Date:
Author: James Shelley, Director, Complex Adaptive Systems Lab, Western University
Original article: https://theconversation.com/the-city-symposium-how-communities-can-come-together-to-address-their-problems-227764
Imagine your community is facing a thorny, complex problem. Let’s consider two scenarios.
In the first, four academics come together to discuss their research studies on the matter, and propose solutions to the issue.
In the second scenario, there is a discussion between an activist, an artist, a municipal official and an academic researcher; each provide their expertise, experience and unique perspective.
How would each of these conversations nudge us to think differently about the issue at hand? How might each conversation shape our response?
A town square approach
Academics are adept at convening research conferences to present findings, datasets and journal articles about specific research and questions. But what if universities also worked with their local libraries, museums, theatres, municipal governments, community foundations, arts councils, grassroots organizations, non-profits and private businesses to create a space — a town square — where people can discuss a complex problem together?
We examined a real-life effort to bring the second scenario to life. Our study, recently published in the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, explored the effects of this cross sector approach, recently piloted in London, Ont.
In 2019-20, Western University facilitated a series of nine events in London, Ont., called the City Symposium. While the underlying goal was to broaden understanding about health inequity research in the community, the voices at the front of the room included artists, activists and civil servants, with academics allotted one-quarter of the airtime. Each presenter had 12 minutes to share how they were addressing a common concern and invite listeners to take part in a tangible way through an explicit “call to action.”
The theme for each event was anchored in one of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Each presenter — artist, activist, civil servant, and academic — spoke about their work in relationship to the theme, specific to the local community.
The series took place at venues such as libraries, performance theatres and museums. Events averaged between 125-250 attendees, with the highest attendance at an “online town square” during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bringing people together
When surveyed, most attendees felt the City Symposium exposed them to new ideas and different ways of thinking. Imagine this: you are excited to go hear a talk by a local artist you admire, which leads you to an event where your curiosity is further sparked by a researcher or municipal official who is also working with interrelated ideas.
In our evaluation, we observed that bringing people together meant each audience feels heard and hears from others. “You actually have the potential of having four audiences combined,” observed one presenter in an interview in our study.
A sense of increased connection was a common theme in our interview and survey data. The different conversations and perspectives prompted participants to consider their community in a new way. People felt more connected to, and invested in, their community after hearing how local social issues cut across sectors, institutions and personal experiences.
(City Symposium Production Team)
By tying each event to a unique social challenge instead of a single professional discipline, the City Symposium created a unique kind of hyper-local discovery platform. As one respondent said:
I think the world today causes us to stay in our own bubbles of influence, surrounded by people who agree with us. I think City Symposium helps expose you to different perspectives on a given topic.
Academics: One among many, not one apart
Our opening scenario — four academics gathering to discuss a problem — indirectly implies that there is a particular way of thinking that is most pertinent to the issue at hand. But we know that most social problems are complex and intersect a wide range of human experience. A critical first step towards collective solutions is acknowledging that no single perspective of the world is complete.
The City Symposium modelled the idea that academics have as much to learn from other sectors of civil society as the rest of society has to learn from academics. Professors provided one perspective, not the perspective. Research is part of creating solutions, not itself a solution.
Trust is paramount in community engagement. Amid the various challenges in bridging the expectations between local communities and academic institutions, the City Symposium model is one pathway to sharing research in town square discussions that are genuinely reciprocal.
For research to effectively contribute to public discourse, it can’t be the only voice in the room.
The City Symposium format can be easily copied and customized for different contexts. But it is by no means the only model. Other approaches might include universities working with local organizations to co-host events that provide templates for nurturing a commonly shared, local learning environment; one where academics engage in, but do not monopolize, the public conversation.
As one respondent told us:
It offers new perspectives and voices to London’s public scene, and changes and challenges the dialogue of our community.