Recruitment
We utilized five methods to recruit for both events: personal Facebook events, posters on campus, flyers in neighbors’ mailboxes, an event posted on Nextdoor, and an announcement through College Outdoors. The Facebook event included the basic information for the event as well as the poster created for the event. Each member of the class was added as a “host” so we could share the event with our own respective networks. We printed approximately 30 color posters for each event, and hung them around campus including in academic buildings, the Dovecote, and residence halls after they were approved and stamped by the appropriate poster authority. Flyers, of which we made 120 black & white copies, were surprisingly effective for recruitment. We stuffed them in mailboxes along the streets surrounding the LC campus. The flyer was the same general design as the poster, with the addition of a small map and a short description of the event. The Nextdoor event was posted to Collins View as well as the surrounding 10 neighborhoods, and we included a description of the event, a map of campus, a link to the Facebook event, and a link to an RSVP GoogleForm. The College Outdoors email was disseminated to the usual Wednesday Open House participants.
Based on our attendance information for the clinic, College Outdoors was the most effective recruitment tool, with eight out of thirteen participants finding us that way. Two of the three neighbors that came found us through a flyer that we put in their mailbox. One neighbor saw a poster on campus and came, and one student heard by word of mouth. We didn’t get an official sign-up sheet circulated for the Open House, but trends were generally the same, though we didn’t distribute flyers for that event. Three neighbors came to that event because of the post on Nextdoor. In addition to the College Outdoors students, several students came because they knew someone in the class.
For future events, we would recommend distributing flyers throughout the neighborhood at least three days or more before the event, with a small map of the location of the event included on the flyer. When posting an event on Nextdoor, strategic “thanking” of the post as it gets closer to the event date can help boost the post back up to the beginning of the newsfeed, which can increase viewership. For the Facebook event, invite as many people as possible in order to get a few people to actually show up. Other methods of recruitment that we didn’t use but could be helpful include listing the event in The Source and/or The Bark, and using faculty and staff listservs. Now that we have contact with some Collins View NETs, it may be easier and quite effective to contact them ahead of time to alert other NET members about the event, since they seem to be enthusiastic about continuing their training.
The GoogleForm as a means to get an idea of how many people were going to come was important, but somewhat unrepresentative since we created it after deploying many of our recruitment tools. Since there were so many avenues of recruitment, putting a tiny url to the GoogleForm on everything that we distributed could have been a helpful way to keep track of what was working and how many people to expect.
Issues Addressed
At the end of the Skills Clinic, we handed out an exit survey to address things that worked well and things that we could talk about next time. One of the questions asked, “What was something you wish we covered but did not?” We got back a range of ideas, some wishes were covered in the Open House, like how the earthquake will affect Portland ,specifically and a list of resources available. Thinking about doing this Clinic again, we might want to mix the ideas in the Open House in with the clinic. If people are just coming to the Clinic, they do not get the informational background that those got who attended the Open House. The Clinic could provide more in-depth conversations along with activities.
A topic that came up more than once was sanitation. We barely touched on sanitation after the earthquake, and this should be a main theme for the next time around. Many people in the exit survey noted that they knew how to secure a tarp to be a tent. We could replace tarp-building with more sanitation activities or lessons.
One person in the exit survey wanted to learn how to build a fire. Something that I think should be emphasized more is the need to create a plan with your family or friends thinking about many scenarios, starting when the earthquake happens to a few days in. Where is your meeting spot? What will you do if a family member is on the other side of the river? We should look into more research specifically on how people can mentally cope with the disaster and cope with the possible loss of everything you own. These skills and ideas to make plans and cope would make a less active Clinic, and I would imagine a lecture style/Open House scenario to deal with these issues.
The majority of the groups were made up of students, and a great thing we did not touch on is strategies for managing survival campus-wide (beyond teams of 4). We should talk to Jason and discuss if Lewis & Clark has a plan for assigning leadership to the ADs or the RAs and more importantly, do they know they are getting this leadership role? We should also work with Jason to create a list of assignments to have each RA and their residents accomplish when the earthquake hits.
