Community Connections: Trent Masters Students Get Involved with Local Organizations
Trent students and faculty contribute to national project aimed at enhancing community-university engagement
Trent faculty members, graduate students and community partners gathered in January at the Masters of Sustainability Studies (MASS) Colloquium, to discuss the work of the Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement (CFICE) program, a national Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) funded research project that brings together 12 university partners nationally, including Trent, as well as 60 different community partners from coast-to-coast to enhance community-university engagement.
“Putting community first involves learning new ways of communicating and partnering among community and university,” said Nadine Changfoot, chair of Political Studies at Trent University, host of the event and co-lead on the CFICE project.
Building upon the CFICE project, and offering Trent students further opportunity to engage with a range of different community organizations, the MASS program has recently launched an Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management stream which provides experiential learning and community-based research opportunities for students in a full-time field placement within the community, at both non-profit and for profit companies, during their second year.
“This stream aims to meet the growing need for professionals as a distinct group of skilled, entrepreneurial individuals with the knowledge, tools and practical expertise to address social and environmental challenges and opportunities in community based organizations,” explained Dr. Asaf Zohar, director of MASS at Trent University.
The gathering included remarks from John Marris, director of the Trent Community Research Center (TCRC) and the community co-lead of CFICE, as well as a few Trent graduate students (Melissa Johnston and Tessa Nasca) who have taken part in research projects with Abbey Gardens, and Green-Up Peterborough.