2022 Summer Urban Ecology Global Fellows
On Thursday, August 18, the final presentation of the 2022 Summer Urban Ecology Global Fellowship program was delivered from Civic Arts Church to an audience of more than 70 Values-Based Partners, community members, academics, and family members from across the country. The presentation was delivered via Google Meet, but a small group of community members viewed the presentation live from Civic Arts Church. The fellows’ presentation offered a cohesive description of SWF’s Communiversity framework and demonstrated the impact and possibilities of the practice of Regenerative Neighborhood Development on the next generation of leaders. Read more about the fellows’ 10-week immersion at The Commonwealth and view their final presentation below.
Since 2020, SWF has welcomed undergraduate, graduate, and PhD students to work side-by-side (in fellowship) with local youth and residents, educators, artists, and Values-Based Partners through Sweet Water Communiversity’s Urban Ecology Global Fellowship program. The fellowship aims to ground students via hands-on work and authentic community engagement as they grapple with academic theory in the face of real world problems and solutions.
The Summer 2022 Urban Ecology Global Fellowship program welcomed 7 graduate, undergraduate, and recent graduate students representing 5 universities -- Yale University, Cornell University, University of California Los Angeles, University of Southern California, and Rhode Island School of Design -- and 7 disciplines -- Architecture, Printmaking, Visual Anthropology, Urban Planning & Landscape Architecture, Solar Energy, Environmental Science, and African American Studies & Education Studies.
Learning and Unlearning at The Communiversity
The 10-week fellowship is structured similar to an intensive studio course with weekly themes, daily routines, rituals, & reflections, and readings and assignments. This year’s fellows joined SWF on Monday, June 13 during one of the hottest weeks of the summer and SWF’s busiest week of the year. Fellows underwent an intentional process of disorientation in which they were paired with SWF core team members to learn how to work via basic daily routines and care of the land, as they unlearned and shed preconceived notions of neighborhood development, architecture, and community engagement. For many fellows, it was their first experience engaging in manual labor. In week one, the aches and pains of real work were coupled with an immersion into real community and critical dialogue as fellows engaged more than 80 dynamic individuals representing organizations and institutions across the country that convened at The Commonwealth for the 2022 Values Based Partner Convening. The end of their first week concluded with SWF’s Fifth Annual Juneteenth Celebration, at which fellows were immersed in art, culture, music, and food with the larger SWF community.
Over the next 9 weeks, they became reoriented to SWF and our practice of Regenerative Neighborhood Development through Routine, Ritual, and Reflection, and became fully integrated to the daily and weekly flows at The Commonwealth. Beyond the physical work and dialogic exploration of theory and praxis, the fellows cohort formed deep bonds with each other, the land and the broader SWF community.
Summer 2022 Urban Ecology Global Fellows’ Final Presentation
The impact of their fellowship experience was made apparent during their final presentation, during which each fellow shared how the fellowship influenced their perspectives, future academic and career pursuits, and personal lives; and how they would carry the experience and the relationships cultivated into the future. We invite you to watch their final presentation by clicking the image below.
There GROWS the Neighborhood!
