January RND [Re]Search Convergence

Last fall, the Sweet Water Foundation Communiversity launched the RND Research Internship Program to expand its existing model of student engagement with colleges and universities and begin building a foundation from which both academic and community-based partners can collectively produce scholarship and creative works and engage in action on the ground. Thus far, SWF has provided internships and co-led design studios with students from Cornell University, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Harvard Law School, MIT, Northeastern University, RISD, and University of Chicago. The inaugural cohort of interns commenced in September 2021 and recently took part in a 3-week immersion in January 2022. Read on to learn more about the RND Research Internship Program.

SWF’s Communiversity stands in opposition to traditional academic experiences that are, far too often, exclusive and siloed by discipline. The Communiversity fills the void between theory and practice by offering real world experiences that are not only holistic, intergenerational, and transdisciplinary, but also steeped in theory and inclusive of genuine fellowship with people working “on the ground.” SWF launched the RND Research Internship Program to ground students in the historical context and present day realities of urban communities in order to prepare them for transformative, hands-on, and community-rooted work with SWF’s vast network of partners. Unlike SWF’s Global Urban Ecology Fellowship, which immerses students and recent graduates at The Commonwealth, the RND Research Program engages students enrolled during the academic year in remote research internships with a series of immersion events.  

In fall 2021, SWF selected 3 graduate students, 1 undergraduate student, and 1 recent graduate from architecture,design, and urban studies programs at Cornell, Harvard, MIT, and University of Chicago to participate in the inaugural cohort. Using The Commonwealth as a case study and theWe the Publics… exhibit as a foundation, RND Research Interns spent the fall semester exploring the transdisciplinary nature of Sweet Water Foundation’s practice of Regenerative Neighborhood Development (RND) through historical, ecological, and design lenses. This grounding in context prepared them to successfully engage in a 3-week virtual immersion working alongside the SWF core team and extended community in January 2022.

The January Immersion paired interns with SWF Core Team members, Fellows, and Apprentices for a period of disorientation and reorientation. While the RND Interns had been working with SWF since the fall, they discovered that in some ways, they had underestimated the ecological aspects of The Commonwealth because of the virtual nature of the engagement. Through a series of tasks -- digitally cutting out images of people, actions, and spaces at The Commonwealth; supporting lesson plan translations; and mapping ecological flows at The Commonwealth -- the group experienced a new level of understanding about The Commonwealth and the practice of Regenerative Neighborhood Development.

The end result of the 3-week convergence was a vibrant presentation and a series of supporting digital assets that not only deepens the network and collective understanding of The Commonwealth, but, more importantly, is authored by the SWF community. Narratives that are otherwise authored and misinterpreted by outside sources, were collectively written based on firsthand experiences and accounts - rendering the invisible, visible. This notion of rendering the invisible, visible defies and supersedes any form of traditional logic systems.

The entire Sweet Water Foundation team is grateful for the commitment of the RND Research Interns and team as we continue working through the spring semester to show the unbounded possibilities of Regenerative Neighborhood Development.