Graduate students expand capacity of local governments
CU 海角社区's Masters of the Environment (MENV) program partners with Colorado communities through capstone projects and coursework to build local government capacity, advance sustainability and resilience initiatives, and provide students with hands-on professional experience.
Capstone and government collaboration
At the Erie farmers market on a summer morning, a booth tucked between vendors doesn鈥檛 offer food or goods, but it still buzzes with conversation.听
MENV students Adam Arata, Stephany Correa-Diaz and Sean Lee are asking residents in Erie what resilience means to them. The trio is developing the town of Erie鈥檚 resilience action plan as part of their capstone program鈥攅nsuring community voices are the center of their work.听
Over the past nine months, this graduate student team has met with community members, analyzed local vulnerabilities and collaborated with town staff to design actionable strategies to strengthen Erie鈥檚 preparedness for climate impacts and other challenges in collaboration with Erie鈥檚 sustainability manager, Eryka Thorley, and sustainability and water conservation specialist, Emma Marino, an MENV graduate. They鈥檒l soon deliver a comprehensive resilience action plan to help Erie build long-term sustainability and resilience.听
Arata shared:
鈥淢y team is thrilled to have had the opportunity to work with a growing Colorado community to safeguard residents鈥 high quality of life and to position the town to thrive in the face of emerging and overlapping challenges. This project allowed my team to collaborate with subject matter experts, elected officials, town staff and over 900 community members. We received immense support and feedback throughout the process from our Erie partners and our advisor Dr. Leslie Blood. I have no doubt Erie's Sustainability Division will thoughtfully and successfully implement the plan following its adoption by the town council, potentially aided by a second MENV capstone team next year."听
The students submitted their resilience action plan to the Colorado Office of Sustainability, who is working with the town of Erie toward adoption of the plan.
MENV courses and capstone offer project-based experiential education
MENV combines academic training with applied learning to prepare students for impactful sustainability careers. While the program offers diverse course offerings, many students lean toward public service, and through their coursework and capstone, focus on expanding capacity of local governments. Together, these projects provide MENV graduate students with professional, hands-on experience while providing partner organizations with the additional capacity and insights needed to address critical sustainability initiatives.
In addition to capstone projects, MENV students also work directly with communities across Colorado to strengthen local capacity through the Building Community Capacity course, taught by Natalie Ooi (teaching professor, sustainability in outdoor education specialization lead and associate chair for professional master's programs in the Department of Environmental Studies). This course hosts the Rural Technical Assistance Program, an initiative that aims to revitalize rural Colorado communities by leveraging outdoor recreation opportunities. Through this program, MENV students partner with CSU Extension and the Colorado Outdoor Recreation Industry Office.
The MENV program not only adds student support to local governments during periods of collaboration through the capstone program but also cultivates talent that continues to serve them. Many alumni of the MENV program now run and work in sustainability offices and participate in city planning initiatives in Lyons, Keystone, Denver, Erie, Lafayette, Englewood, Littleton and hopefully many more towns in the future. MENV offers unparalleled experiential education that trains the next generation of leaders who will guide sustainability initiatives across local governments in Colorado and beyond.
Student teams take on the role of community consultants and help facilitate a community-driven process focused on visioning and planning for outdoor recreation and main street development to improve economic prosperity and quality of life for rural Colorado communities.听
Ooi shared:听
鈥淭he Rural Technical Assistance Program is an amazing collaboration between the Colorado Outdoor Recreation Industry Office, CU 海角社区鈥檚 MENV program and CSU Extension. It is a great example of how collaboration and a passion for public service can bring about meaningful outcomes for rural communities looking to develop or transition towards an outdoor recreation economy. It also showcases what meaningful stakeholder engagement and facilitation looks like, providing students with these invaluable skills for the future.鈥澨
Through this program, students Sarah McLaurin, Abigale Purvis, Jess Hertzberg and Emily Palanjian partnered with the town of Keystone and Summit Partnership to provide technical planning support as part of Ooi鈥檚 course. Their work ultimately led to Jess Hertzberg becoming the town planner for Keystone.
Spotlight on impact and scale
Over the last several years, student interest in working with local governments continues to grow, with this year's capstone cohort featuring five teams that are supporting communities across Colorado.听
Their projects include electrifying Denver鈥檚 neighborhoods in collaboration with the city's Climate Action, Sustainability, and Resiliency office and the city and county of Denver; developing waste diversion initiatives for the city of Westminster; and creating resilience action plans for the towns of Erie and Hayden.听
The caliber of student work is on par with current sustainability professions. For example, Kasrah Eslami and Monroe Roush, who were graduate consultants with Denver鈥檚 Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DOTI), presented their work on tackling greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets at Switch 海角社区, an event for renewable and sustainable energy professionals.
Lasting impacts
Capstone projects often create tangible impacts that extend well beyond the nine-month project period. A standout example is the 2024 partnership with ICLEI USA, a nonprofit organization that supports local governments in accomplishing their sustainability goals. The project team developed a practical toolkit to help local governments integrate sustainability and circular economy principles into procurement practices.听
Josefina Hajek-Herrera, a member of this team, now works with ICLEI USA as circular strategy advisor to share and implement the toolkit with city employees across the country.
"Our capstone project with Alyssa and Caroline at ICLEI USA was a wonderful and impactful experience. The toolkit is now used to guide local government policy and program development across the nation. Alyssa and I now use the toolkit to develop and teach a sustainable procurement cohort for 25 local governments. I'm incredibly proud of the work we delivered during capstone and proud to see how it's being implemented.鈥澨
This ongoing initiative demonstrates how MENV capstone projects not only strengthen sustainability efforts in Colorado but also create tools, frameworks and professional connections that drive meaningful environmental impact nationwide.
ICLEI USA also opened the door to MENV students to engage with local governments through the Colorado Resilience Engine (CORE) Internship Program. The program is competitive for both graduate students who want to work with local governments and local governments that submit project proposals to bring on a graduate intern.听
The inaugural cohort of five Colorado municipalities and their sustainability staff (three of which include MENV alumni) matched with five graduate interns (three of which are current MENV students). In one case, current MENV student Erin Spencer is collaborating with MENV alum Hannah Miller, sustainability manager for the city of Louisville.听
On any given week, CORE interns might be facilitating workshops with town staff, compiling climate or community data, designing surveys, or developing pilot programs, helping municipalities advance sustainability and resilience initiatives while gaining hands-on professional experience.听
Miller shared:听
"Erin has been instrumental in advancing and completing projects that had been sitting on the back burner for far too long. She has been an incredible asset to the team, and her ability to self-start and expand our limited capacity has been a tremendous help! At the same time, her counterparts Dani, Brooke, Colton and Eloise also deserve high praise, as demonstrated by their outstanding presentation at Mountain Towns 2030 conference."
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