cc >> Tom Zinnen: Welcome,
everyone, to Wednesday
I'm Tom Zinnen. I work Nite at the Lab.
Center at UW-Madison. I also work for UW Extension
Cooperative Extension. On behalf of those organizations
and our other partners, Wisconsin Public Television, the
Wisconsin Alumni Association, UW-Madison Science Alliance
and PLATO, I'm delighted to be
Wednesday Nite at the Lab. able to welcome you to another
night, 50 times a year. This We do this every Wednesday
Wisconsin Idea here at UW Madison, and tonight's work is
a particularly good example of
from all over Wisconsin in the that, of engaging communities
ways that the university life of the university, and the
communities all over the state. iWe have three speakers.f
The first one will
Dadit is a PhD student here in be Dadit Hidayat.
Program of the Nelson Institute tfor Environmental Studies.
Dadit has volunteered with
since the fall of 2007. His work with The Natural Step
Monona is largely driven by his interest in addressing a serious
gap between academic and local
environmental programs community, and how to address
Dadit believes that working with a grassroots community
organization will build a strong
and the community, which can partnership between academics
practical ways to resolve problems of our environment.
The second speaker
Heather is the executive is Heather Gates.
of the grassroots organization director and co-founder
Monona, which educates about, advocates for and promotes
sustainability. It's
has helped the group become a catalyst for change and a major
driver in moving the city and its residents onto and down a
path toward more sustainable
Monona to support a wider futurnetwork of members,beyond
clients and collaborators throughout the region.
The third speaker is Randy Stoeker.
Randy is a professor here at
of Community and UW-Madison in the Department
For those of you who have been Environmental Sociology.
the Department of here a Rural Sociology. to be
He has a joint appointment in the Center for Community and
Economic Development which
In the last six years, Randy began in July of 2005.
academy-community partnerships has focused his work in
development. He's acontinuing to work toip
amplify the community voice in
strong information technology servisupport for nonprofitrovide
organizations. Prior to coming to UW-Madison,
Randy was at the University of Toledo for 17 years.
So please join me in welcoming
tonight to Wednesday the three of our speakers
Nit[APPLAUSE]ab.
Dadit Hidayat: Well, thank you, Tom, for the introduction.
It's a real honor to be here. As you know, this will be
a collaborative presentation. Heather Gates, The Natural Step
director, she knows really
Randy Stoeker, the professor, the expert on campus about
service learning, community-based research and you
name it, that kind of thing, and I'm here.
I think I'm just lucky enough to get paid to introduce them!
So I'm here and try to get
Well, I'm graduate student, theso what can I do?ney.
I need that money for paying my study!
[LAUGHS] Anyway,
outline of this presentation we would like, the
about how we see, how we view environmental problems, and then
Heather will share a story about
The Natural Step Monona, and her community groups in Monona,
The Natural Step Monona, how they decided to start
in the past four or five years. Then, Randy Stoeker will share
a story about what is it about
and especially how we can benefit from that kind of model
for addressing
local environmental problems. Then we'll share a story about
our collaborative works, which
that we ran. One of them, iswe already did thises
past spring and then this fall
of one. Then each semesteof us will sharemiddle
about what kind of lessons we learn from this partnership.
So from my point of view as a student, from Heather's point of
view as a community group leader
So ecosystem services and fand human well-being.tive.
If we talk about health, and I
human well-being is basically, would argue, this is my opinion,
successful we address any problems, and I mean any problem
means not only environmental
but any problems. When problems, not only even health,
the W.H.O., the World Health we talk about health,
they defined health as a state Organization in 1948,
and social well-being, not of complete physical, mental
or infirmity. So physical, merely the absence of disease,
not just disease, not just mental and social,
So when looking at this graphic, the absence of disease.
When we have four healtcomponents of health--ter.
I really like this graphic. I just found that recently,
just because it has the right components there, I may have
some question about the arrow's direction, but that's not really
an issue here. But
graphic, is because it has the what I like about this
components of health: matmaterial, and then social,our
freedom, and security on the green circle.
On the yellow circle, now we have those processes
in our environment which is provisional, about food, water,
how we provide food and water for the humans,
then about supporting, and
and also about culture itself. then about regulation,
components are what made I also like this because these
interconnect with each other, how they affect each other,
to affect the environment where we live now.
