At Trent University, students live and learn locally. Their studies take them beyond the classroom, and into the community, where learning is limitless and collaboration comes naturally.
Real world and real time, students have hands-on opportunities that enrich their educational experience, and the world around them.
Trent is a leader in community-based education. In partnership with the Trent Centre for Community-Based Education (TCCBE), we focus on offering undergraduate students experiential learning through real-life research projects that connect us to the community.
Gain a level of understanding like no other
Since 2006, Dr. Mark Skinner and his students have been immersed in more than 50 community-based research projects with close to 30 partner organizations. Cities and counties, hospitals, health and social service organizations - they've been there, and they've made a difference.
This internationally-recognized health geographer, who is, himself, deeply connected to the community, believes that when students get their boots dirty, they benefit.
He connects his students to what's going on in the community, something he says encourages a level of understanding like no other.
"I put a capital 'r' on being relevant to the community. Going to the places, and working with the people we talk about in the classroom, Peterborough and the Kawarthas provide us with excellent opportunities to do just that."
Dr. Mark Skinner, health geographer & founding director of the new Trent Centre for Aging and Society
A sampling of student projects:
- With Haliburton Highlands Health Services, students explored supportive housing programs for seniors; and the case ‘for’ or ‘against’ closing emergency rooms in rural communities.
- With the City of Peterborough, students determined best practices for an accessible and inclusive community garden.
- With the County of Peterborough, students examined the promotion of tourist sites and new media in Peterborough.
- With the Trent-Severn Waterway Historical Site, Parks Canada, students undertook the Lakefield lock and embankment cultural landscape project.
- With the United Way, students studied youth volunteering and youth oriented activities in the County and City of Peterborough.
Research for real change
Community-based education can be powerful, and the TCCBE exists to connect the challenges and opportunities arising from within a community with research and resources.
Creating conditions for change, the TCCBE and its partners in Haliburton and the City of Kawartha Lakes, bring the needs of community-based organizations to students and faculty members.
Through a unique partnership, Trent and the TCCBE provide hundreds of students with the chance to learn purposefully, and to gain practical skills. These transformative educational experiences inspire critical thinking, community involvement, first jobs and even careers.
"When knowledge is transferred back and forth between universities, colleges and the organizations serving the people of our region, we've made an impact. This is the power of our collaborative work. "
Todd Barr, executive director, TCCBE
Connect, collaborate & give back
In community-based research, the research question comes from the community and the answers are useful to that community. So, while students are connecting and collaborating, they’re also giving back.
Building Capacity
- Health geography students will work with the Peterborough Council on Aging to inform the Age-Friendly Peterborough Plan. Student research will focus on elements of the Plan, such as outdoor spaces and buildings, transportation, and housing. This initiative is in-line with the World Health Organization's Global Network of Age-friendly Cities and Communities.
- Research as part of a longstanding partnership between Trent and Community Care Peterborough has effected real change for the older adults served by this important organization. Prof. Skinner has collaborated with Community Care, along with Hospice Peterborough, on how to best respond to the needs of volunteers who support for older people in the community.
"We don't have the capacity or the research expertise to do this type of work on our own," says Danielle Belair, executive director at Community Care Peterborough. "Our partnership is wonderful, and there are so many benefits for us as well as for the researchers."
Learn where you live
Trent's internationally-recognized researchers in Sociology, Psychology, Nursing, Geography, English and Canadian Studies have come together to prove that an aging population is nothing to be afraid of.
Their leading-edge studies as part of the newTrent Centre for Aging and Society will cross disciplines and challenge the way we think about old age. Their research will have national and international impact, but will be deeply rooted here at home in Peterborough, Ontario - Canada's oldest municipality. Now that's synergy.
“Our passion is challenging the myths about old age – to move beyond the apocalyptic view of aging baby-boomers to ask what kind of aging society do we want to be?”
Dr. Mark Skinner, health geographer & founding director of the new Trent Centre for Aging and Society
Keep it real
Local experts, renowned in their own right, get involved to help us keep our research real.
- A new internship course in medical sciences sees students shadow physicians at Peterborough Regional Health Centre. More than half of Trent's Biology students intend to pursue health-related careers, so this front-line experience with experts, early on in their education, is invaluable.
- Geriatrician Dr. Jenny Ingram, director of the Kawartha Regional Memory Clinic, division lead for geriatric medicine at the Peterborough Regional Health Centre, and co-chair of the Peterborough Council on Aging, is an innovator and a visionary on aging. She shares her expertise as an advisory board member to the Trent Centre for Aging and Society.
- Dr. Rosana Pellizzari, Medical Officer of Health for the Peterborough County-City Health Unit, a thought leader locally, provincially and nationally, regularly shares her expertise as an advisor and guest lecturer on Canada's health system.
Canada's champion of collaborative learning that’s personal, purposeful and transformative.
Posted on Wednesday, May 28, 2014.