Envision Sustainable Communities, the black hook up and the birth of a new Civil & Environmental Engineering course at the University of South Florida
The black hook up. Six degrees of separation. Or 2? Or 1? It was summer 2004 when I met Koren Bedeau. We were at a Caribbean event in Orlando and, having just moved to Tampa from California, I was only too happy to meet her. I likely gave a sappy story of having no friends in this part of Florida. She was working at the University of Central Florida and was considering graduate school for mass communications. She has since completed her degrees and is now a Vice Provost at Drexel. Along the way, she introduced me to Kurt Young, once a political science professor at the University of Central Florida, and now at Clark Atlanta. By chance, I saw a post on Kurt’s Facebook page in June 2016 about a community meeting in Tampa Heights that immediately caught my eye (Figure 1).
On Sunday June 12th, 2016 I attended the Partners Against DOT Discrimination (PADD) sponsored, “Tell Your Story at the Community Conversation.” The theme was “The discriminatory impact of interstate highway construction on Tampa Bay’s African American Communities Past, Present, and Future.” Sitting in a circle, residents from the Tampa Bay shared their stories about the Tampa Bay Express, referred to as TBX (Figure 2). From St. Petersburg to West Tampa to Tampa Heights, residents spoke of their distress with TBX, the fear of losing their homes to a highway, and the repeated history of the disruption of African American communities by highway systems. Lena Young, Kurt’s mom, and a tower of strength I would get to know, spoke of reaching out to faculty from the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU), a Historically Black College and University, to assist the community maneuver TBX.
June 12th, 2016 marked my first time visiting the Tampa Heights Community Center and my first time learning about this project, the largest transportation/infrastructural project to hit the Tampa Bay with an expected expenditure of $6 billion dollars and the creation of jobs for the construction industry. I was taken aback, to say the least, at my ignorance of this project. My brother had just died of pancreatic cancer, and the months prior (and after) were a blur, so that could explain how this one missed me so completely. I teach in a Civil and Environmental Engineering program at the University of South Florida and the Center for Urban Transportation (CUTR) is linked with my department. Hence, FAMU faculty coming to town to help our local communities felt like Virginia Tech heading to Flint. At the time, I thought surely USF engineering faculty and researchers could handle this. Little did I know that Taryn Sabia, the Director of the Florida Center for Community Design & Research, was contracted by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) District 7 to run community workshops for TBX. This center is associated with the USF School of Architecture and Community Design, home of Associate Professor, Trent Green.
Now, Trent is an African American faculty member who I also met soon after moving to Tampa. My student Dr. Joniqua Howard was a NSF STAR fellow which meant she had to work with a local school as a part of her training. She was posted with Mrs. Jane Kemp at Lockhart Elementary in East Tampa, a 7-square mile majority African American community, known at the time for its high murder rate. East Tampa is home to 31 stormwater ponds, many managed by the City of Tampa. When I met Trent he had been hired by the city to redesign three of them for the East Tampa Community Revitalization Partnership (ETCRP) (Figure 3). The ETCRP is the umbrella organization for the various neighborhoods that make up the East Tampa Community Redevelopment Area (CRA) and serves as the agency responsible for determining redevelopment priorities. Florida law (Chapter 163, Part III) allows local governments to designate CRAs when certain conditions are met. The East Tampa community recognized its limited assets for places to exercise, take wedding pictures, etc., and was irritated by the state of its ponds. Back in the day the residents wanted them fenced for fear of kids drowning. In the early 2000s, those fences collected plastic bags and the overgrown ponds were an eyesore taking up space.
By the time Mayor Pam Iorio cut the ribbon at the Robert Cole Lake, rebranded to mimic what wealthier Florida communities called their stormwater ponds and named after a long time East Tampa businessman whose barbershops groomed many a black man, my students had already received funding from the Environmental Protection agency through its People, Prosperity, and Planet Student Design competition. “Water Awareness Research & Education East Tampa (WARE-East Tampa),” integrated K-12 and community education on water and sustainability into the beautification project. Ten years later, and that partnership has grown to include the Hillsborough County Public Schools (HCPS), the Corporation to Develop Communities of Tampa Inc. (CDC), and the Tampa Bay Estuary Program (TBEP). In 2016, we were installing and maintaining green infrastructure for stormwater management in East Tampa with East Tampa community members and students. My work, hands down, was intricately tied with East Tampa, a community bordered by the I-275, I-75, and I-4.
