Although journalism, broadly, has faced many challenges and changes in recent years—economic hardship, decline in public trust and a shift from print to digital—environmental journalism, in particular, has a unique set of difficulties that make it hard for journalists to report on environmental injustices.

To help address some of these challenges, three University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) alumni have created a webinar series on equitable engagement, an extension of the work they did as part of their master’s project, Media With Impact: Building a Community-Driven Model for Environmental Justice Coverage in the Great Lakes Region.

The goal of their master’s project was to develop a comprehensive toolkit, a corresponding workbook and a strategic implementation plan. The work was so meaningful that when presented with the opportunity to continue the partnership after graduating, three of the project group members were eager and able to continue.

The opportunity came when one of the group members, Hira Ahmad (MS ’24), received the Emerging Leader Award from the River Network just before graduation. As part of this award, she was given access to the network’s membership and partners, opening up a collaborative opportunity that would enable the team to continue building on the work they’d done as students. 

Ahmad, alongside project group members Francesca Levethan (MS ’24) and Kausthubh Sumanth (MS ’24), set out to design a webinar series based on an interactive model of their final master’s project presentation. In the webinars, attended by people working in a variety of fields, the group highlights generalizable strategies to create equitable environmental engagement for both journalists and non-journalists. 

“One of the key principles was making sure that we were serving the needs of the folks who so generously gave us their time, their energy, their stories, and made sure our project had a lasting impact and was accessible beyond just our [project’s] final report,” says Levethan. The opportunity to host a webinar series was a great opportunity to do just that.

The two-part webinar series, Working at the Speed of Trust for Equitable Engagement (part one) and Equitable Engagement in Practice (part two), had a very successful first part. However, due to current political developments, the alumni group decided it was best to postpone part two, allowing them time to incorporate recent events into their presentation and adapt to the current climate.

“We’ve gotten really great feedback from folks, and we got really varied attendance as well during the first part of the webinar. We had folks from state government agencies, from nonprofits and from research institutions,” says Levethan. 

The group has just published a journal article that is a “much shorter version of our final report,” says Ahmad.

“We didn’t want that [the long-form final capstone paper] to be the only deliverable of our project. A big part of our conversations were surrounding capacity and how there are lots of tools out there for equitable engagement and incorporating environmental justice considerations, but for the most part those tools don’t take into account the limited capacity and resources that the organizations need,” says Ahmad “The journal article is one way that we hope this will be more accessible.” 

One of the people the group had interviewed as part of their master’s project was a professor from DePaul University, who invited Ahmad and Sumanth to present their research to her class. 

“One thing that we tell students a lot is that you can do different forms of academic research apart from what has often been taught and ascribed to you; it will not take away from the academic-ness of your work, it will not take away from how your work is received,” says Ahmad. 

With current changes happening in the environmental sector in the U.S., the group has found increased meaning in the work they are doing through the webinars and community outreach. 

“This project and the experience that we had working with our community partners has really given me a lot of hope at a time when it’s sometimes hard to find that,” says Levethan.

The group says their work would not have been possible without the support they received along the way, especially from SEAS Professor of Practice Mike Shriberg, the project advisor, who continued to help even after the students graduated. They also expressed gratitude for the funders who made some of their work possible, the River Network, the students in the themed course, and the other master’s project members, Hannah Rieders (MS ’24) and Madeline Rieders (MS ’24).

Check the River Network’s events page for updates on part 2 of the webinar series.