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Three UD colleges help residents define the Heart and Soul of Sussex County
Southern Delaware - historically isolated by the Chesapeake Bay, Delaware River and Bay, Atlantic Ocean and inland bays - always enjoyed a protected rural, small town lifestyle – that is, until the mid 20th century, when an explosion of modern infrastructure, such as the construction of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in 1952, brought sudden changes to the region.
Generations of Delmarva residents, who practiced an agrarian–based culture and enjoyed the folksy quiet of their hometowns, were faced with a new reality- that their way of life was under transition and fading away. Balancing old-fashioned traditions against a new influx of curiosity and culture from tourists and new homeowners was, and remains, a challenge. Once easily defined, southern Delaware, and in particular Sussex County, became complex region to describe.
Re-discovering and redefining that communal identity is a goal Bill McGowan relishes. A Wilmington native, McGowan has lived in Laurel for 30 years and appreciates challenges that are presented from multiple perspectives.
McGowan is the Sussex County Cooperative Extension agent for Community Development for community development and director of UD’s Coastal Community Enhancement Initiative (CCEI). (Update: now known as Sustainable Coastal Communities (SCC).
Created in 2006 with state appropriations, CCEI is a partnership among three public service arms of the University of Delaware colleges: College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, College of Earth, Ocean and Environment and College of Human Services, Education & Public Policy.
In the summer of 2008, McGowan launched “Heart & Soul of Sussex County,” an attempt to identify the tangible and intangible characteristics that comprise southern Delaware communities. McGowan traversed the county, visiting, schools, businesses, garden clubs and church groups where he encouraged the public to participate in sharing their definition of Sussex County. Aided by newspaper advertising, and response boxes placed throughout the county, McGowan collected more than 1,000 heart-felt impressions - the perfect penmanship of a retired schoolteacher, the quick jottings of someone on the go, carefully composed photographs of special places, even an original song. All were definitions that needed to be synthesized into preliminary concepts offered as discussion topics.
Ultimately, when asked “What do you cherish most?” and “What would you regret losing?” McGowan observed reccurring themes in the responses. He couldn’t help notice, while there were distinct differences among answers, the similarities shared between diverse groups who call themselves Sussex Countians, were far more significant.
“Heart & Soul is who we are. It’s what makes us special. It’s our people, places, events, those beautiful and quirky things that make Sussex what it is,” McGowan said. ” It’s the stuff you don’t think about on a daily basis, but if it goes away, we lose a little bit of who we are.”
McGowan assembled those characteristics into value statements and presented them to a cross–section of residents, business owners, and community leaders to consider the collective results.
Using audience response technology, participants voted in degrees how much they agreed or disagreed with the presented statements. Survey results were instantaneous; displayed in graduated colorful bar graphs. Then the audience was asked to deliberate further, challenged to examine what had been missed in the mix. After an hour of friendly, kitchen-table style conversations, they were asked the same questions again. In the second round, their points of views had evolved significantly.
And this fact was perhaps more important than the actual answers. The communal process in action was noteworthy. The assembled group – many of them strangers before the meeting, began to think of themselves as a singular community. Expressive, respectful, different in many ways, what came to the surface was that all of them had a common affection for Sussex County.
As its name implies, that is what Coastal Community Enhancement Initiative is all about. Jim Falk, director of the Sea Grant Marine Advisory Service and CCEI partner feels UD’s commitment to the region can make a difference using UD’s educational and outreach expertise, “Coastal communities across the country are facing rapid growth in population. This is changing the face of many of these communities as they work to find ways to address the inflow of new residents (many of them retirees), deal with increased traffic congestion, and the ever-changing landscape due to both residential and commercial development.”
Bernie Dworsky, CCEI member and policy scientist with the Institute for Public Administration agrees that changes for southern Delaware have been substantial. “CCEI is an opportunity to marshal the resources of the University of Delaware and work with various governments and community organizations throughout Sussex County in addressing issues related to the changes.” Dworsky said. “All three colleges participating in CCEI have had a long history of individual involvements in Southern Delaware. CCEI offers a way to collaborate and coordinate those efforts.”
The Heart & Soul project is one of several of public issues CCEI hopes to bring before communities, providing the tools, venues and opportunities to think of the larger picture. By becoming a catalytic organization in southern Delaware, CCEI works across existing lines of division, geography and other boundaries that in the past, have traditionally kept people apart. CCEI strives to engage communities to build resources, capacity and political will for change.
There will be much to discuss. Land use, heritage tourism, preserving farms and forests, broadband availability, appreciating the cost and benefit of growth, community planning and visioning, using new technologies such as Future Scan and Community Viz, all fall under what will be CCEI’s very large umbrella.
Tapping into a shared purpose will be CCEI’s mission and challenge as it moves forward with these important public issues. “Building connections is what CCEI is all about,” McGowan said. “We help to create safe places and vibrant spaces for doing civic business.” The Heart & Soul philosophy stated it first and probably said it best:
“Only by going to, listening to and learning from everyone, the influential and the forgotten, old-timers and newcomers, young and old, rich and poor, business owners and workers, professionals and tradesmen, the noisy and the quiet, the caregivers and the gatekeepers – can shared purpose and identity live in and guide a community.”
Reprinted with revsions from UD's Southern Delaware Guide, April 2009 (PDF), page 31-32. Article and photo by Michele Walfred
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