Why Water Matters: A Multidimensional Issue and a Student-Driven Response

By Angela Hessenius, ‘17

            Water is a hot, trending topic right now—you could say it’s a watershed issue right now (I know, bad pun, I’m sorry). Here in California, we are currently in the fourth year of a drought, the most severe drought we have experienced on record. On a global scale, water has been and continues to be a hugely important issue. Water is essential for human life and flourishing everywhere, no matter who you are. Accordingly, there are many layers and subtopics within this broad focus. Many of these issues were discussed in the Water Matters panel that occurred last Wednesday, including the drought, wastewater treatment, desalination, water rights, bottled water, agriculture, and much more. This panel was the kickoff event for the Changemaker theme for the next two years, which is “Water: Tap Into Your Ideas.” Clearly, water is an issue that will be discussed quite a bit in the near future, with many dimensions that occur on multiple scales and in multiple disciplines.

            Students are already starting to make waves of change (also an intended pun, I have no shame). In order to take advantage of the spotlight on water due to the drought and the Changemaker theme, me, Hailey Gordon, Sterling Fearing, and Spencer Dunlap created What’s Your 20?, a student-led campaign to educate and inspire the campus community to conserve water. Our challenge is for all students and community members to reduce their water consumption by 20%, taking inspiration from Governor Brown’s mandate for all Californians to reach this target.  

            This initiative grew out of the interdisciplinary Sustainability class that all of us were students in last spring. Each of us were involved in a different group project in which we were tasked with creating a proposal for how USD could be more sustainable. We wanted to build on the momentum that was generated by coming up with these proposals, and also start a campaign so that we could outreach to and educate our peers, and create opportunities for students who care about sustainability to become more active and engaged in sustainability efforts on our campus.

In these classes, we also learned about the multiple dimensions of sustainability. While most people think of protecting the environment when they think of sustainability, this is actually only one piece of sustainability—there are also economic, social, and cultural aspects. In creating a solution, one must come up with a comprehensive plan that considers all the various elements. A solution cannot only serve the good of the environment. It has to be beneficial for people economically, it has to consider social justice issues, such as whether people have equal access and opportunities to participate and be a part of your solution, as well as consider cultural factors, from people’s traditions and beliefs, to their perceptions and status quos, to appealing to their ethics and values.

            I see many parallels between sustainability and changemaking. Both are very broad concepts (so broad that some individuals express uncertainty and doubt about what they actually mean). In changemaking as in sustainability, it is imperative to consider all different dimensions of a social issue when you want to create innovative strategies and turn your ideas into real solutions. There are also so many different dimensions within both topics, which gives you the freedom to focus on a narrow topic that you are particularly passionate about, and there is no limit but your imagination. Take water, as an example.

Water policy and conservation during the drought are certainly issues that we need to deal with in California. Perhaps there are technological or behavior changes we can make to utilize water more effectively, whether on farms or in our homes, or maybe we can find better ways to manage our water by thinking about it as a holistic system and cycle, reusing and recapturing water rather than constantly importing and discharging water. Maybe you are more captivated by thinking about solutions to the global water crisis. Maybe you are particularly interested in global health, poverty, hunger, education, or gender equality—all interconnected and interrelated with water. Polluted water is the world’s biggest health risk: in developing countries, lack of access to clean water and sanitation are responsible for 80% of diseases. Water is also imperative for crop production and growing enough food for communities to have sufficient nutrition. In addition, when people have to spend a significant portion of their day finding and transporting water or are sick from water-related diseases; they cannot attend work or school. By limiting attendance in schools and preventing able-bodied community members from working, lacking access to clean water makes it more difficult to break out the cycle of poverty and pursue economic development. These issues are also related to gender equality girls and women often carry the burden of fetching water, which further limits their opportunities.

            The main point I want to get across is that change starts with you. Whether it’s water, changemaking, or sustainability, we need students to find what specifically they are passionate about, get inspired and take action. How does your area of study connect to issues related to water? What are steps you can take in your dorm or apartment to change your habits and make water conservation a part of your daily life? At USD, we need inspired individuals and changemakers to reframe and expand our understanding of water, and create a change in our day-to-day habits and campus culture, making a transformation from a culture of consumption to a culture of conservation. One small action may seem insignificant, but don’t forget that a single drop of water creates a ripple effect.

           

            

Maintaining Purpose and Passion: A Marathon, Not a Sprint

By Dr. Mike Williams

I was out to dinner with some colleagues over the weekend and one of them stated, “Wow, this has been a good beginning of the semester for USD.”  As I was thinking about what to write about in this blog post, a similar sentiment had crossed my mind.  It has been a good week – and here’s why.