Disaster Intrusiveness is a powerful tool that we should instill on the minds of the campus. There are issues that can be addressed on a larger scale than the Open House or the Clinic and we should prioritize the campus student-leaders to learn more about the earthquake and the risks associated with it.
Approaches Utilized
As mentioned previously, the Open House we conducted was through the preexisting structure set up by Lewis & Clark’s College Outdoors department. We benefited from their facility, listserv, resources, snacks, and weekly members, rather than having to start from scratch. It is likely that this weekly Open House structure will be in place next spring, and it would be worth collaborating with College Outdoors again.
While still tied to College Outdoors, our clinic was a little more free standing than the Open House, in that is was not part of College Outdoors regular weekly programing. We did, however, utilize their space and materials. Our programming of the event was designed to replicate situations that students and community members were likely to face in the aftermath of an earthquake. We split them into groups, predicting that family, friends, and community members would band together. We allowed the groups to choose supplies that were not only useful, but that could be commonly found in a household. And we choose challenges that people were likely to face after and earthquake. Beyond this methodology, we also framed the activity as a casual competition between groups, not because that was a reflection of circumstances after an earthquake, but because it helped people to engage and enjoy it more. We sandwiched the activity with some brief lecture, but the activity included relatively little instruction, as we wanted participants to learn improvisation. This wasn’t without its struggles, but ultimately paid off as people realized the value in experiencing these struggles in a practice scenario rather than the real life event.
Scalability
We chose the scale of our outreach for a very specific reason, to address the community that would rely on Lewis and Clark College in the event of the Cascadia earthquake. If the scale of the outreach were to increase in any way, the connection with the school would be lost. If the scale were to increase, it would be most productive as a joint effort between different universities in the Portland area. In such a case, each school would be addressing the residents that live close by, especially as each school and community will experience different amounts of specific hazards depending on location.
The events themselves were appropriately sized for a first-time run. Both events had enough participants that the messages and activities we hoped to convey were effective, but not so many people that we were overwhelmed. In future, the open-house would be able to handle many more people than what we experienced. The clinic would also be able to handle more people, though likely less than the open-house, as the clinic is more hands-on and discussion based. The clinic requires participants to move around, drop-cover-and-hold, and more, all of which was tailored to the College Outdoors building. Facilitating the use of space and supplies for more than, say, 50 people, might become difficult. Participants might also have a more difficult time within group dynamics, and feeling comfortable sharing ideas if the clinic was much larger, all of which is vital to effectively building improvisation skills. The open-house is much more informative and does not necessarily require decision making or sharing, so those who feel uncomfortable talking in large groups are less likely to be put in such positions. If more people were to attend, I would suggest more events with between 15-30 people per event, rather than one or two events per year with larger numbers of attendees. A skill that we emphasized was to work with neighbors and strangers, which is easier on participants in smaller groups, so that all participants are able to have their voice heard.
In regards to time, open-house was capped at one and a half hours, while the clinic was capped at three hours. As an information sessions, it would likely be less effective to lengthen the open-house. People that have difficulty concentrating through hour presentations or longer would likely struggle to participate in anything longer than what was executed. The three hour skills clinic was a good balance of movement, problem solving, and and information sessions. If it were to extend, more time would need to be allotted for meals and other breaks. A potential cap would be five hours. Any longer and participants might have a hard time staying focused.
If the open-house and/or clinic were to be scaled up in either time length, frequency, or size, it is likely that others besides the ENVS 311 students would need to be involved in the planning and implementation. Students within a class are restricted by school work, time, and class schedule, all of which could impede event outcomes.
Our Audience
In regards to the audience, their should be more emphasis on the off campus students and surrounding community members. Focusing on these groups will get better outcomes in regards to our goal for doing this outreach project, which is to promote the self reliance of surround people so they don’t rely on the college; help ourselves by helping them. Furthermore, these groups are more likely to have less resources at their disposal to begin with since they don’t have the equipment and training that on campus students have an opportunity to attain through the college. However, the community members surrounding the college who are homeowners have much more control over their environment. Another point to bring up about the audience was the physical health of some of the off campus audience that showed up, having an audience that is more physically fit to contribute physically in the event of a disaster would be a good note to take, hence the importance of including college students in communication efforts.