PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Dr. Jenna Jorns, Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments (GLISA)
Jenna Jorns (GLISA Program Manager, 4th from the left) and Matt Naud (Environmental Coordinator of Ann Arbor, 3rd from right) speaking on the Climate Action panel at a conference on municipal-university partnerships at Yale University.
GLISA AND THE CITY OF ANN ARBOR’S COLLABORATION FEATURED AT YALE CONFERENCE ON UNIVERSITY-MUNICIPALITY PARTNERSHIPS
On October 13, GLISA Program Manager Dr. Jenna Jorns presented with Matthew Naud, Ann Arbor Environmental Coordinator, at the “Forging University-Municipality Partnerships Toward Urban Sustainability” Conference. Co-convened by the Yale Hixon Center for Urban Ecology, Yale Office of Sustainability, and the City of New Haven, the objective of the conference was to inspire progress by sharing successful examples of university-municipality collaboration on sustainability efforts.
Jorns and Naud presented on the “Climate Action” panel alongside speakers from South Bend and the University of Notre Dame (IN), Vancouver and the University of British Columbia (BC, Canada), and Boulder and The University of Colorado Boulder (CO). Describing GLISA’s longstanding collaboration with the city of Ann Arbor, they highlighted the Great Lakes Adaptation Assessment for Cities (GLAA-C), a four-year project to advance climate adaptation planning in small and mid-size cities in the Great Lakes region funded jointly by the Kresge Foundation and the Graham Sustainability Institute. Among outputs from the project, Jorns and Naud drew attention to the city climate fact sheets, on which GLISA worked with the cities to learn what information should be presented and how. These fact sheets have become one of GLISA’s most popular products and serve as a model for collaboration between GLISA and cities in the Great Lakes region.
Referring to GLAA-C’s 22 total engagements over four years, Naud said that it “took years to build…the mutual respect between practitioners and researchers” that had made the project a success.
Watch the presentation here.