Put 25 natural resources people in a room and tell them to hash out a shared vision for the future, and there's bound to be plenty of disagreement. That's good, said Linda Kingery, executive director of the Northwest Regional Sustainable Development Partnership, especially if the differing views lead to an enhanced level of understanding among the many varied natural resources interests.

    At the Natural Resources Roundtable held at the University of Minnesota, Crookston (UMC) on March 18, UMC students in instructor Helen Cozzetto's Integrated Resources Management class attempted to identify major points of contention among the many natural resources interests represented at the Roundtable. They listened in on the various discussions during the five-hour session, documented what they heard, and on March 25 presented their findings to Kingery. The students' feedback will be taken into consideration as the Northwest Partnership shapes its message, mission, and goal of enhancing natural resources. While the March Roundtable was the first of its kind, Kingery said the Partnership will be hosting similar discussions in the future, with topics expanding to include agriculture and tourism in addition to natural resources. Feedback she received from Cozzetto's students regarding the way in which the inaugural Roundtable was carried out will play a role in planning future discussions.

    "A theme that was common to many of the students' essays is that education, understanding and awareness are key," Kingery said. "Students expressed over and over again that they want to be involved, both in working with the participants at the Roundtable in creating the vision and in implementing the 'doing' steps toward that vision."

    Prior to the Roundtable, Cozzetto and Kingery huddled to figure out exactly how to involve the students in the discussion. They decided that six of the students would actually participate in the Roundtable, with the rest of the class observing the discussion and categorizing disagreements.

    "We discuss goal-setting and visioning in class and the challenges presented when you bring broader issues and interests to the table, but how are they going to actually learn about those things sitting in class?" Cozzetto said. "They need to be here, witnessing it and participating in it in a real situation."

    As it turned out, many of Cozzetto's students felt they should have been more involved in the Roundtable discussion. The majority of the observers who didn't actually participate in the discussions felt somewhat disconnected from the process, and several students were confused and at times frustrated by the structure of the Roundtable as a whole. One student, Chris Alford, saw the benefits of so many natural resources people getting together now and then to network, but questioned the overall benefit of the Roundtable. Student Richard Bohnen echoed Alford's sentiments, saying it was good to be in the same room with so many natural resources professionals, but wondering if any overarching goals were reached.

    "There's nothing wrong with them being confused or frustrated, because that's what happens in the real world," Cozzetto said. "You're never going to put all of these people in a room and have total harmony."

    The collaboration between Cozzetto's class and the Northwest Partnership meets the definition of a service-learning project, in that it involves students working in a real-life, real-world situation, on a project directly tied to their curriculum that benefits a community partner. In this case, the Northwest Partnership will benefit by taking the students' feedback into account as future Roundtables are planned. Each year, UMC's Office of Service Learning coordinates civic engagement/outreach projects involving hundreds of students.