. Through this grant period, SCP has led nine projects with eight faculty and over 50 students.

https://sustain.wwu.edu/scp

Western sponsors this ongoing program which is affiliated with the Urban and Environmental Planning and Policy Department in the College of the Environment and in partnership with the Sustainability Engagement Institute. The program has been funded by a combination of grants through Research and Sponsored Programs, course revenue through Outreach and Continuing Education, and fundraising via a Sustainability Pathways fund in the Western Foundation. Two consecutive program development grants through Career Connect WA have provided the most significant financial support. The program URL is https://sustain.wwu.edu/pathways.

WWU provides material support in the form of administrative staff time associated with the grants, course delivery, and philanthropy. There is one Research Associate / Director position that is permanent, but entirely reliant on fundraising efforts from the program itself. Other indirect material supports include things such as the WWU website.

The Sustainability Pathways program began in 2020 and recruits local partner organizations every year. While the majority of partners have been consistent, each year there are a few new ones added. Partner organizations include non-profits representing all focus areas, town government planning offices, state and federal land management agencies, farms, schools, and select sustainability oriented businesses. There are currently 24 community partner organizations participating.

There are also two primary regional network partnerships for Sustainability Pathways. These are the North Central Career Connect WA network, and the Civic Leadership and Engagement Corps through the Campus Coalition for the Public Good.

Whiteswan Environmental (whiteswanenvironmental.org) is an indigenous-led non-profit organization focused on cultural and environmental restoration in the Salish Sea Bioregion, and supporting the community healing needed to allow all people to contribute. They have worked in partnership with WWU's Center for Community Learning (and other WWU departments, including Environmental Studies, the Salish Sea Institute, and Sustainability Engagement Institute) since 2018 to organize and facilitate a wide variety of events, including film screenings, panel discussions, forums, communities of practice, place-based retreats, and more to support cross-cultural healing and environmental stewardship. One of Whiteswan Environmental co-founders, Kwastlmut ~ Sadie Olsen, served as the first-ever intern in the Center for Community Learning's Community Engagement Fellows (cefellows.org) program. She went on to co-found the Newx Xwlemi Tengexw (traditional land of the Lummi people) cohort of the Fellows program in 2019, which Whiteswan Environmental's team continues to co-facilitate. Whiteswan Environmental also co-organized two multi-day retreats in 2019 focused on building transboundary (U.S./Canada, and indigneous/non-indigenous) relationships and collaborations among environmental organizations in the Salish Sea Bioregion. Kwastlmut ~ Sadie also co-hosted a national workshop to teach about the Community Engagement Fellows program model in 2020. WWU's Center for Community Learning supports Whiteswan Environmental's Visions for the Future events led by indigenous youth for other indigenous youth, their ongoing work as co-founders and curriculum developers of Whatcom Intergenerational High School, which seeks to blend Indigenous and Western ways of knowing, teaching, and learning, and their planning and design of a summer 2023 workshop focused on mapping resources and restoring cultural practices in traditional village sites in the San Juan and Gulf Islands of the Salish Sea.