A new partnership based on enviromental, economic, and social projects run by students from an Illinois liberal arts college will benefit an Iowa community.
Starting in the fall, students from the Upper Mississippi Center at Augustana College in Rock Island will work with the city of Clinton, Iowa, a dozen projects to promote "sustainability."
Center Director Michael Reisner says one of those projects involves working with the Clinton Fire Department.
“They have a disproportionate number of fires in elderly residences,” he said, “so a communications class is going to help the design a public outreach campaign to try to figure out how to target that specific audience and try to reduce those types of fires which tend to have high fatality rates.”
Another project will focus on the manufacturing base of this city of 28,000, just across the Mississippi River from Fulton, Ill.
“One of the projects they propose is to work with their local economic development corporation and some of the businesses to develop a brand and a marketing campaign around ‘Made in Clinton,’ which they lack right now,” Reisner said.
Students also will develop a plan to manage trees and parks in the city at risk from the emerald ash borer now, and possibly other threats in the future.Reisner estimates up to 300 students will participate in the Clinton partnership next year, through classes in local history, accounting, business and marketing, environmental studies, and communications.
This is the first sustainability project undertaken by the Upper Mississippi Center, and while the work in Clinton goes on, the center will prepare for its second project with another nearby city or county to start in the fall of next year.