Each year TOSC and TAB staff from all of the Hazardous Substance Research Centers meet with EPA regional community involvement staff to participate in training, share ideas, and network with one another. This year’s meeting was excellent! The theme of the meeting was The Art of Engagement: From Margin to Center and was held from March 30th to April 1st in St. Louis, Missouri. We’d like to share with you what we consider to be some of the highlights.

Dr. Mitch Lasat, EPA Assistant Center Director for Waste, welcomed us to the meeting in the first session and reminded us that, since its beginning, TOSC-TAB has assisted more that 1,000 communities. Also in that session, “EPA Program Office Updates,” one theme that arose was the importance of evaluation strategies for measuring performance. There were plenty of examples of recent or on-going efforts to establish indices for performance and show measurable results.

Based on feedback from past meetings, this year’s conference dedicated significant time to two separate training sessions. Each participant had the opportunity to participate in 4-hour sessions on “Air Issues” and “Adult Learning Styles.” The session on air issues introduced the variety of technical issues related to air, including air impact assessment and air monitoring tools and techniques. The adult learning styles session was very “hands on.” After engaging in a self-assessment of learning styles, participants used this new-found knowledge to develop a team strategy for community involvement given several case study scenarios. The training also tied learning styles to cultural understanding.

Dr. Frank Fear delivered the keynote address entitled “A Radically Different Form of University Service: Engagement, the Face of Things to Come.” Fear talks about engagement as a “lived experience” which he likens to “a complex border crossing.” For those of us involved in this work, he had the following advice:

• Our work is a political act; you are champions and should value that.
• Document and publish your stories.
• Make sure your work has value on others’ terms, without compromising your own model.
• Network and create alliances with colleagues facing similar circumstances and in other fields.
• Don’t get sucked into the “Hairball” (that complex bureaucracy that can strangle anyone)!

There were a number of other very good sessions at this year’s meeting. If you’d like to hear more, please contact Stephanie Sanford or any of the other Western Center TOSC-TAB staff; we’d be happy to share our information and impressions.