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If it ain't brokered, you can't fix it

Memorial's Harris Centre helps the university broker its capacity to meet the challenges facing rural communities in Newfoundland and Labrador.
By Alison Dyer

In the early morning drizzle there's a buzz on the rented DRL bus as it heads down the Trans Canada Highway. Researchers, administrators and graduate students, over the course of the seven-hour trip, chat and learn about each other's projects. At Milltown, at the head of Baie d'Espoir, with the air scented with wood-burning stoves and leaves displaying warm shades, the group piles into the Vancor Motel. That evening Glenn Blackwood, B.Sc.(Hons.)'83, MA'96, executive director of Marine Institute, leads a "Memorial Presents" discussion on the future of the marine sector in the Coast of Bays, a topic suggested by the regional economic development boards (REDB) for this region that is home to 22 communities. The room is packed, and many of these regional stakeholders (volunteers and staff of the Coast of Bays REDB, municipal councils, school boards, industry associations, tourism operators, fisher's committees and other non-profit organizations, as well as federal and provincial government employees) will participate in the next day's workshop.

The Coast of Bays, like other regions in the province, has experienced high levels of out-migration, its population is aging as many youth are moving away after high school, and its fisheries sector is struggling. The region also has its own set of unique challenges: an average formal education level of Grade 9; a lower average income than other parts of the province; and an "end-of-the-road" location.

Dr. Eddy Campbell (B.Sc.(Hons.)'76 M.Sc.'78 PhD '81 UofT),
Memorial's vice-president (academic)

Harbour Breton Mayor Don Stewart was one of the panelists. With the pullout of its major employer, FPI, the town is looking toward aquaculture and the marine industries as economic pillars and Mr. Stewart is interested in how Memorial can play a role. "We probably don't realize we have one of the greatest assets there," he says, after the discussion. "Our university has all kinds of expertise, people we can call on for many things...here's a partner we should have been dealing with for years. There are a lot of people out here with lots of ideas but they don't know how to take it to the next level."

Taking good ideas for business to the next level is partly what the following day is about.

In the morning session, Memorial's Dr. Rob Greenwood (BA(Hons.)'84, MA'85 York, PhD'91 Warwick) explains to participants, it's a show and tell, where community stakeholders will learn what activities Memorial is currently doing in the region. The afternoon session deals with priorities identified by the region — in this instance aquaculture, education, and tourism — and participants discuss ways in which the university can assist the region.

"We're not a consulting firm," says Dr. Greenwood, director of Memorial's Leslie Harris Centre of Regional Policy and Development. "We can't promise to deliver a thing. But we guarantee that where there is a demand, and where the university has a supply and capacity, we'll try to match them up. That's when great things happen, and it's happening all over the province."

"Our mandate is to co-ordinate and facilitate the university's activities in regional policy and development," says Dr. Greenwood. "If people don't know who to call at Memorial, if they want to access the faculty, staff or students in some way that relates to regional policy and development, they can call or e- mail us. But if you do know who to call, you don't have to contact us. We're not meant to be a bottleneck," says Dr. Greenwood. "A big part of our role is as a broker, a navigator."

It's a role that embraces all faculties, schools and departments as well as the Marine Institute, Sir Wilfred Grenfell College and collaboration with the Labrador Institute. Barely two years old, the Harris Centre has evolved a series of programs and activities to broker the resources of the university in research, teaching and outreach to help build linkages in the community and contribute to the social, cultural and economic development of the province. The centre is named after former Memorial president Dr. Leslie Harris, "who exemplifies the integrity and independence of the university while making a practical contribution," explains Dr. Greenwood — the centre, as its name implies — involves two prongs: policy and development. "Memorial Presents" is an example of the former, a quarterly public policy forum that brings together panellists from the university and the community to examine issues of concern to the province.

On the development side, one of the centre's programs includes partnering with REDBs in the delivery of four regional workshops per year, one in each of the province's major regions: Labrador; Western, Central and Eastern Newfoundland. These workshops provide Memorial faculty, staff and students the opportunity to meet with regional stakeholders and explore ways of creating sustainable regions through identifying potential opportunities for research, teaching and outreach.

"I'll call it a value-add seafood product. That's fine," says Bruce Moores, an economic development officer with the Labrador Straits Development Corporation (LSDC). He's relieved about maintaining entrepreneurial confidentiality while excited to be able to talk about this new initiative, one that could translate into an economic boon for communities in southern Labrador.