That's what also influence
that we have as a human. the quality of health
introduced in the '70s, '73, the This graphic was first
It's an early idea of dasustainable development.d.
Again, human
It is actually the well-being is on top.
ultimate ends of these graphics with the economy and technology
as the intermediate means and intermediate ends.
One thing that was missing, in my opinion, is because the
ultimate end, the human being does not--
We don't have a loop from the ultimate ends as a human
well-being to the ultimate means.
So meaning like it doesn't
are humans to the environment, show how much responsible
develop those intermediate to the thing that they get to
But that was, what, meanalmost 30 years ago.nds.
This is what we have now. This
commonly seen these days, iand actually comes fromst
this simple graphic. Three
This is when we introduce pisustainability.t.
We have three aspects:
The cooler graphic environment, economy and social.
where we have global system, is on the left side,
and how they are social system and human system
I think you are probably interconnected to each other.
So promoting human well-being, familiar with this already.
problem as well, which is in I consider that as a complex
Promoting satisfactory human the middle, complex problem.
a result of the interaction weof these three aspects ands
how we address them together as a whole,
not individually. One will affect the other,
and while at the same time
There was this story, I affefirst heard this fromell.
Professor Jonathan Patz from the
has his joint appointment Powith the Nelson Institute.o
So he told this story about this Peruvian Amazon jungle.
It's a forest, one of most
And according to him, the dgovernment tried to controld.
human population, because of the continuing growth
of the human population.
this human population. What they did was, they tried
to limit the deforestation, which is obvious, but then
they also tried to reforest,
What happened was that it also increase the forested areas.
mosquitoes. So the increased the malaria-carrying
is good. They control it now, but at the
same time they also get more
the malaria risks. So mosquthis is a good exampleease
that even if we want to address one thing, we could have
easily missed another thing which is also as dangerous,
well I don't know, maybe
Like what happened if we have overpopulation, but now we have
limited population, but they
mosquitoes. So this have minstruction of thesethese
three aspects and we really need to take care of that.
Recall earlier when I said
is essentially the measure about human well-being
in trying to address of how successful we are
It applies to environmental problems as well.
It's far too long that we have
I'm not saying that science focuis bad, but I mean,part.
we need some balance. Science has been successful
in trying to identify or trying to explain what phenomena
we have, especially in these
happened with our environment. environmental problems, what
that we do not try, we But then I believe
to understand what happened with humans in that cycle,
in that system. I don't think at the time--
Well now we have a better answer
we had an understanding how much but at that time I don't think
problems, environmental problems humans are affected from these
are affecting these and hproblems, as well.umans
So it kind of works two ways.
This means humans, like apart from scientists, politicians
and government officials, because they did create this
policy, but then how much they understand the actual
problems in society. How
to the extent of what kind much they understand,
to these environmental problems. of suffering of our society
their roles, but I'm saying that by engaging other humans,
which is us, lay citizen, and I'm talking about lay citizens,
we believe that we can have much better understanding
about what is going on. What are we facing?
What kind of environmental
complexities that we have. problems, what kind of
on micro-level, locally, because Especially in this case,
We don't have this cool computer we don't have this modeling.
to talk, to communicate sofwith human, and thereforean,
we can only do local area.
only local area, that we But then when we say
that computer software will not be able to address,,
will not be able to understand that.
So now we have these questions. When we have environmental
problems, whose problem is this?
about it? Then who Who is going to do something
Who is paying attention? can we ask for help?
environmental problems? WhLet's say, if we haveese
a contaminated drinking water,
Who will suffer? Well, whose problem is that?
the community, a scientists often say
But do they know that some number of communities.
even in a different situation than the scientist themselves?
Scientists know that this is
they avoid already. But cowhat happened with thosebe
people who don't have access
If a house is not located to thainside the city,ation?
like city transit network,
will find out if that house, how far, how long official
or low income groups, actually like minority groups,
meaning that they may have some problem with access to jobs
and then access to healthy
These are the kind of questions foodsthat's traditionallying.
not seen by scientists, and I say "scientist," meaning
hard scientist, because they
they work in different area, work with just basically,
to address that, but it is just nnot their area of expertise.e
They are not trained for
So this is when collaboration thbecomes important.n.
Then before we answer that
these questions about collacommunity science.have
Whose knowledge and opinion counts?