At universities, there is a peculiar sense of time.  Each fall semester is the beginning of a “new year” and there is usually a sense of optimism and excitement with both the faculty and students.  There are new classes, new students, new opportunities, and a sense that we can learn from our mistakes in the previous year (or semester) and make the current one even better.  I doubt there are many institutions in the world where there is this continuous sense of renewal like one feels at the beginning of the semester.  And if the fall semester doesn't work out the way you wanted, no worries – the spring semester is around the corner and then “summer break” – and the optimism and excitement can begin anew.

So, it is within this context that I want to discuss the “new year” at USD.  First, let’s start with the   The first few weeks about the semester are ones that are filled with making new friends, learning about classes, and thinking about joining student organizations (the Alcala Bazaar was on Tuesday).  Through my conversations with students, both inside and outside of the classroom, there is palpable sense of purpose and passion.  It is early enough in the semester where taking five classes does not feel daunting, where deciding to join three new groups feels doable, and where there is a sense that it is possible to connect the course knowledge from present and previous courses to societal issues outside of the classroom.  In general, there is a sense of openness in the air – a desire to seize new opportunities and to make new connections.

students.

I have felt this same excitement with faculty as well.  While many of do not admit it on a daily basis, we miss the energy that the students bring to campus and we miss seeing each other on Marion Way, in the hallways, or in meetings.  Just like with the students, there is a sense that everything is possible – new types of courses, new research projects, and new opportunities to fulfill our sense of purpose and passion.  For example, at the Hub, we have found that the issue of water resonates strongly with many faculty and there are many more courses who have embraced the Changemaker Challenge and who are encouraging their students to connect their studies with water-related issues.

While this excitement, from both students and faculty, happens each year at this time, there is something that feels a bit different about the beginning of the semester this time around.  For me, it has to do with the fact that there seems to be much more discussion about how we – as a campus community – provide the institutional structures to capture and maintain this energy we have around connecting our classes and our research to what we consider to be our overarching purpose or passion.

The heart of the University of San Diego is its Catholic identity and its commitment to the liberal arts and sciences.  While this can manifest itself differently in higher education, we seem to be at a point where there is a growing consensus on what it means for USD in the 21^st century.  Sure, we may disagree over the details but there is a clear sense that our mission involves how we can utilize our knowledge to make a positive difference in the world.  This requires opportunities for students and faculty to not only learn about specific disciplines, but to make connections between the disciplines and leverage this knowledge to collaborate with our community on important social issues. 

What has been exciting the last two weeks is the extent to which USD seems be making strategic decisions to embed these goals into our institutions even more than they have been in the past.  For example, since the start of the semester, there has been the announcement about the creation of a new Humanities Center in the College of Arts and Sciences, discussions about how to infuse the liberal arts across the curriculum in all of the different schools, conversations about how to foster more interdisciplinary opportunities for students and faculty, ideas on how we can document and archive innovative ideas that are the product of research and projects in our courses, and opportunities for students to engage in numerous retreats and workshops so that they can acquire the leadership and civic skills to make a difference at USD and beyond.  And these are just some of the ideas that I have heard about the first two weeks.

At his Convocation Address to faculty on Friday, President Harris discussed his initial ideas about   The conversation we have as a university over the next year about these issues is an exciting and crucial time.  The truth is that the energy that many of us feel at the beginning of the semester diminishes over the following fifteen weeks as we get “bogged down” in our classes, our schedules, and our many other responsibilities.  If we truly value the importance of providing students and faculty with the opportunities to connect their knowledge to their purposes and passions, then we have to be committed to an institutional approach that will help facilitate this.   What this means is that we need to be intentional in our design of curriculum, programs, and co-curricular opportunities so that we are fostering the time, space, and incentives for all of us to continue what matters to us even in the midst of a fifteen-week semester.  This is not easy but there are lessons we can learn from what we have already accomplished as a campus community.

USD’s mission and the role of liberal arts and sciences, faith, interdisciplinary approaches, community engagement, and changemaking in our endeavors.

On Saturday night, USD was honored to host Sir Salman Rushdie for a discussion about his new book, Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights.  This event, co-sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, the Humanities Center, and Warwick’s Books, is an example of USD fulfilling its mission to provide exciting opportunities to enhance our knowledge and to stimulate intellectual discussion.  But the event was much more than this.  Throughout his presentation, Rushdie spoke passionately about how fiction connects to the “real world” and how literature provides lessons and clues about the sort of person we become, and are, in the world.  His life is one that speaks to importance of connecting knowledge and insight to purpose and passion.  At one point, he stressed that writing a novel required the ethos of a marathon runner more than a sprinter.   This lesson applies just as equally to our campus community as we consider how we define and fulfill our mission.  For those of us that believe USD can do even more to enhance the opportunities for students and faculty to make a positive difference in the world, we must keep in mind that every small change in this direction will require the demeanor of a marathon runner.

