Community Partner Breakfast Held on UA's Tumamoc Hill
Last week GCR hosted over 30 community leaders on Tumamoc Hill as part of the successful Community Partner Breakfast series designed to regularly connect university and community leaders so together they can identify new ways to work together for the benefit of our community. In attendance were several Mayors, City Council members, County Supervisors, congressional staffers, and leaders of educational, economic development, and military organizations.
The group heard from Ben Wilder, the Director of the Desert Laboratory on Tumamoc Hill, about the extraordinary history of the Hill, including 2500 years of human use, as well as the research currently conducted on the 860-acre site. Trevor Ledbetter, the Director of the UA Office of Sustainability, and Kathy Jacobs, the Director of the Center for Climate Adaptation Science and Solutions at the UA, told the group about the University Climate Change Coalition and an upcoming community workshop they are hosting to identify joint sustainability and climate resilience projects across southern Arizona.
Many participants were able to stay after the meeting for a tour of the paleontology lab to see the fossil collection and a guided tour of the archaeological sites at the top of the Hill led by renowned archaeologists Paul and Suzanne Fish. It was an exclusive look at one of the most significant sites in the southwest, which participants will not soon forget.
Additional university partnerships are already developing as a result of the meeting, including with Pima Community College and JTED. The next Community Partner Breakfast will be in December with the College of Fine Arts.