From Bioneers to Benchmark: Cache Valley Peers Into Crystal Ball

Utah State, with cooperation from the Cache Chamber of Commerce, is hosting a first-of-its-kind Community Benchmark Summit Oct. 29 at the Innovation Campus. The summit will deal with issues surrounding environmental sustainability, economic development and demographic change. The public is invited to the free event.

 

As well as the public, professors are particularly encouraged to attend and share their expertise in their fields. Students are also invited to attend and participate in the summit.

 

The Benchmark Summit falls on the heels of the 15th annual National Bioneers Conference, in which Utah State University is one of the satellite host sites. The Bioneer’s Conference, with its focus on practical solutions and innovative strategies for pressing environmental and social challenges, provides a natural segue to the Benchmark Summit, Hall said.

 

This is where the community and the university will continue the dialogue started with the Bioneer’s Conference. Hall said he hopes the broader community responds by combining forces with the university.

 

“The university offers extraordinary expertise in each of the three areas of the Benchmark Summit’s focus,” Hall said. “Our goal is to make Cache Valley better and even a more rewarding place to live, work and study. This summit is one of several steps we need to take to realize these goals.”

 

Unlike the Bioneer’s Conference, which is heavily directed at environmental questions, the Benchmark Summit will concentrate on a set of public policy questions that will shape the future of Cache Valley, even beyond environmental issues, Hall said.

 

“Cache Valley is a maturing and growing metropolitan region, and it can’t escape both the benefits and limitations that areas associated with growth and change naturally experience,” Hall said. “It is better and wiser for us to address these issues squarely than to leave them to chance and happenstance.”

 

Hall said he envisions a summit of this magnitude to be held at least every three years to allow the university and community to take stock of its progress in terms of sustainability, economics and diversity. The intention is to establish a specific “benchmark” from which progress can be measured.

 

“Utah State possesses a goldmine of faculty expertise that needs to be discovered and exploited,” Hall said. “I hope that colleagues, in the spirit of our land-grant traditions as a university, appreciate the contribution they can make to the well being of the community in which they are such an integral part.”

 

The day-long event, from 8-5 p.m. will be in the Calibration Building auditorium. It begins as a theater-in-the-round in which key participants are seated with Hall to discuss issues and situations posed to them by the president.

 

Hypothetical issues will be presented and then challenged, using a Socratic method of drawing out solutions through questioning, said Craig Simper, university counsel and assistant to the president.

 

Simper said the Socratic Method is a less traditional way of getting people to open up to new and innovative approaches for meaningful change. It is designed to create and stimulate dialogue to help participants see where the community is and more clearly imagine where it is heading.

 

“President Hall is a master in the art of engaging audiences in constructive dialogue,” he said. “He is sure to keep the discussion lively and directed toward solutions for meaningful change.”

 

Following lunch, the summit will move from a theoretical to a practical approach in dealing with specific community issues. Participants will form smaller groups, according to interests and expertise, each headed by a moderator.

 

Simper said this is the point in the conference where participants roll up their sleeves and begin to tackle specific challenges in the areas of environmental sustainability, diversity and economics – real issues in the community that can be solved by combing university expertise with community ingenuity.

 

Respected community member Paul Norton will be the afternoon facilitator. Toward the summit’s conclusion, he will lead the group in recapping the discussions, outlining lessons learned, and helping to chart a course for the future.

 

Hall said the summit is seen as a precursor to smaller working groups that will eventually produce specific action items. “The summit is intended to inaugurate broad-based discussion that will increasingly be narrowed from a summary to a recommendation for action.”

 

Bobbie Coray, Cache Chamber of Commerce president, said this summit offers a constructive and methodical approach to dealing with critical issues that Cache Valley now faces. If what emerges is the matching of university experts with community issues and the leaders involved in those issues, then it will be a success. Key to this will be establishing measurable benchmarks that can be addressed again in subsequent years.

 

“As a university, we welcome the opportunity to guide this effort, but not control it,” Hall said in his vision of the summit. “We look forward to leading the discussion, but not to dominate it. Most important, we are keenly aware that discussion alone will not suffice, that actions must spring from ideas if we are to succeed.”

 

To reserve your spot, RSVP by Oct, 25 by clicking here.