Linda Vista Leaders in Action: Community Changemakers in Our Midst

By Dr. Mike Williams

At USD, we are dedicated to collaborating with members of our community to advance social justice and social change.  The Changemaker Hub, along with many other units on campus, such as the Mulvaney Center for Community, Awareness, and Social Action are always seeking to find ways to create more sustainable and meaningful interactions with our campus and local communities.  In this post, I want to share about efforts that are being made to enhance our relationship with our partners in Linda Vista community.

But first, I have a confession.  Despite the fact that I graduated from USD in 1992, lived in Linda Vista for year while attending USD, and I have been teaching at USD since 1999, until the last year, I was unaware of the many partners that USD had in Linda Vista.  Most importantly, I did not realize the extent to which Bayside Community Center is the hub of community organizing in Linda Vista and the importance it has for the educational mission of USD. 

Established in 1932, the Bayside Community Center has many important programs for the Linda Vista community and USD has collaborated on many of these programs for decades.  One such program is the Resident Leadership Academy.  The Resident Leadership Academy (RLA) is an innovative program that “helps residents gain knowledge and tools to make positive changes in their community….”  Through a ten-course curriculum offered at Bayside Community Center, community members are provided with the opportunity to further their knowledge and skills of leadership, community issues, and community organizing.  Upon graduating, these community members are expected to continue to be leaders in the community and to empower others to promote for positive social change in Linda Vista.    

 In 2014, Resident Leadership Academy graduates – also known as Linda Vista Leaders in Action – articulated their desire for further educational opportunities that would build upon their RLA training.  In response, Bayside developed the Cooperative Leadership Academy, a program that would provide even more training for the Leaders in Action to make a positive difference in the community. 

As Bayside was working with community partners to implement the Cooperative Leadership Academy, Dr. Viviana Alexandrowicz (Associate Professor in the School of Leadership and Education Sciences) was simultaneously working with Bayside through the Impact Linda Vista Initiative (a program supported with a grant from U.S. Bank and coordinated by the Changemaker Hub and the Mulvaney Center).  After her many discussions with community members at Bayside, she proposed establishing a program called the USD Open University Initiative, which would provide the Leaders in Action with the opportunity to take classes tuition free at USD.  The result is that this semester, there are six Leaders in Action who are enrolled at USD as part of this community-based initiative. 

The current Executive Director of Bayside, Corey Pahanish, explains the evolution of these programs and initiatives in this way: “Bayside Community Center was working closely with San Diego Cooperative Charter School, which offers a model that inspired Cooperative Leadership Academy. It was clear that the need for a deeper understanding of community challenges could be addressed in a harmonious business model that leveraged the academic prestige of USD and the community development understanding of Bayside, while empowering our diverse community to provide the wisdom and sweat-equity to impact change.... The RLA birthed the Cooperative Leadership Academy in conjunction with Bayside Community Center, a process within an existing movement [called One Linda Vista]…  The [] Cooperative Leadership Academy … best captures the One Linda Vista social movement, as well as the true nature of our collaborative community model and efforts….  This co-dependent model could not happen without USD’s Open University Initiative.”

The benefits of this initiative are many – for the Leaders in Action, for the USD students and for the

faculty.  As Dr. Viviana Alexandrowicz states, “From the USD perspective, Open University Initiative is a social justice initiative where we will have culturally and linguistically diverse community members as expert guests in our courses having equal access to curriculum. As a result, faculty plan to provide a richer learning experience for our USD students and participants alike.”

Last week, I was honored to meet the six Leaders in Action who are will be the first group to participate in this initiative.  As are all students at the beginning of the semester, they were both excited and nervous about their classes.  They had just returned from meeting with President Harris and they told me how welcomed they felt at USD and how anxious they were to “join” our community and for our USD community to “join” theirs.  They asked me how they could get involved with changemaking at USD and their desire to meet with the Changemaker Student Committee and share ideas.  It was an inspiring meeting and drove home thinking how fortunate USD is to be in such a vibrant and engaged community.

