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  • Global Community-Engaged Learning Assessment and Evaluation - Community Defines International Engineering Partnership Outcomes

Community Defines International Engineering Partnership Outcomes
Nora Reynolds, Ph.D.

*summarized from “What Counts as Outcomes? Community Perspectives of an Engineering Partnership”

In Nora Reynolds, Ph.D. workshop, Global Community-Engaged Learning Program Assessment and Evaluation, Reynolds examined the different interpretations of goals and assessment amongst participants in global community-engaged learning experiences, with an emphasis on community voice. Reynolds used the example of her study of community members in Waslala, Nicaragua, and their perspectives regarding the engineering-for-development partnership between Water for Waslala, a nonprofit, and Villanova University's College of Engineering.

Waslala is a rural town in Nicaragua where 86% reside in rural areas and 14% reside in urban areas, according to Reynolds's article, "What Counts as Outcomes? Community Perspectives of an Engineering Partnership". Villages have limited access to electricity, running water or communication.

Water for Waslala is a nonprofit co-founded by Reynolds in 2002 to provide Waslalan community members with clean drinking water. Since 2004, the nonprofit has partnered with Villanova University's College of Engineering on engineering-for-development projects.

An engineering-for-development project is a project where students, faculty and professionals partner together to aid mainly international communities in attaining their basic needs.

Reynold's study explored Waslalan community members' answer to, "What are the outcomes in Waslala of the projects and partnership with the [Villanova University's] CoE [College of Engineering]?"

The study explored the effects of global community-engaged learning on host communities by using community member's voices. Often community organization representatives' voices serve as the community voice instead of residents' voices. The study's framework is based on Nancy Fraser's framework for social justice, a framework based on the participation of all participants.

According to the article, Fraser’s framework for social justice includes three interconnected components:

• Redistribution is based on finances. An example of redistribution in community-engaged learning is a university using and sending resources to local or international communities. With the redistribution component, maldistribution can occur. Maldistribution is when a party doesn’t have the necessary resources and becomes heavily dependent on university resources. 
• Recognition refers to the culture of a community-engaged learning experience, where university and community partners are both viewed as able to contribute significantly. Nonrecognition occurs when community knowledge is not received, which occurs when a community is labeled as needy, disadvantaged or underprivileged.
• Representation refers to who is a part of the decision-making progress.

Observations and interviews were conducted in Waslala during the fall of 2012. Participants of the study fell into two categories: university participants (administrators, faculty members and students) and community participants (community organization representatives and community residents). Community organization representatives had a history of partnership with the College of Engineering.

Participants were chosen based on:

• Whether universities visited their community for data collection (to ensure recent communication with students)
• If the villages had history partnering with the College of Engineering
• The villages’ proximity to town

Data from the study came from observation field notes, interview transcripts and participatory analysis transcripts that were divided into themes. Data was then co-analyzed by representatives from community organizations.

The outcomes from the study revealed Waslalan community members’ and the College of Engineering’s goals aligned. However, community members stated additional outcomes of confianza (trust/confidence), community pride and conscienca (awareness).University participants and community participants’ responses attributed outcomes and success to the basic needs of access to electricity, water and health care.

The community participants’ intended outcomes is demonstrated through their accounts of improved access to healthcare. The article states the Telehealth project, which began in 2010, allowed residents to have access to cell phones for communication with medical professionals. Before then, a resident had to be sent on foot into town for medical emergencies. The Telehealth project allowed lives to be saved especially pregnant women.

“There was a woman having complications in childbirth and she was dying. The ambulance arrived and transported her... and every-thing ended well,” a community member stated in the article.

The community described additional outcomes of confianza (trust/confidence), community pride and conscienca (awareness). Community residents developed trust for the partnership from projects execution and university participants’ consistent attendance. There were no sudden instances of absence from the university participants as the community experienced before. Community members developed a sense of pride based on their belief their village is special since an international group visited them.

Visits require a long, strenuous trip, one community members believe most wouldn’t want to take. Community members also admired that students viewed them as equal counterparts, comparing their interactions to Nicaraguans who obtain credentials (edu-cation) and cease communication the article reads. Conscienca, translated as awareness, helped Waslalans become acknowledged by government authority allowing them to receive proper resources.

Due to Waslala not having paved roads and previously limited cell phone service, Waslala can become isolated. The engineering-for-development partnership has helped Waslala’s conscienca through advocacy. In 2011, Nicaragua’s bishop chose to close the Agricultural Institute in Waslala without acknowledging the agreements of The Catholic Church and community organizations. The decision would’ve eliminated village farmers’ chance to pursue secondary education. The decision led to protests. However, the College of Engineering’s letter to the bishop in addition to the Catholic Church’s letter led to the reversal of the decision to close the Agricultural Institute.

Community participants also expressed their feelings about their community being used and perceived as a laboratory community. One example comes from a community organization representative. “The students have a lot of great ideas and I feel like a lot of times they are tried out sooner than they should be, and without the proper guidance,” the representative stated in the article. “I feel like here it’s easy to get away with a lot of things that you couldn’t get away with back home, and a lot of corners are cut a lot of times, that wouldn’t be cut back home."

Reynold’s assessment of community definition of outcomes in Waslala demonstrates the importance of community involvement in all aspects of community-engaged learning. The community voice serves as an instrument for outcomes, whether they’re good or bad. The interpretation of the community voice is essential and should be a balance of community representatives and residents.

Reynolds published the article, “Participatory orientation in GSL research to hear the community: Who and how matters,” from the same research study that explored positionality and participatory methods. In the article, Reynolds argued that research on community perspectives does not necessarily result in ethical community-university partnerships without interrogation of who is involved and how that research happens.