On June 14th, I attended a community forum on TBX held in Tampa Heights. Co-sponsors included USF Departments of Anthropology, Sociology, and the Office of Community Engagement & Partnerships (Figure 4). Class was officially in session and the panelists presented what they knew of TBX. The extensive amount of work done by them, all unpaid, evident to anyone in attendance. Dr. Beverly Ward, since retired from CUTR, shared maps showing demographics of communities that would be impacted by TBX. Majority minority. Chris Vela, President of Sunshine Citizens, followed up with pictures of structures demolished to make way for Tampa’s highways in the 1960s in the same places that were losing property to make way for TBX (Figure 5). In a week I’d see these same folks again at 3pm at the Hillsborough County Commission. Until then I drove down the side roads to the highways. I would ask the FDOT why no community meetings were held with the ETCRP to date.
At the Hillsborough County Metropolitan Planning Organization meeting on June 22nd, 2016, I saw the same folks, I saw my ex undergraduate research student who was our department’s top graduate at the time, and I saw Trent. The student was with a group of professionals for TBX. Trent was on the MPO board. From 6 pm to way past 1 am, the Tampa Bay community delivered challenges and desires with getting around the area. All in 3 minute segments. Despite the majority of speakers being against TBX and despite their eloquence and smart visions for the area, the board voted to continue funding TBX. Trent was one of the members voting for TBX.
The next evening the Tampa Heights Neighborhood Association hosted one of the county commissioners to discuss TBX and what comes next. A year prior Mrs. Lena Young was the sole voice at the MPO meeting on TBX. This year, there were over 100 and organizations had formed both for and against TBX. The most disheartening part for me was to see my professional discipline be so out of touch with the people who we serve.
I tweeted many businesses that had signed a letter of support for TBX. That led to a meeting with the leaders of one of them where I was advised to be a leader and not an activist. In my world, the two are the same and they are integrated with community engaged research and education, but I would retell this encounter a few more times. Based on my social media posts, a friend from graduate school who works with a consulting firm in the area suggested that I use ENVISION in a class to work on TBX. ENVISION is a new infrastructural certification program endorsed by the American Society of Civil Engineers. Certified as an ENVISION trainer, she would teach it with me. I was ecstatic as this would be the first time teaching with another black female engineer or with someone from the corporate world or with another Caribbean person.
On August 11th, 2016 we had a conference call with the FDOT. It did not go well. I retold the activist leader story when asked for a recap of where this course came from and got called an activist who attended TBX meetings on campus and was disruptive. I really wish I had attended a meeting on campus for it would have meant the USF community was engaged with this project. We are one of the largest employers in the region and many persons who spoke for TBX spoke of their long commutes to USF. There I was on SKYPE saying that not all black people look alike and being told by the FDOT’s Director of Transportation Department that she will check the sign in logs to make sure I was not lying about attending their workshops. She opined that having my colleague co-teach this course was a conflict of interest as her company benefited from FDOT projects. Needless to say the course would not fly with my corporate superstar and leader conducting the ENVISION training.
I was hesitant to do the course, but I was able to cover the costs for online training required for ENVISION certification of the students enrolled. The student blogs provide a glimpse at the course, including our engagement with the Tampa community and TBX in Fall 2016.
Application of ENVISION Training Knowledge by Wainella Isaacs
An Introduction to TBX by Emma Lopez & Maya Carrasquillo
Community Engagement Workshops for TBX by Michelle Henderson
Ragan Park (East Tampa) TBX FDOT Meeting by Melanie Pickett & Jorge Calabria
Partners Against DOT Discrimination and TBX Meeting by Arpita Meher