For me, what is special about this group of students is that they have dedicated their lives to the practice of changemaking.  Whereas there are many students, faculty, and staff that either aspire to make a positive difference in the world, or who are beginning their journeys along this path, these Leaders in Action are in the midst of seeking to improve education, healthcare, and civic engagement in Linda Vista.   While six of these Leaders in Action are taking classes at USD this semester, there is much that the USD community can learn from them as we seek to make promote positive social change on campus and beyond.  The Leaders in Action are not only role models of active, responsible citizens but they possess wisdom and knowledge that can benefit all of us.  It is indeed an honor that they are with us and I can only hope that they acquire as much knowledge in their classes and they will no doubt share with the USD community.

Changemaking at USD: Problem-Solving or In the Service of Change?

By Dr. Mike Williams

This is the first Changemaker Blog of the 2015-16 academic year!  To those of you who are returning to USD, welcome back!  And to those of you who are just beginning your journey with us, I am excited for you to become an active member of our USD community. 

USD is one of thirty campuses in the world that AshokaU has designated as a Changemaker Campus.  What this means for you is that we – our campus community - believe it is critical for you to not only become aware of your passions and interests, but also, to take actions that promote social justice and social change.  At USD, we intentionally define “changemaking” broadly so that it can align with your academic and personal interests.  The most important component of the practice of changemaking is providing students, faculty, and staff with the opportunity to utilize what they are learning, teaching, or researching to address a social issue at USD, in the local community, or in the global community.  We want our students, faculty, and staff to be engaged in their communities and to have as many hands-on experiences as they can.  In the end, we know that these experiences will help them become more active and responsible citizens.

There are many ways for you to get involved with changemaking at USD.  Whether you decide to submit a proposal to the Changemaker Challenge, join the Changemaker Student Committee, apply for a Changemaker Scholarship, become a Changemaker Summer Fellow, or incorporate changemaking into your curriculum, you will have an opportunity at USD to address important social issues that require innovative and sustainable solutions.

How you decide to practice changemaking depends upon many factors, including your own experiences, your interests, your intellectual curiosities, and the communities that you know the best. For example, for about twenty-five years, I have been interested in Africa, and specifically, South Africa.  Most recently, I have been fortunate to partner with a non-profit called Sharing to Learn and to work with a group of amazing young adults in the village of Makuleke.  These young leaders call themselves “The Equalizers” because of their goal to address educational inequalities in South Africa, starting with their own education in a rural village high school.  Without question, they are the most inspiring individuals whom I have ever met.  Over the last four years, we have taken students to Makuleke to meet the Equalizers and to collaborate with them on their efforts. 

This year was a particularly meaningful experience because for the second straight year we (the Equalizers, USD students, Dr. Lisa Nunn, and myself) held a USD/Makuleke Youth Leadership Workshop in the village – but this year we had even more Equalizers attend and the feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive.  Of the group of seven Makuleke students who created the Equalizers five years ago, three of them are now at university and earning degrees.  It was easy to leave Makuleke feeling as though there has been considerable positive changes over the last few years and that USD has been part of this process.

The reality, however, is much more complicated.  The truth is that there are deep, systemic constraints in Makuleke that will make the goal of achieving an “equal education for all” extremely difficult.  Even as the Equalizers attempt to implement innovative and new ideas to accomplish their goals – sometimes in collaboration with USD – the sort of change the Equalizers seek will not happen immediately.  This is the sobering reality of working on social issues like educational inequalities – the “results” of one’s work are often difficult to construe.

To practice changemaking does not mean that you will always “solve problems” immediately.  In fact, conceptualizing the circumstances and experiences of communities as “problems” is something that deserves careful consideration – and its own blog post!   The point is that as you think about the issues that matter to you, it is imperative that you recognize those who have worked on this issue before you arrived – whether they are students, faculty, staff, or local community members. Believe me, we have a passionate community at USD and there are many individuals who are committed to addressing the most serious issues of our day.  While at USD, you should build upon these efforts, and where necessary, improve upon them.  The bottom-line, however, is that you will not “solve” homelessness, poverty, or climate change during your time at USD.  Similarly, we will not “solve” the issue of unequal education in Makuleke in the near future, either.  But this should not constrain your efforts – nor mine – because the goal should not be to “solve problems” but to be in the service of addressing social issues that matter to you and exploring new ideas that will have a positive social impact.  “To be in the service of” means that we approach our changemaking pursuits with humility and that we understand that our efforts are linked to those of future generations (the Founders of the United States referred to this as “posterity” – it is in the Preamble of the Constitution, look it up!).

What will you do while you are at USD to be in the service of an issue that matters to you?  Whatever it is, I encourage you to work with other like-minded individuals to make a positive difference for your community and to leave a legacy and a path for others to follow.