Who is the expert?
is needed? Again, this is when a
collaboration among disciplines of natural/physical sciences,
and social sciences, humanities become very important.
They will complement each other.
approaches. They will Thhave different waysent
of finding those answers, and that way we will reach
potential solutions. Not
but potential solutions that necessarily the exact answer
in how we can address that kind wilof environmental problems,as
and that kind of question, as well, that led me volunteer
with The Natural Step Monona. I tried to remember whether
it was 2007 or 2008, but
I was thinking about 2008. Tom mentioned 2007.
with The Natural Step Monona, Bbecause I liked to learnr
what happened in the
Something that I've been missing grassroots level.
we learn different stuff. Then, for this kind of thing,
I think I have to go down to
work on that problem. The meepeople who face localally
environmental problems and how
climate change or denvironmental sustainability.of
The Natural Step Monona, and
the executive director that's when I met Heather Gates,
Heather Gates: All of Natural Step Monona.
I'm Heather Gates, thank right. Hi, everybody.
All right, my purpose for being here is to share a little bit
of the background of The
so you know where we fit Natural Step Monona,
The Natural Step Monona is into this collaboration.
that rose from the grassroots, a charitable organization
lives and community more people working to make their
education, community sustainable by effective
Although our organization's name reflects our mission
to advocate for, educate about
our valuable programs reach andbeyond our city's bordersna,
and have grown to support a wider network of members,
clients and collaborators.
in 2007 after two other Monona The organization began
by participating in a study circle on the natural step
framework which is a robust science-based description
of what sustainability is,
was describing, on the system aand how the system works,it
versus the individual parts in that system.
So our initial goals were to
as possible in Monona while making hands-on change, as well.
We did so in a very participatory process.
We began by offering more study circles like the one
we'd been in, and they
We then spearheaded the hsustainability section
at the Monona Public Library, which has expanded twice
since opening in 2007, and
more than 94 tons of by helping homeowners divert
through using compost bins. As our ranks grew,
we could do more. We
green holiday ideas videos that starred 43 of our members.
We began a newspaper column in
our local newspaper, and the Herald Independent,
and Thursdays films and blecture series, whichys
has grown to be a collaboration with three grassroots groups,
two colleges, the Nelson Institute, and
a municipality, and which now offers films and presentations
in eight communities. Last
our very first voter guide to the local elections in Monona,
with our members writing
for the candidates. We and choosing the questions
in responding. As part had 100% compliance
process, we conducted visioning with our members about where
The Natural Step Monona should focus its energies.
The three core goals that emerged were that people
become aware of The Natural Step Monona,
have a good understanding of
participated in sustainability sustainability and/or have
have actually taken steps toward training; and two, that they
and have measured that progress; a more sustainable future
itself would adopt more asustainable practices andty
policies with city staff being
framework. So many trained on the natural step
I've described here have been about the first two goals.
To reach our third goal of
forward, we partnered with the helping move the city of Monona
such as the energy independent city on numerous efforts,
this spring capstone communities program,
energized Monona forums, class survey, the six
and the upcoming water one is going on tonight,
As you might have figured out, conservation challenge.
than what we can accomplish with our current resources.
There's a big gap between where we are and where we want to be.
So while the capstone class collaborations have not by any
means erased that gap between where we are and want to be,
they are helping us begin to close that gap.
Without the UW's help we wouldn't know--
Oh, I missed that beautiful slide.
You need to look at it, because it's really pretty.
That's artwork from one of our
membwords. Okay, I'm sorry.ittle
So we wouldn't know what was
survey. For instance, reveathat 22% of Mononang's
residents are aware of
the Monona farmers market. Or that 57% of Mononans hadn't
heard about us at all before
So the collection of statistics we got from our spring survey is
helping us redirect our focus.
issue that's important to Forcitizens was clean lakes, the
followed very closely by
And that has inspired our increased efforts to address
water issues by expanding our planned water conservation
challenge to be part of a larger "2012 Year of Water,"
just proclaimed by our
Without the current capstone mayor on Monday night.
even consider reaching out to the number of community groups
that we will be reaching
Our greatest needs right now for the Year of Water.
building our capacity to are operational, meaning
ambitious plans, which means follow through with all of our
more fundraising, greater mcommunications capacity,
measuring our outcomes, increasing the size of our board
and more. Another need is having the
resources to achieve our second visioning goal of knowing where
Monona residents are on sustainability measures
and working then to improve those numbers.
