Howard Rosing

Notes From the Field: Service Learning and the Development of Multidisciplinary Community-Based Research Initiatives

Recent literature suggests that community-based research (CbR) is a model of service learning that can advance student learning, as well as support the research interests of community organizations. For the pedagogy to be successful, however, faculty must overcome a number of challenges. This article discusses these challenges and illustrates how multidisciplinary, multiyear CbR initiatives are important vehicles for furthering university–community partnerships. We conclude that, as with other service-learning models, successful multidisciplinary, community-based efforts require institutional investments to facilitate successfully linking faculty, students, and community organization in research initiatives that promote positive social change.

Natural Mentoring in Oxford House Recovery Homes: A Preliminary Analysis

The present study examined the role of natural mentoring in the substance use recovery process. Men and women living in recovery homes in a large Midwestern city were surveyed and participated in focus groups to determine characteristics of natural mentoring and the relationship between mentoring activities, helping behavior, and perceived social support. Results suggested that participants engaged most frequently in mentoring activities related to their recovery and to helping others through this process. Further results indicated a significant relationship between gender, mentoring activities and recovery-oriented helping, and social support. Implications for substance use recovery research and treatment are discussed.

Community–University Food Projects, Race, and Health Promotion

Diet-related conditions such as obesity, diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular disease, and hypertension disproportionately impact minority and low-income populations compared to their White and more affluent counterparts. In 2010, an estimated 18.7% of African Americans ages 20 and older suffered from diabetes verses 10.2% of the Whites (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2011). Community-based participatory research has been increasingly viewed as an effective approach to address disparities and improve nutrition outcomes in communities of color. To better understand the successes and challenges of such initiatives, this special issue highlights studies that critically analyze community–university projects related to nutrition education and food access that attempt to promote health in communities of color.

Measuring Community and University Impacts of Critical Civic Geography: Insights from Chicago

Geographers have increasingly adopted community-based learning and research into their teaching and scholarly activities since Bunge and Harvey called for an applied public geography that is both useful and challenges societal inequalities. With few exceptions, however, there has been little discussion of methods for measuring this work. Many published assessments focus on the impacts of projects on students but overlook the impacts on community partners. Impacts on faculty and the larger university community are also often ignored. This article discusses literature on the evaluation of community–university research and service learning from a critical perspective. A discussion of service learning and community-based research (CBR) projects at two Chicago universities, DePaul and Chicago State, is presented. In both cases challenges were encountered to achieve full evaluation of projects, yet both included an evaluation of university and community partners that allowed for assessment of the projects’ value to all partners.

Farming Chicago: Prospects for Higher Education Support of Sustainable Urban Food Systems in the U.S. Heartland

The article highlights recent food policies in Chicago with the goal of exploring how higher education institutions can contribute to development of sustainable food resources for residents of North American cities. Thousands of Chicago residents face daily challenges accessing fresh food due to income constraints and/or lack of proximity to food retailers. Concomitantly, the city’s high dependency on imported food, often from thousands of miles away, is countered by growing interest in local production in community gardens and urban farms. The article outlines efforts at redeveloping Chicago into a thriving producer of fresh food through advocacy, policy making, and planning; and curriculum and community engagement efforts at Chicago area universities and colleges that exemplifies higher education’s role in creating a just and ecologically sustainable urban food system. The examples illustrate the importance of multi-institutional collaboration, often driven by community-based advocacy groups that facilitate local food research, technical assistance, and policy initiatives with support from universities and colleges. The article therefore highlights the supportive role urban higher education institutions can play in building food systems that support the local food economy, contribute to improving the natural environment, and expand access to nutritious fresh food for those with the least wherewithal.

A Case Study: Growing Community through Gardens in Chicago’s Southwest Side

There is now considerable scholarly interest in the relationship between urban food production and the environment, food access and health in U.S. cities. A discourse on “sustainability” pervades this growing urban agriculture literature but often with a utilitarian ideal, as if planting food in urban spaces is indeed a viable and sustainable route to economically feed the masses with healthy food, while protecting and improving the natural environment. These are, of course, research questions that are far from answered, especially given an increasingly urban/suburban country where corporations remain in control of the vast majority of food produced and distributed to cities. As scholars begin to explore the question of what “sustainable urban food systems” really mean in diverse geographic spaces, race and class disparities become central. Many if not most large U.S. cities are socially divided by race and/or class and the two often intersect in stark ways. Chicago is particularly segregated by race and class and this case study suggests that those interested in whether local production can become a sustainable way of provisioning cities must consider diverse voices of resilient populations living in economically distressed contexts. What do these populations think about growing food for themselves? What are their barriers to growing food in such settings? If resources are in place, why would or wouldn’t they produce food? As a product of our ethnographic research, we suggest that those engaged in food systems development in cities consider how social, cultural and economic influences in diverse cultural settings define both possibilities for, and challenges of, expanding food production across urban spaces.