Emily Mellen  0:07  
Welcome to Global Research Bytes. I'm Emily Mellen and I'm here with Phoebe Crisman, Professor in the School of Architecture and Director of the Global Studies program. Phoebe, last spring you were awarded the CGII Global Programs of Distinction, or GPOD, grant for your collaborative project “Indigenous Communities and Tallgrass Prairie Resilience in the Face of Changing Climate: A Science, Education, and Co-Design Research Collaboration.” Tell us about this project and where you all are now, nearing a year after your award.

Phoebe Crisman  0:36  
Sure, well, we're we're making a lot of headway. What's unique, I think, about this grant is that it is a true collaboration between science, environmental science, education, faculty in the education here at education school here at UVA, and also my colleague, David Edmunds in Global Development Studies, who focuses on community engagement and the power of education, to think about development, and myself as an architect and urban designer, focusing on the co-design aspect. Where we are today is that we've been working very closely with an-- well, two NGOs, but most closely with one, Nis’to, which is an Indigenous Dakota NGO based on the Lake Traverse Reservation in South Dakota. And as part of our work, we, well, that it's a multifaceted project, that we are working on both large-scale tallgrass prairie restoration and bison grazing as one aspect of it. And the other aspect really focused on something called the bundle carriers count, which is a summer educational program for Indigenous youth on the reservation to learn about sustainability broadly writ, I would say in terms of environmental sustainability, as well as cultural and community sustainability. So, part of the co-design project is to work with their community to design this summer camp, to design, buildings, structures, architecture, as well as landscape and indigenous gardens, native plant garden was as part of that design.

Emily Mellen  2:16  
That's really interesting. And I can tell the project approaches the issues of climate change on a local level, from multiple perspectives, from architecture and design, to environmental sciences, to global developments, cities, to education, to, of course, voices of the community members themselves. Why do you see this breath as necessary for a project like this?

Phoebe Crisman  2:36  
Well, it's necessary because we're looking at the land. We're working with the people that occupied that land and the histories of that people on the land over time, which includes everything from how they arrived in that place, when sent out by the US federal government from their homeland, and Minnesota to the prairie. And so the colonizing aspect of that, and the kind of deep history and calm loss and trauma that came from that process, which of course, is being processed today. So there's the cultural and community aspect. Then there's also a kind of technological aspect that comes along with both the science of restoring that land and also the science of designing buildings using native materials like rammed earth, sustainably harvested timber, and so on. But then making these buildings also very high tech and that they're designed to generate their own power using solar photovoltaics to collect their own rainwater to be off the grid. So, it's for me a very interesting, high-low kind of project, high technology, low technology, where we really need people with a lot of different expertise to come together, everything from kind of historical understandings to current technologies.

Emily Mellen  3:48  
Absolutely. That makes sense. So how did this collaboration get started?

Phoebe Crisman  3:52  
You know, this collaboration has been going on for a long time with a kind of constantly changing cast of characters. One of my colleagues, David Edmunds, has been working out on that reservation I don't know for 15 or 20 years, I think, in different capacities, as well as other new UVA faculty from Linguistics working with Native language retention and learning. Also environmental science, Howie Epstein, another colleague on the ground who has been working on prairie restoration, bison grazing for several years in different capacities. I have been working on this project on some not this project, but a related project since 2019, where we partnered with this NGO to design a community center on a different site with the tribal college there, unfortunately, due to a lot of changes with the tribal college, that project didn't move forward. So in a way, for me personally, my my connection ceased for a couple of years and now it's been revitalized through the acquisition of new land to build this bundle-carriers camp, but also the CGII grant, which, none of this would it be possible to kind of reinvigorate the these connections without that funding.

Emily Mellen  5:01  
That long term investment seems really important and I'm glad that the CGII funding is helping for that. So, CGII also envisions these GPOD grants as stepping stones towards future funding and future long term development of these kinds of large-scale collaborative projects. How do you see this project developing in the future? And what other connections are you exploring that would benefit this project?

Phoebe Crisman  5:23  
Well, already since receiving the CGII grant, we have received additional funding. At the moment it's been... well, except for one, it's been internal UVA funding, the thing that I hadn't mentioned is that we have a really wonderful group of both undergraduate and graduate researchers working with us, current students who are part of the team. And we have been well, first of all, they're central to the research. But we have also been working closely with them to apply for a number of other UVA grants, such as the Jefferson Trust grant, which they secured to pay for some of their additional travel and work. So I'm not sure how many separate grants are feeding into this project, right. Now, CGII is certainly the largest one at the moment, we're also working on applying for some larger science grants, which are external grants to the program, which would tie very specifically into the tallgrass prairie restoration, both the construction of the restoration, but also the long-term monitoring of that work. So, it's really been very much a great way to sort of get us going and to put us in a position to be applying for more funding.

Emily Mellen  6:29  
And in terms of collaborations, what are you thinking for the future?

Phoebe Crisman  6:33  
Well, our primary collaborator is this Native NGO, Nis’to. And so we, I don't foresee that relationship changing. But as part of this, we've also now been working with a number of both state and federal agencies in South Dakota on the prairie restoration, specifically, as well as some of the educational components. So, there's now talk of a kind of a bird of prey sanctuary idea that might relate to this as well, and thinking about how we can build out the possibilities of that that summer camp program to bring in more partners. I should also say that our partner from the educational school, Lora Henderson Smith, is also working on separate education grants to support some of that work. So, there's so many pieces to the research, it's hard to explain them all in this time. But the idea of working with youth is a really important part of it, too. On the reservation today, just like many other Indigenous communities, there are very high levels of youth suicide of, you know, just like youths dropping out of school, a lot of challenges for Dakota youth. And so Lora has been working over the years, specifically around that topic of youth development, which is really exciting. So, we have a group of our collaborators who South Dakota coming out to visit the University of Virginia to work with us here to see some examples of activities that are happening in Charlottesville on the local community and thinking about how we can have reciprocity and learning, not just us going there, but them coming here to be with us on Grounds and to meet with our local partners.

Emily Mellen  8:19  
That's fantastic. I look forward to hearing more about this project as you go forward. And thank you for meeting with me.

Phoebe Crisman  8:25  
Thank you.