Sustained Community Engagement in the Jamaica Bay

Dr. Michael Menser, Brooklyn College and the Science & Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay.

Date: October 15, 2021

Register: HERE

Dr. Menser teaches Philosophy and Urban Sustainability Studies at Brooklyn College, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the CUNY Graduate Center, and Economic Democracy at the CUNY School for Labor and Urban Studies. He is the Associate Director of Public Engagement for the Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay and the founding Board Chair of the Participatory Budgeting Project.  He is the author of We Decide! Theories and Cases in Participatory Democracy and is a contributor to Prospects for Resilience: Insights from New York City’s Jamaica Bay.  He recently finished his service to the Stakeholder Engagement Working Group for the NYC Mayor’s Office of Climate Resilience Adaptation Roadmap project and he is a member of the PSC-CUNY’s Environmental Justice Working Group.

Dr. Menser received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the Graduate Center of City University of New York in 2003, and holds a B.Phil., B.A. in Philosophy, PolSci, Economics, University of Pittsburgh. 

Menser's work explores participatory democracy and ecological sustainability/resilience from a variety of perspectives at a variety of levels (government, household, business). His presentation will discuss his work on the sustained engagement project anchored by SRIJB and Public Agenda called Cycles of Resilience with EJ neighborhoods around Jamaica Bay.  Key to the success of Cycles has been connecting scientists and agency personnel with community members in the same process to better inform communities and create relationships among all three but numerous difficulties abound with intra and inter-agency communication issues and funding for building capacity for the community-based work.