Abstract
Universities and colleges across the United States are making innovative strides in higher education programming to catalyze a more sustainable era of agriculture. This is clearly exemplified through the formation of community-university partnerships as critical illustrations of civic engagement (CE) for sustainable agriculture (SA) education. This paper explores the praxis of CE for SA education by focusing on the ways in which five land-grant universities (LGUs) with undergraduate programs in SA have developed and put into practice community-university partnerships. Drawing upon these programs and supportive literature, this article specifically attempts to describe the role and significance of CE for SA education, emerging community-university partnership models and their implications for prompting food and agriculture sustainability, and student learning and program assessment outcomes. We also reveal the many challenges and opportunities encountered by stakeholders involved in the creation and continuation of these programs and their subsequent coursework. Conclusions offer real world recommendations for other faculty, staff, student, and community stakeholders to implement and generate action-oriented scholarship for and with communities as a viable thread of SA education.
Highlights
According to the National Academies of Science (National Research Council of the National Academies [NRC]; Division on Earth and Life Studies; Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources Board on Life Sciences, 2009), institutions of higher education should provide more agricultural education opportunities that take students “beyond the institution” (p. 6) so that our students may have direct access to civically engaged and real world learning experiences
While we focus on these five land-grant universities (LGUs), it is important to note that the community-university partnerships in sustainable agriculture (SA) education vary from university to university
As students are exposed to the “messiness” of the real world through their activities, we suggest that they learn lessons related to persistence, resource identification, and flexibility as they work toward accomplishing community-identified goals, often as a team
Summary
According to the National Academies of Science (National Research Council of the National Academies [NRC]; Division on Earth and Life Studies; Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources Board on Life Sciences, 2009), institutions of higher education should provide more agricultural education opportunities that take students “beyond the institution” (p. 6) so that our students may have direct access to civically engaged and real world learning experiences. 6) so that our students may have direct access to civically engaged and real world learning experiences. Central to mutually beneficial engagement for communities and universities is “respecting roles, perspectives, needs, and sources of knowledge. It means sharing information, knowledge, and wisdom, collaboratively defining problems, and jointly finding meaningful solutions to those problems” Including key examples of CE during LGU strategic plans can prioritize the needs of the community in education, research, and outreach agendas, resulting in the actualization of applied research with local knowledge and experience (NRC, 2009)
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