University of Saskatchewan
IN-2: Innovation 2

On October 17, 2012, the University of Saskatchewan opened a Community Outreach Engagement Office at Station 20 West, a community enterprise centre (CEC) in the heart of Saskatoon’s core neighborhoods that seeks to address underlying causes of poverty and the social and economic determinants of health in those neighborhoods. The community enterprise centre approach fosters community revitalization through the co-location of a variety of vital services and the intentional integration of programs. The CEC is run as a social purpose business that aims for multiple bottom lines: financial sustainability, balanced with enhancement of social and environmental conditions. Co-locators in the CEC include non-profit community organizations, and public institutions and cooperatives. The University of Saskatchewan Community Outreach and Engagement Office at Station 20 West focuses on enhancing and building community-university relationships in Saskatoon’s core neighbourhoods with the goal of building/supporting social, educational, economic and health equity through research and experiential learning. It does this in ways that are interdisciplinary, respectful and collaborative, that link local and global issues, and that honour knowledge co-creation and information exchange in ways that are meaningful to communities and are academically rigorous. It works to support and promote faculty involvement in community engaged research and teaching while creating enriched experiential learning, research and artistic opportunities for students, while: • Positively impacting the health, education, social, and economic equity of people living in the communities surrounding Station 20 West, • Increasing the quality and quantity of innovative and mutually beneficial community-university teaching, learning and research relationships, and • Enhancing the reputation of the U of S in Saskatoon and its core neighbourhoods. The Office does this by: • Acting as a doorway for the core neighborhoods to the University. This involves receiving and refereeing prospective student inquiries, and facilitating connections between core neighbourhood and campus stakeholders. • Supporting faculty, staff, students, colleges, and units interested in or engaged with the core communities when the engagement relates to, or could potentially relate to, scholarship. • Networking, sharing information and building relationships on and off campus while: (1) identifying opportunities for mutually beneficial community-university partnerships and collaborations, and (2) embracing opportunities to showcase relevance of university to community and community to university. • Supporting high quality community-engaged research as it related to expressed needs of Saskatoon’s core neighbourhoods. • Supporting and promoting community engaged teaching and learning that is of mutual benefit to partnering organizations, students and the University. • Collaborating and supporting campus-wide strategy/tactics for building a culture of engagement. The office at Station 20 West is a jumping off point for collaboration, community participation and action in research and teaching. Staffing in the office includes clerical support, a manager who acts as the point person to make connections between campus and downtown organizations and individuals, a one day/week academic advisor, and three students, an undergrad, masters and Phd student, who support the community engagement mandate of the office through applied projects. Flexible space is made available free of charge to faculty and graduate students for research and teaching in the core community. The office collaborates with the university’s Office of First Nation and Métis Engagement, the Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness, the Office of the Vice President Research, the Community-University Institute for Social Research and a number of colleges, schools and academic units at the University of Saskatchewan. Collaborators and partners in the broader community involve organizations and individuals working in the arts, environmental organizations, and those focused on community health, social and economic development. Two organizations in the core neighbourhoods with long standing collaborative relationships with the University of Saskatchewan include Community Legal Services for Saskatoon Community Inc. (CLASSIC) and the Student Wellness Initiative Toward Community Health (SWITCH). One example of a successful project was a Cultural Anthropology project that engaged students in collecting oral histories of people living in the Riversdale neighbourhood around 20th Street through interviews with local residents. The students’ work was documented through audio and video, which then became part of the recorded oral history of 20th Street. A video on YouTube developed in collaboration with local residents, students and production company Bamboo Shoots showcases some of the stories and living memories. The neighbourhood history was not all that is documented; people in the video also talk about their hopes for the future, which sometimes involved conflicting visions. This type of research benefits the community in that it acts a venue for it to explore its culture and issues and also the student interviewers who often learn a lot about themselves and how they view and relate to others.

While it varies considerably, on average, we tend to have at least one community visitor a day, and it's not unusual for large groups or classes to visit. We estimate, in the absence of precise figures, that between 25 and 50 new visitors walk through our "doorway" each month. We maintain a list and contact with 198 scholars working at U of S. On average, we collaborate on one community-university event a month. We maintain a community distribution list and contact with of 95 community stakeholders. Community-engaged research has included work on: HIV/AIDS, strategies for the provision of healthy food, and strategies of reliance and mental health among inner-city Aboriginal children and youth. We provided on-site support to 8 courses in the 2013-2014 academic year and collaborated with Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness (U of S) on workshops and supports for community engaged learning We average 19 requests a month for space from scholars at U of S which takes the form of both work space and meeting space at Station 20 W.