This would mean creating a
taking some efforts to change basethose behaviors and thenow,
following up to see what changes
help them reduce the have been made and what methods
For example, how many square feet of rain gardens
do we have in Monona? What methods can we use
to encourage more people to make
When we look back, what methods rawork to help them make those?
changes? So knowing answers like that
would be enormously helpful to
toward making a takiresilient community.eps
So The Natural Step Monona could
enormous UW alumni brains. Our use help from some of your
improve if a few of you here tonight, I don't know
which ones, were inspired to work with us.
I ask you to contact me-- See, I'm skipping all these
pretty slides again.
Our members having fun and [LIGHT LAUGHTER]
I ask you to contact me about volunteering to help with any
of our needs, including board service.
This is our web address,
and our email address, www.tnsmonona.org,
I encourage you to think info@tnsmonona.org
accomplish our goal of greater about how you might help us
community, our region susand our future. our
Randy Stoker: It's a long story.
It's a story of trying to work
Almost two years. togetheIt's a story of ale now.
community-academic partnership. Those of you who know this
Wisconsin Idea thing, what
Wisconsin Idea is that the we normally talk about the
are the boundaries of the state. boundaries of the university
looked much more deeply into A bunch of us have actually
comes from. The wactual origins of theea
Wisconsin Idea were to create a just, self-governing citizenry.
So building the capacity of people to govern themselves.
So our partnership is a partnership of trying to engage
people in the process of
a sustainability consciousness. But it means us getting off
campus and actually working with
hard, because our current a comodel for doing that,eally
is we think I'm the professor, I
I have to make sure that have a curriculum to deliver.
textbooks say they're my ssupposed to learn. the
I'm a sociologist, I
We're working with must teach sociology.
That's a stretch. We also, environmental stuff here.
words, "service learning" or if you've heard these
that has been about how we give our students a social conscious.
So we impose our students on
learn from her. We too people like Heather, and we say,
Heather, and what would you like out of the deal?
Then we say, and oh, by the way,
and then we're gone. it's only for one semester,
So we have some problems We're out of here.
with So, thank you.del.
I've been trying to figure out
and how do we do it better, hbecause actually we've beeny,
hearing some of those folks like off campus out there
kind of complaining about us. So, we've been working to see,
can we do this differently. So there's a model
called community development
connecting to this idea of that a couple of us have been
working with communities. So it starts with actually
understanding how the organization operates,
what its issues are,
and it starts out there rather than in here.
It also focuses on
So it's asking questions community outcomes.
in the community. It's about what are the issues
how do we build community capacity to, not necessarily
depend on people like Dadit and I, but to actually
solve their own problems with us supporting when we can.
Then we start thinking
and expertise. We're no dlonger thinking aboutl
how do we get the students
of knowledge. But instead to uwe think about itcket
as professional development.
out into the community to learn. We don't send students
the community who have already We send students out into
quasi professionals with the learned, and can then work like
that they already have. And comthis idea then of what wells
bring, Heather and The Natural
expertise in the community of Monona, and they have very
deep expertise in sustainability
What I and Dadit bring is knowledge of sustainability,
community groups, community development,
from a wide variety of
broad knowledge with places. We pull together our
The other thing we do is a lot Heather's deep knowledge.
of traditional model of sending students out, is we take a
student, we say, okay,
hours with that organization. Go learn something.
The poor organization is going, oh, man what am I going have
this student do for 20 hours? So instead of doing that,
we've shifted to a model
So we sit down together, and we say, what can we do together?
What kind of goal can we
And what can we do in the time and with the resources
that we've got? So what we do then is we use
this model of looking at a
trying to diagnose that issue. community issue in terms of
How badly do they have it? Who's got this issue?
Then we take a step and say, How much do they have it?
this issue? What kind so of work can we doout
to try and deal with the issue? Then we actually implement it,
and then we evaluate to find
This is really hard to out how it's actually working.
So we often do it over a do in one semester.
or even longer, to manage couall of those things.r,
Hidayat: So this is when the
Program comes in Community Environmental Scholars
I think it was just started two years ago, right?