Glenn Blackwood, executive director of
Memorial's Fisheries and Marine Institute

The initiative came about as a result of Mr. Moore's contact with the Harris Centre when it partnered with two Labrador REDBs to host a regional workshop this past May.

"When Memorial came to L'Anse au Clair it really opened my eyes," says Mr. Moores. "I didn't think Memorial was playing much of a role in economic zone 5, but reviewing the different projects they have been involved in over the years, they've played a major role in a lot of different sectors."

"We got to thinking, maybe we can partner with these guys to carry out some research on our ideas," says Mr. Moores who subsequently contacted the Harris Centre which, in turn, put him in touch with Susan Vaughan (BA '89, MBA '01), director of Memorial's Centre for International Business Studies. "I called Susan, discussed it with her and she said yes. Right now we have three undergraduate students working on a market survey for us," says Mr. Moores. The students are conducting local, national and international market surveys for both fresh and value- add scallops. "We have some of the cream of the crop of that undergraduate program. This type of work is wonderful for us — utilizing Memorial in this way — we know we're going to get a top quality product at the end in December," says Mr. Moores.

For their part, Moores has been discussing the initiative with the Labrador Fisherman's Union Shrimp Company Ltd. "We're hoping that the work by the undergraduate students will help us convince them that this is a worthwhile project and will be beneficial to the communities of the Labrador Straits."

For some, the centre's role is reminiscent of MUN Extension. But Dr. Greenwood points out that while it is consistent with that tradition, MUN Extension existed at a time when there was little community capacity. Today there are zone boards and development associations, and the Rural Secretariat, Innovation Trade and Rural Development and The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency all with offices in the regions. "Our job is to connect the over 900 Memorial faculty, the 2,200 grad students and 2,000 staff," says Dr. Greenwood. He adds, "If we can leverage half of that resource to connect to the people on the ground doing development in this province, watch out! Many projects that we've helped in the past two years would not have seen the light of day without the broker connecting the dots."

In the afternoon, outside the Vancor Motel, the rain has stopped but the sky remains overcast. The water of the bay is pewter-grey, calm, deserted. It's a different story inside the motel. Participants in the regional workshop are crowded into two rooms for "breakout sessions" to develop what Dr. Greenwood has termed embryonic one-pagers, including a description of the opportunity and a community contact to champion the project. Later, these one-pagers will be fine-tuned and then electronically circulated to faculty. "Two times out of three we'll have someone respond saying, 'I've got a grad student who's doing some work related to that.'" Indeed several projects have evolved through this process, both inside and outside of workshop settings, including the Leading Tickles Marine Protected Area (MPA) project.

MPAs are established, under Canada's Ocean Act, to protect and conserve important fish and marine mammal species, their habitats and areas of high biodiversity. They may be created, such as that of the Eastport Peninsula MPA, to address declining catches. Closing a geographically defined marine area to the harvesting of specific stock enables fish harvesters, government and academics the opportunity to share information and work co-operatively in the better management of a marine species.

Harry Hallett, mayor of Leading Tickles, recalls how the Exploits Valley Economic Development Corporation needed baseline scientific data for its application to establish an MPA. "Dave Curran, the former CEO of the zone board, spoke with Rob Greenwood and DFO and they got the ball rolling," says Mr. Hallett. The centre circulated a one-pager and a biology faculty member responded. Proposals were then presented to DFO to fund faculty and graduate student research on three marine species.

"(Memorial's) involvement has been a plus for the community," says Mr. Hallett. "We're not an MPA yet, but we hope to have i's dotted and t's crossed by this time next year."

Meanwhile, the Harris Centre has brokered a long-term collaborative research agreement on MPAs between DFO and Memorial. This agreement will fund graduate student research and provide MPA research for improved fishery and coastal sustainability.

Knowledge Mobilizaton benefits

These regional workshops can also lead to projects that have a province-wide significance. And one person who has seen this in action is the Harris Centre's David Yetman. His role is as manager of Knowledge Mobilization.

Knowledge Mobilization may sound as though it belongs to a New Age lexicon, but the concept is straightforward: "It's about getting the right information in the right hands in the right format at the right time to influence decision making, whether that's influencing policy with government or development at the community level," explains Mr. Yetman. And part of it, he says, is about a reciprocal understanding between the university and the larger community. "It's about building a culture in the community and the university, that people immediately recognize that the university provides value, and that the community has a lot of ideas that they should be aligning their research to."

