Month: February 2013

Meet our Students: Leigh Anne Michael / Community and Regional Planning

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Meet our Students: Leigh Anne Michael

Community and Regional Planning

 

What city, region, state do you call home?

I grew up in Tennessee and moved to Oregon in July 2012. I now consider Eugene, OR my home.

In which graduate program are you enrolled?

Community and Regional Planning

What is your area of concentration?

My area of concentration is community development, specifically economic development and redevelopment. I am also interested in social equity and the role that nonprofits play in economic development and redevelopment of communities. Because of my Community Planning Workshop (CPW) project I am also becoming interested in cultural competency.

What will you be doing for the Community Service Center?

I am working on the Diversity and Equity Strategic Plan (DESP) Evaluation for the City of Eugene. We are evaluating the internal culture of the organization and if it has changed since the implementation of the DESP in 2009. My team is administering a survey and interviewing City staff to measure change. We are also interviewing selected members of the community and synthesizing other City of Eugene outreach efforts. We will provide the City of Eugene with a final report of our findings and our recommendations for moving forward with their equity and human rights efforts.

How does your involvement with the Community Service Center relate to or inform your graduate studies?

My involvement with the Community Service Center directly relates to my graduate studies because I am already interested in social equity and human rights. Working on the DESP Evaluation allows me to gather a better understanding of how equity and human rights fit into the field of planning.

What can you say about the value of your Community Service Center experience?

I think this experience is extremely valuable. Applied learning makes school fun and provides real life experience. Without the Community Service Center I would not be able to interact with the community through an applied learning project. The knowledge and experience I gain from this project will help me throughout my career.

What outcome are you hoping for when your project ends?

When my project ends I hope to have a better understanding of what I want to do for my career. I hope to improve my technical writing and public speaking skills. Most importantly, I hope to understand how human rights, equity, and cultural competency are a part of the planning field.

More about the Community Planning Workshop(CPW)

 

 

A RARE Opportunity for Oregon’s Watershed Councils

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Does your watershed council have planning or capacity-building projects that have been put on hold because of a lack of staffing? Resource Assistance for Rural Environments (RARE) AmeriCorps Program might be your answer to getting those projects completed.

The RARE AmeriCorps Program offers the perfect opportunity for watershed councils across the state to bring a skilled graduate level participant to their organization.  The RARE Program is an AmeriCorps Program administered through the University of Oregon’s Community Service Center.  Unlike most AmeriCorps Programs, the RARE Program focuses its efforts on organizations who serve rural Oregon.

Since its founding 19 years ago, RARE AmeriCorps has made over 400 successful placements with community organizations across rural Oregon, and more than thirty of those have been with watershed councils.  In fact, the RARE AmeriCorps Program got its start in 1994 working with the McKenzie Watershed Council on a number of citizen involvement and water quality monitoring projects.

This year, the RARE AmeriCorps Program is working with Umatilla Basin Watershed Council (UBWC).   Joshua Allen, the RARE participant placed with the UBWC, is taking on the role as a liaison between UBWC and the general public.  Specifically, Mr. Allen is developing educational material for youth ages 12-18 relating to watershed function and fisheries, presenting such material to local classrooms, organizing field trips, and developing newsletters for education and outreach purposes to the community, etc.

To partner with the RARE AmeriCorps Program, each participating organization provides $20,000 of the $28,000 needed to place, train and support a full-time RARE participant.  In exchange, each organization receives a skilled RARE AmeriCorps participant 11 months (1,700 hours) of service.

Community pre-applications for a 2013-2014 placement are due by 5:00 PM, April 15, 2013.  Applications that demonstrate a clear need for a RARE AmeriCorps participant, a high probability of implementing successful projects, the ability to support a participant and a clear manageable work program are most likely to be invited to participate.  Not all organizations who submit a pre-application will be invited to submit a full application.

For more information about RARE, please visit our web site at:  http://csc.uoregon.edu/rare