Yeah, two years ago, and
for Environmental Studies. then the Nelson Institute
Nelson Institute, so they realized about the needs of
students, basically, well this
They realized that undergraduate is for undergraduate students.
to work with local community, with community organizations.
How to connect them so that their skills can be developed
further, just like
This program trains undergraduate to work
with communities specific on
of course, like the envikind of skills thations,
they, things for example, like simple skills, simple
skills that they don't learn
learn, but they don't realize that it's important, just like
some basic skill, like
There is no class for that, like how to work together.
The set up of this academic is somehow to make them
individuals. Like the assignment, like we
have to work on assignment
there is some group work, inbut I think they gear itse
to be independent as a student. I think that will be one thing
that will decrease-- not
it's just inconsistent with how we want them to work
together with other students. How they appreciate others'
ideas because far too often they find this from research
and then they think this is good
and then this is my discovery, so I'll just find it myself,
for myself. Well anyway, so I'll just claim it
I'm not saying that it's a that's not really,
disconnection in there, when bad thing, but there is some
for this kind of work. CESP ialso, one of the thingsd
that they do is they tried to provide this capstone courses
for students, especially
senior students. This stucapstone is required,ar,
but our class, which is one of
because they have the capa set of options.quired,
We were able to secure two
I'll explain later capstone courses from this.
But the idea, again, service what are those.
just like Randy said earlier, they want students to work with
communities to provide service, and then they learn what happens
in the local community, what
problems face in kind of local environmental
So, when I talk about service learning commitment,
communication and compatible
what Randy explained earlier. idI didn't know what he waszed
talking about, I mean before I'm here.
[LAUGHTER] I'm sorry, I know what he was
talking about! When I worked on this
presentation I was thinking like
But now it's easier for me, mbecause then I just summarize.
what he said. Commitment, communication
and compatibility. So that's the point of his
explanation.
important. And by the Cway, these three Cs,t
we call it three Cs. This is what we learn based on
our interview which is
when I was in his other class, actually maybe four years ago,
We had interviewed 67 community-based organizations in
Madison, and we liked to learn
service learning programs on from them how we can improve
meet their needs. This campus so that we can better
the three Cs, commitment, communication and compatibility.
They suggest that they do not guarantee a success program,
but they convince that this is among major ingredients
if you want to have a successful
Commitment is the most important service learning program.
without commitment then awe will not be able to--e
Well, this is what I meant. commitment is that when we think
about institutions, we think
then we will think about about professors and students,
service learning class, meaning that how to meet our curriculum,
how to meet our theoretical stuff that students need
to understand that's just,
but then we also need commitment again, like Randy said earlier,
commitment to help this community to develop further
as an organization. At the
a commitment from community that they will work with us.
It's not just they accept whatever we bring and then
when we leave, they will accept something, but it's that we also
need them to be able to do
and they can do independently what win the future,ther,
so that kind of commitment. It's a lot of work for Heather.
Heather has been volunteering as an executive director.
Now we just brought another staff to volunteer, extra work
that's unpaid work. Then the second C
is about communication. Randy mentioned a few times, we
send students, and what happened
past, I don't know now, but in is that professor, well in the
with that professor the pascommunicating withtudents
community-based organization. So students were sent out
and just tried to learn by
with community. They'll themsefigure out whatto work
happened. But then in this case we need an
intensive communication between professor, students and
community organization, and they will work together
what are the things that we,
all of them can benefit from those three, can do so that
Compatibility is also important, this kind of collaboration.
food, but then the because what if we want to study
doesn't work on food? I mean, that's very obvious.
But then the kind of
of this higher education compatibility, how the needs
That's very simple, but it's and community can be met.
if we don't have that commitment and communication.
So when we found out
I talked to Randy about this. Randy, there is a possibility
about this collaboration. Then I remember his response
was, well, I mentioned about
and then he mentioned, The Natural Step Monona,
Go talk to your community. well, it's not up to me.
because I thought he would That was not what I expected,
But then, go ask your community.
Okay. Then I talked to Heather and
I think we first talked in
Heather was there, a few this education team meeting.
education team, was also there. oAlso, I'd like to remind,,
as well when Randy suggested
why not Randy talk to Heather? me to talk to Heather,
and that's important, because Becawhen we know each other,er,
then there is this trust
has been built between us. that has been developed,
offering about this idea, it's So when I talk to Heather,
student who is going to take not like just kind of this
and just leave us somewhere. something from our community
so I get this trust But sinthat I believeith her
she believes in me that, okay,
So we talk about it, and this is something serious.
