This spring’s EPIC-Network conference showed that the SCYP model continues to prove its versatility. As SCYP 2017-18 projects wrap up with the TriMet transit agency and the first-ever small city partner in rural Oregon, La Pine, the radically simple model is proving just how easily it can connect university brainpower to community projects.
At the same time as SCYP is helping Oregon, the national and international network that has grown out of the SCYP model is expanding into new areas including Zambia, Brazil, and Mexico, and trainings are happening globally. In April, EPIC-N hosted its 7th annual conference and workshop. It was the largest gathering yet, drawing participants from Hawaii to Pennsylvania to California to Florida to Kenya to Brazil and many places in between. Participants represented both established EPIC programs and those seeking to launch one of their own.
At the conference, EPIC-N members adopted a goal to double the number of programs from 30 to 60 over the next four years so that more communities and more students can do more in addressing some of our most pressing environmental, social, and economic challenges. EPIC-N is now fundraising for $2.5 million to scale up, manage, and enhance the value of this important work domestically and another $2.5 million to help launch global regional networks similar to the recently established EPIC-Africa network, which includes nine currently-developing programs.
In the effort to help launch new EPIC programs, SCI Co-Director Marc Schlossberg and former SCYP partner Courtney Griesel of the City of Springfield led a training for universities and communities in New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands (Federal Region 2) in early May. This successful workshop was sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and several potential programs will receive some technical assistance and other follow-up over the coming months.
Additional training workshops are planned for the remainder of the year. Thus far, these will include trainings for the Pacific Northwest (held in Spokane, WA), all University of California and California State University schools (Santa Barbara, CA), and universities and communities in southeast Asia (Manila, Philippines, with support from the United Nations).
“It really is incredible that this university-community partnership model started by SCI at the University of Oregon is now being adopted and adapted throughout the world,” says Marc Schlossberg. “I think it points to the tremendous ambitions of our communities to do better and the sheer capacity of our universities to utilize their existing resources in ways that better provide to all. SCI was created to ensure that the talent and expertise of the university gets out of the university walls, and SCYP in Oregon and EPIC-N around the world do exactly that. Universities need to adapt to new societal demands and this model seems to be a way to do just that the world over.”