In mid-May, the Resilient Communities Project and our partners wrapped up the 2020–2021 academic year. Thank you to all of the students, faculty, project leads, and other local government agency staff who made this another successful year!
We're proud of the partnerships we have developed with government agencies throughout Minnesota. This past year, we partnered with several agencies we have worked with in the past, including Carver County, Minnetonka, and Victoria. Additionally, we began new partnerships with six government agencies, including Little Canada, Saint Paul, Woodbury, the Metropolitan Council, the CapitolRiver District Council, and the Minnesota State Fire Chiefs Association.
Project topics were wide-ranging, from wayfinding design, transit planning, and climate adaptation to economic development, community engagement, and urban forestry. Addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, leading with equity, and engaging historically underserved groups were common themes among several of the projects. To meet the needs of our community partners, students mapped areas of the Twin Cities metro vulnerable to green gentrification, created an inclusive engagement checklist, interviewed business owners to learn about the impact of the pandemic and how cities could assist in building economic resilience, and much, much more!
To learn more about this year's projects, view final presentations, and access final reports, visit our partnership pages:
Academic Year 2020–2021 by the Numbers:
- New RCP partners: 6
- Returning RCP partners: 3
- Projects: 11
- Course matches: 18
- Academic departments engaged: 8
- New faculty participants: 7
- Students engaged: 95
- RCP Fellows: 5
- Final presentations delivered via Zoom: 18 (all of them!)