RISE: Toward a New Framework for Universities’ interventions in Disasters

With climate change, the frequency of extreme weather and disaster events is increasing and social inequality magnifies their impact. Many universities, apart from experiencing disaster in their own back-yards, have also become first responders. Beyond organizing donation drives for disaster victims, universities may use service-learning initiatives to deploy assistance to impacted communities, researchers may travel to disaster-stricken areas to collect perishable data, and instructors may construct study abroad opportunities where the disaster becomes a classroom. Some universities may even provide temporary asylum to displaced students and faculty. How can and should universities coordinate their work to play more effective roles before, during and after disasters? Universities have abundant human, organizational and physical resources available, and are important partners in developing innovative approaches to knowledge sharing, knowledge integration, and capacity-building across all sectors of society. In an era characterized by general and growing distrust in society’s main institutions, universities may still be perceived by many as reputable, trusted, and often neutral, third party stakeholders among a myriad of conflicting interests. This presentation will describe the development, opportunities and challenges of RISE, an inter-university collaborative network that was conceived out of the experiences of local academics and scientists during the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. We will share the story behind this new collaborative initiative and explore its implications, in terms of the ethics of disaster research, the practice of interdisciplinarity and convergence, student mobility, the political economy of research funding structures, and current theoretical approaches to community resilience. Presenter: Dr. Marla Perez Lugo is an environmental sociologist, a professor at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez and founder of the UPR's National Institute for Energy and Island Sustainability. She holds a PhD in Sociology from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Her research interests include vulnerability to natural hazards, and the social dimensions of critical (natural and built) infrastructure. In addition to her contributions to the academic sociological and interdisciplinary literature, Dr. Perez Lugo has co-produced technical reports for government agencies, including the State of Energy Report for Puerto Rico, and has been called to testify before Congress about the reconstruction of Puerto Rico's electrical system after the devastation of Hurricane Maria. */