Sixteenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

Recognizing unrealized potential at the intersection of the interests of communities and the capacity of regional universities’ resources, especially in the increasingly critical and uniquely challenging areas of sustainability and resilience, to serve those interests, the Resilient Cities Initiative (RCI) was established by the Institute for Sustainable Development at CSU, Chico in 2016. The RCI is an innovative and award-winning replication of the Educational Partnerships for Innovation in Communities (EPIC) model, and a member of the EPIC-Network, which fosters synergistic partnerships that produce unprecedented value in community-university partnerships. Here, we look to assess the impacts of the RCI’s three-year project in partnership with the Public Works-Engineering Division at the City of Chico, CA. This neighborhood improvement planning effort, coordinated from 2016-2018, focused on the public rights-of-way in a residential neighborhood immediately adjacent to both CSU, Chico and downtown Chico, and resulted in a neighborhood improvement study that was adopted by Chico City Council in May 2019. Our assessment focuses first on the learning experience of students and benefits to faculty and the curriculum across an interdisciplinary cohort of 16 courses, 14 faculty and over 750 CSU, Chico students - representing eight academic departments and four of seven of the University’s colleges - that participated. Our secondary focus is on the benefit to the partner agency, impact on the greater community and relevance to the town-gown relationship overall. Our findings demonstrate that powerful mutual value can be created and maintained through this approach, including beneficial and lasting outcomes for all parties involved.