UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State’s “Stories from the Field” conversation series is returning this spring with three new sessions, with speakers sharing lessons for practitioner-academics, insights into how governments and communities can work together to tackle biosecurity threats, and stories that illustrate the importance of trust in vaccination-education efforts.
Each session was designed to bring together academics and practitioners to discuss the challenges and opportunities of applied research and community engagement. The series, which will take place via Zoom, is free and open to anyone interested in attending. Registration is required.
The first conversation, taking place Feb. 22, will feature Bev Cigler, Penn State distinguished professor emerita of public policy and administration.
Cigler will discuss how practitioner-academics — “pracademics” — work to bridge gaps between academia and the world of practice. As a pracademic in the field of public policy and administration, her talk will be based on her experience addressing multicommunity collaboration for economic development, municipal needs and priorities, finance issues, and emergency management related to flood mitigation.
The second conversation, taking place March 15, will feature Michael Reid, a practitioner and director with the Agriculture Victoria Australian government agency. He will talk about lessons learned from Australia’s management of the European rabbit, one of Australia's most widespread and destructive pests, including how governments and communities can come together to manage invasive species and other biosecurity threats.
Rounding out the series will be a session featuring Maria Luisa Tejada, a Penn State Extension educator, on April 14.
Tejada will discuss her experiences working to develop trust for effective community engagement around vaccine hesitancy with Latino communities in rural and urban places. She will focus on why building trust is important, as well as how she and her collaborators worked to build trust during the Extension Collaborative on Immunization Teaching & Engagement project.
Recordings of previous “Stories from the Field” events also are now available.
The series is hosted by Penn State's Center for Economic and Community Development, an applied research center dedicated to strengthening local and regional development in Pennsylvania and beyond. The center is housed in the College of Agricultural Sciences’ Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education.