By Katelyn Weisbrod
The end of the semester marks the completion of a two-year partnership between the University of Iowa and city of Iowa City.
The Iowa Initiative for Sustainable Communities connects UI students and faculty from various disciplines with cities around Iowa. These students and faculty work on either semester or yearlong projects.
This partnership brought 24 sustainability-based projects from the UI to the community, from departments ranging from urban and regional planning to journalism to public health.
“It’s been a good way for us to engage with the students and give them some practical experience in the field,” Iowa City interim City Manager Geoff Fruin said. “We’ll be able to take a lot of the findings from these studies and apply them to our day-to-day operations.”
Some of the projects were displayed at City Hall on Tuesday for a celebration event, where the community could see what has been accomplished through this partnership over the last two years.
“It’s been really rewarding to be working in our backyard over the last two years,” director Nick Benson said. “There’s a natural connection between Iowa City and the university because we’re right next door, but I think these projects help formalize connections between students and the city that weren’t there before.”
The project has partnered with 22 communities across the state of Iowa over the past six years, including Muscatine and Dubuque. Benson said students and faculty will travel to these cities and even stay overnight to work on their projects.
“The ideas come from the community, so they’re driven by things that are important to the community, their priorities,” program coordinator Sarah SanGiovanni said. “We facilitate students to have communication with community partners so when these projects are done they’re reflecting the things that are important to the community.”
Fruin said he worked with one of the project teams that focused on affordable housing. He met with the group once a week for the past year to guide research and make recommendations.
“It’s been a lot of fun,” Fruin said. “I’ve learned quite a bit from them, and I think we’ve provided them a good experience that will prepare them for a career in urban planning.
“It helped me focus on the issue at hand. They did some historical research which was beneficial for me as well, and they looked at what other cities are doing and helped us apply these things to Iowa City as well.”
Now that the two-year partnership with Iowa City is complete, the project will team up with Mason City and the East Iowa Council of Governments to begin a new set of projects starting in August.