Then I said, yes, I got funding.
Well, maybe, maybe
[LAUGHTER] >> Stoeker: I got funding.
for the money! [LAUGHTER]
Hidayat: Yes, to get funding. So we talk about it.
Then they're excited, and then
with a phone call to Heather after that, Randy followed up
proposal. That's the before we submitted our
because, well, maybe we're communication part,
she trusts me at that time. But I think the fact that Randy
followed up at that point,
for Heather because, oh, then it's kind of reassuring
so this is a serious thing the professor called me,
Once we had that, then we developed a proposal together,
three of us, and then we shared notes.
This is what we expect. That's what we expect, so we
submit it and we got approval.
at that time what we called it, because at that time, Heather
had the first response that Heather and other education
team member was, how do we know that we are moving forward
about this group, The Natural Step Monona group?
How do we know that? So I think doing an evaluation
would be, could be, not would be,
could be an answer for this.
projects also, by accident, coincidence, not by accident,e
because when we are in
this community-based research, the middle of planning
one semester is probably too and remember we also had that
so when we are in the middle short, Randy mentioned earlier,
capstone class, then there of the community-based
We can apply for another is another project.
Now that we have this community-based research, we can
implement what we will find from
So that's where we designed this community organizingarch.
capstone project class. That
Before that too, we were proposal was also approved.
how do I get funding in a situation where,
Then we realized that it for the second year?
although I get the funding, it is really not up to Randy,
as well, because, again, we need
So the decision, at that time, a commitment from community.
the second capstone project twas actually The Natural Stepor
Monona decision, because it really requires a lot of work
from Heather and other members
And we don't know how much they, of The Natural Step Monona.
on work, but we don't know we know how much they spend
for other things, other than the capstone classes.
So that was the moment
we can value this collaboration, where I really learned how
community groups in making how we can value
we cannot just go by ourself. Do you have something to share
from that moment?
Gates: Okay, thank you. Yeah, I would just say
that when we started
education team was very enthused the collaboration, the
if the things we were doing abowere making any differencern
in our community. You don't want to be spinning
your wheels and thinking you're doing good, you want to find
out if you are. This was
to be able to do actually that. We developed a survey with
the students and our members, and actually, are you going to
talk about this? Am I stealing your thunder?
Hidayat: It's all right. >> Gates: We went door-to-door
to 3100 households, and delivered the survey so we
could learn what we needed to.
on that so that the city could We also brought the city in
about what people knew ask some questions as well
It was really even beyond abwhat you see here.g.
It was teamwork. It was the city coming in on it,
and it was a great thing. I'm bowing to you both.
Hidayat: Thank you, Heather.
that now we have professor. SoWe have community groups.oo,
We have CESP to provide funding for this.
We have projects, at least for
we know what we want to do, but we don't have students yet.
I was, we were really curious how much this will be, how many
students will be interested in
the first thing that I'd like tto say if someone asked me
about community-based research, I'd like to say that this is not
the most fun thing to do, because it requires flexibility
of your schedule, like meeting
it will be much easier if we someone like Heather,
Again, that's not the kind meet like 6:00 at night or 6:30.
professors, it's not the normal working hours for academic.
So that's one thing. We also
promotion about this class, that that put in our kind of
on your part, students, and we it requires a lot of flexibility
how we go there, like the kind know the goal, but we don't know
we don't have the kind of structure that we need because
we don't know the kind of skills that students have.
At that time, we were really
will be interested anxious about how many students
But then, luckily, we have 12 students, which is maximum of
that class. When we asked at the end of
the class, when we asked
your first choice? No, about, was this really
that met our schedule. So it this was really the one
interest, their first wachoice in this class.rst
Again, that was the kind of thing that we realized it will
happen, especially from students
not a regular class, this becis not a normal class, is
but this is different. Would
we carry out the projects? you like to say about how
now have two very long stories, but if you're looking at your
watches, they're going to be like really, really
tiny short versions.
Stoker: Look at >that. No, it's on.
But the battery is
So here are the two very out, or something.
