Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Community Development

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As an adjunct professor in SES, I’ve had the privilege of working as the instructor in the proverbial online course “bookends” of RRU’s Graduate Certificate Program in Sustainable Community Development for the past couple of years now. I’ve had wonderful experiences working with these students at the front-end distance course (CMDV 500 – Core Principals of Sustainability) which provides them with important sustainability and research theory they require to undertake team-based City Project Action plans for municipalities in the Capital Region District. Some “magic” also happens while they’re on campus for their one-week residency course (CMDV 500 - Applied Community Development- Case Studies) where they begin the design phase of their action plans. When they emerge from the residency, they’re excited and ready to continue research on their Action Plans with me in their final distance course (CMDV 550 – Sustainable Community Development Collaboratory). Here they learn about the (public) collaboratory process as a research tool, the power of (Aboriginal) talking circles, and how they can become effective agents and catalysts for sustainable change.

It’s been fun and quite remarkable to watch how the students work with the collaboratory process to engage various representatives from the community and the municipality to characterize social important problems, co-create innovative solutions, and help verify the information they’ve obtained during their community research and outreach activities. Although social collaboratories are challenging enough to conduct in person, I’m always impressed and proud at how they rise to the additional difficulties of effectively conducting these in an on-line environment in innovative ways – and so are the students! This includes the technological challenges and the additional trust- and relationship building required for holding a safe space in which this can happen on-line. In the end, they always manage to bring together some amazing and truly impactful Action Plans for supporting sustainable innovation in the municipality; with reflective knowledge, skills, and confidence they can also take back to drive sustainable change within their own communities.

 

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Visit the Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Community Development program page to learn more about this program.