Pitt has now completed its fourth year of the Appalachian Regional Commission’s Appalachian Collegiate Research Initiative, or what we have been calling the ARC-ACRI. Our sustainability group, consisting of me, Rebecca Jalboot, Katherine Fazzini, and Kelly Nguyen, was one of four that made up this year’s cohort.

At Pitt, students get involved with the ARC-ACRI by enrolling in a course called “Realizing Regional Resilience: Appalachian Bridges to the Future”. I got onto the ARC-ACRI through my Sustainability Capstone, a separate course in which students are broken into groups based on their interest in the available sustainability projects. One of these projects was the ARC-ACRI. Rebecca, Katherine, Kelly and I were put into a group together based on our common interest in this project, and we all co-enrolled in the “Realizing Regional Resilience” class alongside our Sustainability Capstone course. Based on this “origin story”, we have been traversing through the ARC-ACRI with a sustainability lens.

I grew up in a region very different from Appalachia; it is perhaps the exact opposite. I am from Bergen County, New Jersey, an area that brushes borders with New York City and has a population almost eight times greater than Fayette County. In fact, Bergen County has a greater population than all of Wyoming.

My experience with Appalachia up until this project had only been through recreational, outdoor tourism, like camping and rock climbing. Meaning, in September, I was no stranger to the natural beauty of Appalachia, and that of Fayette County in particular. However, working in the ARC-ACRI was my first experience with Appalachia beyond the tourism industry. I can’t say my perspective of Appalachia has really changed, because before, I hadn’t really thought about Appalachia beyond the context of the outdoors. However, my perspective has certainly expanded to include the community members we met through this project. Every person that we spoke to during our site visits to Fayette County gave up their time to speak with us. Nobody ever turned us away. They listened carefully as we explained our project focus, asked clarifying questions, and engaged in long discussions, all of which they were under no obligation to do. It made me stop to consider whether I would do the same for someone else. If the answer was “no” before, after having been on the other side, as the person who depended on the attention and time of someone else in order to reach a goal, that answer has certainly changed.

In writing this blog post, I have been asked to consider the following question: “When you are old and grey, how would you summarize this entire experience to your grandchildren?”. Given the nature of this project, that it is my Sustainability Capstone, I can’t help but think about sustainability when considering this question. When I picture my future, I am unable to divorce these predictions from the climate crisis. I personally really want children to be a part of that future, but considering the reality that the climate crisis is only getting worse, with no signs of improvement on the horizon, I have doubts about whether I will fulfill this desire. What kind of parent would I be, bringing children into a world which I believe (with good reason) is likely to be unable to provide them with the basic necessities of survival, such as food, water, and a safe place to live? Meaning, I think it is very likely that I will not have children, let alone grandchildren. After all, if I am predicting the quality of life for my hypothetical children will be much worse than the quality of life I have been privileged to experience, the weight of this consideration will only be heavier on my kin, should I decide to have them. UNICEF predicts that by 2040, roughly 1 in 4 children worldwide will be living in areas of extremely high water stress. To reiterate, in 15 years, it is likely that 1 out of every 4 children will not have regular access to water.If I do have children, and if I do have grandchildren, I don’t know what kind of life we will have. I don’t know if my grandchildren, children, or I will have access to water in the future.

However, if this question is asking how I will remember this project for however long I am able under the climate crisis’s ticking clock, I’d be more than happy to elaborate!

I would summarize this project as my first step into “the real word”. What I learned from this experience has not been so much the content of our project but how to do a project like this – that is, a real one. The instability and unpredictability of our project was due to the fact that it was not confined to the realm of the classroom on a clean, clear project brief. This project was difficult because it was real. There was no checking our work to some objectively correct cheat-sheet. When we asked ourselves, “Can Uniontown be a part of the nation’s growing space industry?”, the only way we could answer this was by doing research that had not been done before. When Simmons of Uniontown’s redevelopment authority told us about the city’s funding issues, there was no answer we could uncover in a textbook. This project required us to confront active issues outside of academia. I have never had a college course ask me to do that before.

In my other college courses, whether or not you solve the problem proposed is based on how well you are able to argue for your solution. “What are Ruse and Wilson’s reasons for thinking that morality is based in evolution? Provide a critique of their account.” That was the question posed for my philosophy final, a seven paged paper. In another class, I spent a good chunk of my term writing an extensive literature review. In both projects, it didn’t matter if the arguments or recommendations were practically effective; what mattered is whether they were well written, coherent, and effective in theory. However, in this course, it didn’t matter how great my idea was if it didn’t work in practice. I could have written a stellar job application for a grant writing intern, one that, in a course on public writing, could have gotten an A. But in this course, that didn’t matter, because a grant writing intern wasn’t what Uniontown needed. In this project, I couldn’t do my work without the input of others. This was true for our stakeholder, as we had to always listen carefully to their needs and tailor our work when they changed. But it was also true for the other members of our group. In previous group projects, my group members and I would usually fall back into splitting the work up, not talking to each other, and reuniting when it was all done. In contrast, this course required constant collaboration. This project would have been impossible had we not done it as a team.

At the end of the term, Simmons told us our work had added value to Uniontown’s city hall. We hope she was not simply being polite, because we can confidently say that each member of our group has grown immensely from this experience. We are leaving this project far more confident in our abilities and prepared for life after graduation then we were when started.

After four months working on this project, I have mixed feelings about leaving. On one hand, I am relieved that our participation in this project is over, as it was mentally taxing. On the other hand, the work isn’t over. After spending the past few months in communication with representatives from Uniontown City Hall, listening to them talk about the city’s struggles and the plans they have to address them, it doesn’t feel right to just up and leave. I understand that Pitt will stay involved in Uniontown, and other students will come behind us to continue our work, but I still feel guilty finishing this semester. I suppose that’s a good sign in one way, as it shows to me that I cared about the work we were doing.

Our group was incredibly privileged to work with Uniontown and all of those who helped us get to this point. As I said before, something that surprised me time and time again was how willing people were to take time out of their workday to talk to us and help us learn. Up until and including our meetings with Uniontown’s redevelopment authority, most of our interviews consisted of us asking professionals questions to better understand the realm of our project, whether that be the space industry, acid mine drainage, or local governance. This project would not have been possible without all of those who met with us. This includes Dr. David Sanchez – we would not have been able to do this work without his consistent patience and guidance. I hope that whoever works on the continuation of the sustainability segment of Pitt’s ARC-ACRI will not hesitate to contact us with questions. 

Thank you for your time.