The first is in the spring. shorSo we sit down withtory.
The Natural Step Monona and these 12 students, and if
you remember taking classes or if you are taking classes,
you walk in, the professor
says here's what we're going hands you a syllabus, and it
three, week four, week five. to do week one, week two, week
and we say we're not exactly Well, our students walk in
We're going to do some kind of sure what we're going to do.
with The Natural Step Monona to figure it out, and then we're
going to do something with it.
anxious, but gradually over Ththe weeks, they becamele
comfortable with the fact that we were doing a project,
and projects don't
projects happen as you happen in a syllabus,
What happened in that project was we created a survey
that could be done in just a few minutes.
People could do it online,
on a piece of paper. or they could do it
self-addressed stamped envelope, So we gave people a
door to door. And Heather brought us 12
TNS, was it 12 or 14, TNS Monona residents
to work with our 12 students. So we sent people out in pairs.
We'd get together on Saturday at City Hall and Dadit drew
little maps all over Monona.
sections of the map. We'd send people out to these
I remember Heather said 3100 doors, and we did this
in just a few weeks, because we had 14 residents and 12 students
going door to door. It was
off, but also talking to mostly just dropping them
to turn the surveys in, and then residents and encouraging them
at the end of the semester, and we had about 50-60 people
who turned up at that event.
results, and then we kind of We showed them all the survey
and their thoughts, and reflections on those results.
Then in between during the
and those thoughts, and summwe sat down with Heatherions
and the leadership team from
and we planned out the The Natural Step Monona
As best you can, given that we're not exactly sure
what we're doing yet, but we
was going to be the decidething to work on. thing
So we kind of decided that one of the ways
that The Natural Step Monona
get other people to do its work. can maximize its impact is to
other organizations in the city of Monona to do things around
water, to say we're going to
we're going to get our members do this project around water,
going to get the Boy Scouts to to use less water, or we're
group to clean out the drains, rake leaves, or get a school
a water theme and that The or whatever, but things that had
then be the kind of coordinating Natural Step Monona could
doing things around the water grofor the year the of wateroups
in 2012. What our students could do
is then talk to those groups, try and recruit the groups,
educate the groups
So we're right in the middle of that process now.
So our students are just at the point where they put together
a PowerPoint presentation,
to start calling community and they're just about ready
if we can get them to sign organizations in Monona to see
That's the up-to-the-minute details of what we accomplished
this past Monday. >>
as well, that the reason why Hidayat: I would like to say
is because one of the questions that we asked in the survey,
was what are the top community
is important. So the top two
are lake and drinking water.
from that survey, water is obviously the mostd
important issue in Monona,
to work on water. It's so that's why we decided
we met this class every Monday. Then last Monday when we met
we talked about, so are we ready to go out
conducting communities? The students said,
I don't think we're ready yet. Okay, let's meet again
next Monday and discuss about this strategy.
So what surprised me at that
class so that even next tiweek we don't know whetheris
we want to meet or not. I think our students
now get very, well not very,
starting to get comfortable about not knowing what they
need to do next week, or even tomorrow.
I think that's also one of the things that most
of our students really realize
because we learn by minute, like this is something that we
will do, but this is something
going our task that we will need that looks like this is not
What can we learn from this? As ta graduate student, we learn.
how much limited resources that The Natural Step Monona have.
Sometimes that discourages them to do things, but they still
have this passion that they need
that they don't have enough. to do this, but they realize
resources that they need in Torder to do these certainf
tasks. I realized that oftentimes
that has been misunderstood by, let's say, those people who have
power, government officials, politicians
who create this policy. They
have the limited resources and think because communities
are passive, for example, like they don't do something,
apparently they actually know something, they want to do
something, but they just don't
These limited resources led knto those who have power tos.
leave them out from the process,
just don't know about this stuff because they think that they
decision for them. That's so when I realized, I thinkhis
I read that in theory about how they leave this community out
from the process, but now I have
that this may be one that makes athem think that way, thatg
community limited resources, but
responsibility to meet the gap, that they have this limitation,
now how can we provide that so that what they need to do
can actually be done? We
also learn about stuff that I just learned what I mentioned
earlier, how we can have a
they usually act on something, better understanding in how
on some of the problems that how they usually address
So that's first. they face in the community.
