Call for Proposals: Collaborative Duke Graduate Student Community Partner Projects

Applications Due December 1, 2018

The Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University sponsors a Certificate Program in Community-Based Environmental Management for its Master’s of Environmental Management students. As part of the certification process, our graduate students partner every spring with community-based organizations in North Carolina to complete a project that will support the organization’s mission and programs. We hope that you and your organization will consider collaborating with our students and will complete our project application form by December 1, 2018.

Some examples of the types of projects that students could complete with your organization include:

Participatory Planning

Collaboratively develop the tools and framework (e.g. focus groups, surveys, asset mapping, etc.) to include the community your organization works with in an assessment of their own perceptions of the causes and consequences of environmental and social issues affecting them and the action steps needed to address them.

Participatory Program Evaluation

Collaboratively develop the tools and framework to evaluate one of your organization’s programs or projects in a way that openly includes your staff and members of the community you serve.

Participatory Environmental Monitoring Project

Collaboratively develop the tools and framework for the community you work with to be able to monitor and report on an environmental or environmental health issue that is affecting them.

Outreach and Social Marketing Campaign

Collaboratively develop a campaign to inform the community you work with about an environmental or environmental health issue and do so in a way that aims to change the behaviors that are at the root of the problem.

Political Action Campaign

Collaboratively research and develop strategies to use political and legal channels to address an environmental or environmental health issue in the community your organization works with. 

We are particularly interested in partnering with community-based organizations that are in or close to the Triangle Area or that are focused on marine or coastal issues, but we will consider applications from other organizations in North Carolina as well.

To apply for a student partner project, please fill out our project application form by December 1, 2018. We will match student interests and skills with the proposed projects at the beginning of the spring semester at the beginning of January, 2019 and will contact you soon thereafter.

You can find more information about the program, our students, our community partners, and the type of projects they have completed together at our website: http://sites.nicholas.duke.edu/communitycertificate/

Please feel free to contact Liz Shapiro-Garza, CBEM Certificate Program Director at <elizabeth.shapiro@duke.edu> and/or her co-instructor, Calvin Allen <calvin.allen@ncfahp.org>, directly with any questions you may have.