A Report on Community Colleges and Science and Civic Engagement in Asia: a Yearlong and Continuing Journey

POINT OF VIEW A Report on Community Colleges and Science and Civic Engagement in Asia: A Yearlong and Continuing Journey Robert W. Franco University of Hawai’i Throughout 2013 I had the opportunity to travel to East and civilization nearly 5,000 years ago. Today, more than 100 South Asia, to explore connections between the work of com- million people live in Henan, which is two-thirds the size of munity colleges and civically engaged science. What follows Arizona. Although the Yellow River does not flow through is a general summary of what was learned through a com- Henan Province as it once did, the river skirts the boundaries bination of ethnographic observation and ongoing scholarly of the Sias campus. engagement with Sias University in China, the Asia Pacific Dr. Paul Elsner, who for 22 years served as Chancellor Higher Education Research Program (APHERP) at the of the 10-campus Maricopa Community College System, in- East-West Center in Hawai’i, and the University of Mumbai vited me to make a presentation at the Sias University In- in India. The report will conclude by suggesting how these ternational Water Conference, May 22–25, 2013. Dr. Elsner international interactions relate to a new Teagle Foundation- knew that Kapi’olani Community College (KCC) and the funded project at Kapi’olani Community College and the University of Hawai’i at Manoa (UHM) had developed and Community College National Center for Community En- sustained a strong service learning and civic engagement pro- gagement (CCNCCE). gram called Malama i na Ahupua’a (to care for the ahupua’a), which engages students and faculty in restoring ancient Ha- waiian watersheds throughout the island of O’ahu. International Water Conference at Sias He knew about “Kapi’olani Sustainability and Service University, Henan Province, China Learning” (KSSL, our new name), through our two-decades- Sias University is the first solely American-owned university long partnership with the CCNCCE, an organization that in Central China, affiliated with both Zhengzhou Univer- he founded and strongly supported as Chancellor. Dr. Elsner sity and Fort Hays State University, Kansas. It is located in is currently on the Board of Sias University and saw striking Henan Province, which was the center of a rising Chinese 6 science education and civic engagement 6:2 summer 2014 similarities between water problems in Arizona and central the University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center; China. and Dr. Brian Fagan, with whom I studied archaeology at UC However, Dr. Elsner did not know of my earlier anthro- Santa Barbara in the early 1970s, and who is the celebrated pological work in this field and its relevance to the confer- author of The Attacking Ocean (2013), and other major world ence topic. In 1995 I published a report for the UHM Water archaeology publications. Chinese researchers included: Dr. Resources Research Center (WRRC) entitled, “Water: Its Zuo Qiting, Professor, College of Water Conservancy and Meaning and Management in Pre-contact Hawaii.” This Environmental Engineering, Zhengzhou University, and paper was developed in professional collaboration with Dr. Director of the Water Science Research Center; Dr. Zhang Marion Kelly, who was an advocate for Native Hawaiian Qiang, Deputy Director of Department of Water Resources people and history and founded the UHM Ethnic Studies and Environment, Sun Yat-Sen University; and Yao Tandong: Department. Both the report and the collaboration coincided Glaciologist at China’s Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research. with the development of the Malama i na Ahupua’a program. China is one of the most water-rich countries in the world, The WRCC report was set against the controversial the- but water resources are unevenly distributed and overwhelm- ory linking irrigation with “oriental despotism” that Karl A. ingly concentrated in the south and far west on the Tibetan Wittfogel presented in in Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Plain, which also serves as a major water source for India. Wa- Study of Total Power (1957). Wittfogel analyzed the role of irri- ter scarcity has always been a problem for Northern China gation works, the bureaucratic structures needed to maintain and has been increasingly so as a result of rapid economic them, and the impact that these had on society, coining the development. Major water engineering projects have been term “hydraulic empire.” This theory has led many Western completed, and more are underway, to move water from the archaeologists to focus on early forms of irrigation and water south to the north, with significant implications for Tibet-In- management. dia-China relations. Major conference topics included severe During the late prehistoric period in ancient Hawaii, ir- water scarcity in Northern China, water quality and severe rigation and other water management practices supported pollution in both Northern and Southern China, rural and the sociopolitical evolution of a proto-state. The report urban challenges, and the likely deleterious future impacts of used archaeological data as a point of departure to analyze climate change, mega-droughts, and sea level. the meaning and management of water in this period. An The conference also served as a showcase for Sias Univer- analysis of Hawaiian chants, legends, and proverbs was wo- sity’s innovative approaches to teaching and learning about ven into the archaeological data in an in an attempt to better water issues in China, such as a mesmerizing theatrical rep- understand the meaning of water to the indigenous people resentation of water history in China, and their World Acad- of the Hawaiian Islands.1 The report concluded that intra- emy for the Future of Women (WAFW), which requires island (windward-leeward) and inter-island (geological-hy- service projects as part of membership activities. Hundreds drological) variation produced important localized meanings of students have gone through the Academy and created both of water, and that these meanings changed over time, largely short- and long-term projects of great value and impact. Ac- in relation to population growth, production, intensification, cording to Dr. Linda Jacobsen, former Provost at Sias: and increasing sociopolitical complexity. My own research in Some young women shared that they applied to study this area provided a useful context for my participation in at Sias because of the exciting service projects the the international discussions that took place during my visits. WAFW members were sharing at home on semester The Sias International Water Conference brought together breaks. Projects include the installation of drinking international and Chinese scholars. Prominent international water filtration systems, environmentally safe agricul- researchers included Dr. Jonathon Overpeck, who served tural practices, communal water area clean-ups, and as a coordinating lead author for the Nobel Prize-winning eliminating violence against women. Over the years, UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) these projects, which started locally in the university Fourth Assessment (2007); Dr. Sharon Megdal, Director of community, have expanded to regions within China 1 I used similar data in deriving pre-contact Samoan perceptions of where the members live. the meaning of “work” in my dissertation in 1985. Franco: A Report on Community Colleges and Science and Civic Engagement in Asia 7 science education and civic engagement 6:2 summer 2014 (Linda Jacobsen, Provost, Paper for 2014 Continuums change and transformation. Furthermore, in a man- of Service Conference, Honolulu) ner that may be unprecedented in the period of the so-called modern university, innovation, as almost a My own presentation at the Water Conference was titled, form of social responsibility, has been thrust upon “Service-Learning: Social Responsibility and Caring for Our the university. Interestingly and overwhelmingly, due Water Resources.” The talk sidestepped the concept of “civic to the role that the university is performing within responsibility,” partly because it was implied by the name of the emergent knowledge society, innovation in the the host institution, the incipient “Institute for Social and En- “knowledge transfer” functions of the university—the vironmental Responsibility,” but also because I was not sure teaching role foremost among them—has become of whether the discourse on the “civic” was widely understood, or increasingly greater importance. even acceptable in China. My presentation was the only one addressing sea-level rise and coastal water issues and it offered I was invited to present a paper titled, “The University- the GLISTEN project (Great Lakes Innovative Stewardship Community Compact: Innovation in Community Engage- through Education Network) as a model for tackling major ment,” which focused on the evolution of the American com- water issues in China. The paper was very well received (I’m munity college and its essential functions: university transfer, sure the beautiful photos of Hawaiian ecosystems helped), workforce development, and educating for engaged citizen- and Dr. Jacobsen and I continue to dialog about future direc- ship. The paper discussed the central differences among three tions and partnerships. related concepts: East-West Center: Asia Pacific • Civic engagement as the “participation of private actors in Higher Education Research Program the public sphere, conducted through direct and indirect (APHERP), Senior Seminar, at Hong interactions of civil society organizations

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