Randy mentioned and Heather mentioned about a lot of skills
that we need to learn.
that passion is important, We also heard a lot
that passion is not enough. You need passion,
but you also need skills. Those skills are,
a lot of those skills you don't learn from school.
A lot of those skills you learn with the community, especially
in the area that we work. Of course, different
for scientists who need to
They have that. But, work in the laboratory.
discounting other areas like discipline area.
I'm just saying that for
the area that we work, we need more than passion.
We need skills. We need to learn those skills,
and how do we learn that? By
need this kind of skill, realizing that we actually
skill for listening. skill for collaboration,
But that's also something that we learn with community.
Like how we try to listen carefully about the thing
that the community or community partner would like to do.
How we collaborate, how we realize that community
also has limitations so that we also need to
speak in a language that
We should not talk about they can understand easier.
we also need to communicate in this theory stuff, but then
I think sometimes a lapeople say that way.age.
So how do we do that? That's the kind of skills
that is also very important in addition to the passion.
Passion is it not enough. So
that I learned as a graduate that's the major two things
in this university from this student, as a student
Gates: And as the community acadeorganization director,hip.
I learned that face-to-face interaction increases awareness.
I think the fact that people on the survey said they knew us
most from the Monona farmers
to say hi, how you doing, means more than reading something
in the newspaper or getting an email.
Face-to-face interaction made a connection with Dadit and me.
Second, I would say university resources
make the impossible possible. We wouldn't have been able
to do this survey at all. We've had a struggle
just doing an internal survey of our own membership.
So I think this is really a great thing that has happened.
During the process of planning
courses, I also learned how aimportant it is to havene
the brain power, experience and moderating abilities
that a Professor Stoeker can
enthusiasm when we need it, or to temper our enthusiasm,
whichever the case may be at the time, because that's
often needed too, okay calm down.
[LAUGHS] So at every
his extensive background with communities was evident,
and kept this collaboration moving forward.
The third thing is that we have much more to do.
It's very clear from the survey results that we're needed, what
we do at The Natural
Many people are not yet being reached with the information
from the city or us, and we have to ramp up and modify
our communications and the
to make better and physical outreach effort
We learned that people greater progress.
encouragement to need a lot more help and
to making sustainable steps. overcome the barriers
information, financing, in They need more avenues of local
We had a number of people write on their survey that
they felt they were too old to do anything.
I would certainly like to reach people who think they're too old
to do anything. So in an
change to more sustainable ideal world, dramatic
out of business, so our unstated but underlying goal
is to not be needed.
Stoeker: And so for me, I've been trying to do this
stuff now for over two decades, and I keep learning lessons
trying to do it. The
planning, we sat down for months idea here of advanced
Then we sat down for before we did the first course.
before we did the second course. the summer months
decided plan B would be better. Then when the course started,
we went to plan C.
to plan D. Being able to really understand
the community, and thus fit the plan to the community, which
means you make it and you change it and you change it
and you change it.
how to compensate for the kind of student skills
and knowledge issues. This is a university.
Universities, and Dadit mentioned this,
don't teach listening skills. They don't teach professional
problem solving skills. So what we have to do is
figure out how to train students
to work with communities almost on the fly, because they don't
come that way to us.
how to do that. And students don't have this
experience with actually
kinds of projects. They are used to what's called
a banking model of education, which means that the professor
kind of lifts up the
pours knowledge into it, top of their head,
withdraws it on a cltest. [LAUGHTER]n
Instead, what we're trying to do is actually apply that,
and it's a very different kind of learning.
Then the final kind of lesson that I learn again and again
and again, is really knowing
Knowing their limits, knowing that when I asked Heather.
if she could get us a dozen or more residents
to go out with our students and distribute surveys
door to door, and she goes..
And she goes, "Oh." I know . And I go, "Please?"
of the organization's capacity, and so that I know that I want
to make sure that we do a plan that actually works,
and that works for you, and not just for Dadit and I.
So the importance of that kind of honest conversation,
when Heather says "We stop here,"
I know we stop here,
carefully enough to know that.
So that's our story. We have a lot of thank yous
here, and our thanks also to
We have a few questions. I those of you here tonight.
off the taping stuff, and then guess they're going to turn
time just talking or answering we can spend a little bit of
So thank you. [APPLAUSE]