In February, Columbia Climate School’s Office of Inclusive Excellence held an event titled “Harboring Resilience: Community, Climate, and New York City’s Waterfront Future.” The topic: How Columbia students and faculty might get involved with climate resilience work in New York City. The host of the event, Memphis Washington (they/them), spoke about their work for the Waterfront Alliance, a coalition of 1,100 partner organizations whose mission is to “lead the way for thriving and resilient waterfronts, shorelines and coastlines.”
Washington, a community outreach and engagement AmeriCorps member, grew up in Harlem not far from the Columbia University campus, and remembers when Superstorm Sandy tore through NYC, when they were 14 years old. “The responders weren’t just FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency], it was people taking up direct collections for food, for clothing; it was a community response,” said Washington.
One of the Waterfront Alliance’s priorities is their Coney Island Creek project, which focuses on the low-lying oceanfront community of Coney Island, the location of Brooklyn’s last natural freshwater creek. As the frequency of extreme storms has increased, residents of Coney Island are facing the routine flooding of their homes, schools and places of worship. City government had proposed building a giant concrete “gate” across the creek to keep floodwaters out—which would’ve prevented residents from accessing and enjoying the waterfront. Instead, by coming together as a community and generating new ideas, residents found better ways to adapt to flooding, such as adopting emergency-preparedness measures and planting coastal grass to prevent erosion and flooding. Washington also helped by developing educational materials and providing organizational training to residents.
The event was organized by Saul Vazquez-Pichardo, talent and inclusion manager for the Climate School. Vazquez-Pichardo was deliberate in choosing Washington, a Black climate scientist, for the Black History Month event. “There are not a lot of people of color working in this space,” said Vazquez-Pichardo. “A lot of our students don’t leave their bubble. They don’t know about the organizations that are working in neighborhoods.” Paying rent here doesn’t mean you are engaging with the community, he added.
Every year, the Climate School invites local organizations to submit capstone projects for students to undertake. “It is a priority to work with local partners,” said Lisa Dale, director of Columbia Climate School’s M.A. in Climate and Society Program. The relationships built through these collaborations creates a longer-term pipeline of support for many organizations, Dale said, with former student partners sometimes becoming staff, donors or board advisors of local stalwarts such as the MTA, NYC Health Department and Climate Imaginarium.
Some Columbia students in attendance said that bringing in speakers like Washington was an effective way to build bridges with the community. “After the last talk I attended, I went out and connected with the speaker’s organization,” said Belen Gonzalez, a student in the M.S. in Sustainability Management program.
Also in (remote) attendance was a group of seventh graders from a middle school in Park Slope, Brooklyn, as part of their science class. They were able to hear about the goals and strategies for waterfront improvements along Coney Island Creek, a climate adaptation initiative not far from their own homes.
Washington expressed excitement about opportunities to involve them and their teacher in local projects. “It’s so important for faculty and students to be including local communities when they are developing their projects and grant applications,” Washington said. “Researchers should ask themselves: ‘Does my project interface with any local projects? Does it contribute to meeting local needs?’”
“Environmental justice gets left behind sometimes,” said Vasquez-Pichardo. “Education is a privilege, and this is a way people can give back.” Washington echoed that sentiment: “Climate work is community work.”