As an example of this mobilization in action, to develop a regional project with province-wide implications, Mr. Yetman points to one that arose from the southern Labrador regional workshop. "The community education breakout group felt that kids in rural areas had a lower academic achievement than those in cities." Following through on that idea, a one-pager was developed, and Mr. Yetman helped broker follow-up meetings. These brought Dr. Alice Collins (BA '71, B.Ed '71, Memorial's dean of Education, and Dr. Dennis Mulcahy (BA '69, B.Ed '73), associate professor, to the table.Working with the project's community lead organization, Partners in Learning, the group refined its objective to look at underachievement in males in the province. Harris Centre staff is now writing a detailed proposal and have identified a possible funding source.

"The project has enormous potential," says Dr. Mulcahy, who believes that if rural communities are going to have a future, it rests partly on the shoulders of the young people who are living and going to school in these communities. "To what extent are they receiving the education that will allow them to go to the next level in their education so they can return and contribute to these communities? If we can identify factors that attribute to underachievement, then it behooves us all to address those factors."

Another way the Harris Centre is mobilizing Memorial's knowledge is organizing mini-panels in communities. Arising from the Central Newfoundland regional workshop held in Newtown last November was a request to find out what research exists at Memorial that can be used by the tourism industry in the region. The centre found 20 such projects by Memorial researchers. Then it garnered the commitment of several researchers to go out to Terra Nova National Park, with whom it partnered to deliver the event, to speak about their research and how it relates to tourism operators in the area. Dr. Norm Catto, Department of Geography, has been quick to get involved.

Dr. Catto says that the Harris Centre gives him the opportunity to discuss his research with people in communities so they can, "see for themselves that people here have made a commitment to working with problems that are of interest to the community. The other side is that it gives them the opportunity to say what they're interested in. If someone calls me up and says, 'I'm interested in your doing a particular piece of work', and its something that I have the expertise to do, then I'm going to be very much inclined to see what we can do to help them answer some of their questions."

Working with industries

A rural community near Twilingate, NL

Dr. Catto put that into practice following the western Newfoundland regional workshop in which he participated last March. Tourism stakeholders at that workshop asked him about the impact of climate change on local provincial parks. "I went back, discussed it with the province (Department of Environment) and we ended up producing a report that considered each park separately," he said.

In the upcoming Terra Nova mini-panel, Dr. Catto will talk about "the effects that climate is having upon tourism and, conversely, the effects that tourists are having upon the natural environment?and the economic opportunities as a result of changing climate."

As an example, he says that the province is experiencing "longer seasons, especially shoulder seasons in terms of tourism," says Dr. Catto. "That ties into the changing type of tourists that we're getting. More people are coming on package tours, cruise ships, people over the age of 60?and that makes a difference in terms of trail design and opens up opportunities for operators to take advantage of." Alternatively, he says, our winters are becoming warmer with irregular amounts of snow which has implications for snowmobiling outfitters.

The discussion of Dr. Catto's geographical research, its practical application and value in provincial planning is what Mr. Yetman hopes tourism stakeholders will take away from the mini-panel. "They should be planning for changes in the weather because it will affect their businesses," he says.

Creating an inventory

In addition to these outreach workshops and panels, the Harris Centre recently announced another major initiative that will provide communities with the knowledge and information for economic and social development. The Memorial University Regional Inventory (MURI) is an online, searchable database of university initiatives taking place around and about communities in the province. "Researchers will also be able to search the system to identify opportunities for collaboration with communities," says Mr. Yetman explaining that the one-pagers derived from regional workshops as well as those sent in as enquiries will populate the database.

"Rural Newfoundland is going through a fundamental restructuring, [but] I'm not pessimistic about [its] sustainability," says Dr. Greenwood, who is also president of the Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation. "Memorial is probably the most significant factor for the future success of this province, in partnership with the College of the North Atlantic and business.We're a vehicle to help in terms of research, training and labour supply."

Dr. Greenwood's team at the Harris Centre is getting the message out. And the community is responding.

"We'll be utilizing the one-pagers and sending them off to the Harris Centre for future follow-up," says Mr. Moores. "It's a wonderful way to develop and promote new ideas and technology in our communities and enhance economic opportunities. By creating partnerships with the individuals from MUN, we can get a lot of things done that we wouldn't normally be able to accomplish."

For more information, please visit www.mun.ca/harriscentre.