Penn State colleagues and community partners are invited to attend an "Appreciative Inquiry and Asset Mapping" workshop centered around community building and food initiatives.
The event is free of charge and will take place May 1 at 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Room 134, HUB-Robeson Center. Lunch will be provided. An optional visit afterward is available to tour the Student Farm greenhouses and the group's annual plant sale from 4 to 5 p.m.
Extension educators and professionals; University faculty, researchers and staff; local government representatives; non-profit organizations; and graduate student leaders are invited to attend. As this event is focused on building capacity for University-community partnerships, Penn State attendees also are encouraged to invite community partners and collaborators.
During the workshop, attendees will learn asset-mapping tools to build bridges among community stakeholders and support communities in working towards action, especially on community food initiatives. These tools hold the potential to build common spaces of convening and healing, and to catalyze collective reimagining of the relationships to and with the land and with each other, according to the event holders.
The workshop is cohosted by the Center for Economic and Community Development (CECD) within the Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology and Education in the College of Agricultural Sciences, as well as the Community-Engaged Research, Action and Partnerships (CERAP) within the Social Science Research Institute.
