The Conference - Executive Summaries

Cleveland's Green Scene: Urban Sustainability in Action

In this session, facilitators Allison Harris and Katharyne Starinsky invited local experts in the field of urban environmental sustainability to provide an overview of current initiatives in greater Cleveland. Invited guests included: Justin Glanville from Building Cleveland by Design, Emmy Levine from Wonder City Farm, Nicole McGee from Second Time Design, Rebecca Reynolds from Planet Green and Green Clean Inc., Morgan Taggart from OSU Extension and Market Garden Program, Ezra Taxel from A Piece of Cleveland (APOC), and Jill Ziegler from Forest City Enterprises. The conversation began with a short overview from each invited guest on his or her program. All participants were then invited to introduce themselves and offer an additional green initiative or an area of challenge in Cleveland.

Several themes emerged from the conversation. The first is that environmental issues must be tackled on two fronts. Businesses must become more sustainable (Clean Green, Inc. and Forest City Enterprises are great examples of this) and people must make their personal lives more sustainable. It was suggested that part of making Cleveland a green city is ensuring that everyone is doing their part to reduce energy consumption, water use, and waste production.

Another theme that emerged was the power of sustainable food. The issue of food touched on a tremendous number of other issues facing our city including the lack of inexpensive, healthy, fresh food in central neighborhoods, sustainable farming practices, the climate impact of food distribution, using Clevelands vast supply of abandoned, empty properties for urban agriculture, and the supply of locally grown food not meeting demand and the need for additional young farmers. The response to the questions, "What does a green Cleveland look like? and What does Cleveland have to do to become a green city?" centered primarily on securing locally and sustainably produced food.

The last theme of the session was how to turn good ideas into reality, which was a major motivation for hosting the Connect, Create, Change Conference. This was evidenced by the commitment of the session participants to reduce consumption in Cleveland and to support new start-up companies that will reduce, reuse (i.e. Second Time Design), recycle (i.e. Wonder City Farm) or even "upcycle" (i.e. APOC). Based on feedback, we believe that all participants left feeling an extra boost of inspiration to turn words into action just as we were inspired by our visit to Copenhagen to make Cleveland a city that is equally green or more so and just as vibrant.

How Our Biases Impact the Way We Fund and Deliver Healthcare: A Conversation

In this session, Molly Farrell, Cleveland Executive Fellow, shared her reflections on the Danish healthcare system and its implications for our local community. Denmark utilizes a universal healthcare system that is publicly funded (through taxation of citizens) and is administered at the regional and municipal level. The Danish system was created in a unique context: (1) Denmark is a small country with a population of approximately 5.7 million people; by comparison Ohio has a population of over 11 million people, and the United States has a population of almost 300 million, (2) historically, Denmarks population has been homogenous, and individuals have been accustomed to paying a significant amount of their incomes in taxes in order to "take care of their own," contrasted with the USs multicultural history. Therefore, limits to what the US can take from the Danish model exist.

Molly identified three major challenges faced by the Danish healthcare system at present: (1) a shortage of doctors, (2) a growing private healthcare system in competition with the publicly funded universal healthcare system, and (3) Denmarks struggle to adjust to an increasingly multicultural population, including considering rolling back social welfare and universal healthcare programs in response to its growing immigrant (largely defined as people from non-EU and non Western countries) population. This debate has racist and anti-Muslim undertones. Molly suggested that it is through these challenges, especially this last challenge, that the US can learn the most from as we strive to improve our own healthcare system.

With the Danish system in mind, the session participated in a collaborative art task aimed at clarifying aspects of an ideal healthcare system. Participants responded to the following questions visually, through the creation of a collage: (1) How do I see the ideal healthcare system being created (what tools or skills are needed?), (2) What is my role in promoting the ideal healthcare system? (3) What does our community look like once we have the ideal healthcare system? While in many ways the collage speaks for itself (see the photo below), some themes that emerged from the "visual discussion" were: (1) people will be happy and healthy when we achieve the ideal healthcare system, (2) the ideal healthcare system involves both personal (including healthier eating habits) and systemic responsibility, (3) "no matter where we move, we cant move away from what ails us," "were all in this together," (4) creativity and networking at the street level are tools needed to achieve our common goals.

The session resulted in meaningful dialogue, and the collage serves as a visual reminder that a group of concerned individuals has the potential to impact positive change in our community. The collage will be donated to the 2008-2009 Cleveland Executive Fellowship class in the hope that they will continue to explore challenging issues, such as healthcare reform.

Education in the 21^st century: A Global Approach

In this session, the question "What progressive educational initiatives are taking place both locally and abroad to prepare students for the global society?" jumpstarted the conversation about education in the 21^st century. Trista Powers shared her reflections about the Danish education system and the methods Denmark is employing at the youth education level to prepare their students for the world beyond high school. Evelyn Burnett, Cleveland Executive Fellow, and Sonya Pryor-Jones, Cleveland Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Director for the Teaching Institute for Excellence in STEM (TIES), discussed how local initiatives and programs are providing Cleveland area students with educational experiences that are helping them to broaden their horizons and gain the skills needed to secure job opportunities in the future. Evelyn Burnett spoke specifically about the work she did during her education placement with the Cleveland Council on World Affairs and their Bridges to Africa Program, while Sonya Pryor Jones focused on the STEM initiative and the work that TIES is doing in partnership with Cleveland Metropolitan School District.

In her talk, Trista referenced two things about the Danish education system that she found to be interesting and that are possible policies and practices we could learn from in the US. They are (1) Denmarks cross curricula reform policy and (2) and the extent to which Denmark embraces vocational education at the high school level. The Danish government took steps to reform the youth education curriculum, and therefore cross-curricular programs have been implemented in Danish schools nationwide. This educational reform means that teachers and administrators alike have to work in partnership with each other in integrating subjects so that students may be more equipped to be problem solvers in our global society. Trista spoke to this policy as a best practice and views it as such because it fosters collaboration amongst teachers and administrators in a very high level and structured way, and gives students the opportunity to learn in an interdisciplinary way.

She also spoke about how when students reach high school, they have the opportunity to attend either a vocational school where they can learn a trade in a variety of fields or they can attend the gymnasium which is the equivalent to the non-vocational and generally more traditional American high school curriculum. Vocational schools are equally as popular as the gymnasium with more than 51% of students enrolled in either the Vocational upper secondary programs or in the Vocational Education and Training (VET) programs. The Danish government embraces vocational education, and provides as many resources and opportunities to students in this system as to students in the gymnasium. Trista identified this to be another best practice, and sees it as a possible reason why the high school graduation rate is high at 80% whereas in the US the graduation rate is around 70%.

Upon discussing these best practices, there were several questions that came to the fore about the US education system in general and what we are doing comparatively on a local level and a national level. In the dialogue, we contemplated the following questions (1) Is there a stigma towards vocational schools on the high school level and why? (2) How can we begin to address the needs of students who want to aspire towards a career in a trade but have limited resources to do so? (3) How do we begin to fulfill the needs of a workforce that is looking to fill trade-oriented jobs but have few people trained to fill those jobs. Participants shared their thoughts about these questions in the context of their own experiences working with youth and working in the education field. These questions will continue to be part ongoing dialogue, and they were a call to action on how we can begin to address those questions in our endeavors as current and future educators.