Hello, world.
My name is Allison Voglesong. I’m a native
Michigander, a millennial, and, above all, I am one lucky water wonk because I
am the 2016-2017 International Joint Commission (IJC)
Michigan Sea Grant Fellow.
This means every day I cross the world’s
only underwater international border crossing
to go south (yes, south!) from metro Detroit, where I live, to the IJC’s Great
Lakes Regional Office (GLRO) in Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
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| Asian Carp information at the border |
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| Point of border demarcation in the tunnel |
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| View of Detroit from the park by the IJC office |
This aspect of my commute is a microcosm of
what is unique about the IJC itself, about my Fellowship, and about serving the
Fellowship via the Michigan Sea Grant program; it’s a nexus. A nexus is a means
of connection between two or more things, like a link. One is a physical link,
one is a policy link, one is a cognitive link, and one is a praxis link.
This seems obvious when applied to the
Detroit-Windsor Tunnel: a physical link
that brings two nations together. They even call the special card pass for
frequent boundary-hoppers a NEXUS pass.
The International Joint Commission itself
is a nexus. Created by the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty between the United
States and Canada (back then as a dominion of England), the IJC is a
cooperative effort of both governments. Importantly, it is independent from the
governments and serves as an unbiased third party and objective advisor to the
governments.
The IJC is the nexus between Canada and the
United States for conflict resolution and water quality protection of all the
waters along the international boundary. The IJC facilitates cohesive,
coordinated action, and I witnessed this in June when I sat in on the Executive
Meeting of the IJC, where the six Commissioners, three appointees from Canada
and three from the United States, met to decide how the Commission as a whole
would counsel the governments on boundary water issues.
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(L
to R) Canadian commissioners Richard Morgan and Benoit Bouchard and
United
States commissioners Dereth Glance and Rich Moy at the June Executive meeting
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| Canadian Section Chair Gordon Walker, left, and US Section Chair Lana Pollack, right |
One example is the IJC’s forthcoming
Triennial Assessment of Progress (TAP) report. Per the 2012 update of the Great Lakes Water Quality
Agreement (GLWQA), the IJC must report on progress that the governments
have made toward achieving the many goals of the GLWQA. The report evaluates
the governments’ Progress Report of Parties documents, considers public
comments on government actions, and provides recommendations for governments to
achieve swimmable, drinkable, and fishable Great Lakes waters. In this way the
IJC is a policy link for the two
countries to protect our Great Lakes.
This brings me to the second nexus: my IJC
Michigan Sea Grant Fellowship. Unlike the last IJC Fellow, I am not a scientist.
I have a degree in International Relations, a Graduate Certificate in
Transboundary Water Conflict Management and Transformation, and five years of professional
experience. Along those lines, my Fellowship duties are with the GLRO’s
communications and public affairs team.
Translating science is a nexus because it
serves as the cognitive link between
information and action. I don’t like saying that communications makes
high-level information accessible to “the general public” because that implies:
1. Regular people are unimportant, and 2. Important people already understand
this high-level information.
Politicians may not understand the
scientific report jargon any better than a sports fisherman, and that’s where
the IJC’s communications team, and the multimedia products I contribute, comes
in. Many of my Fellowship projects include making videos, like this one about the IJC’s Water Quality Board Report
on PBDE Chemicals. The bottom line is that everyone’s actions affect the
waters of the Great Lakes, and promoting informational, accessible science to
inform decisions and actions of all stakeholders, including governments, is a
key part of the IJC GLRO’s responsibility and of my Fellowship.
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Some
of the IJC team (L to R): Science Writer
Kevin Bunch, GLRO Director Trish Morris, Public Affairs Officer in GLRO Windsor
office Sally Cole-Misch, and Public Affairs Officer in Washington, DC office
Frank Bevacqua,
all enjoying lunch at the International Association of Great
Lakes Research (IAGLR) conference
in Guelph, ON in June 2016.
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The third and last nexus aspect so far is my
relationship with Michigan Sea Grant as the IJC Fellow. There is the
administrative linkage manifested in the nerve wracking-but-not-too-scary
interview process with both IJC and Michigan Sea Grant staff during the
application period; this resurfaces periodically when I send monthly reports to
Michigan Sea Grant.
The blog posts serve as a more meaningful
nexus between my day-to-day world at the IJC office and the work of the Sea
Grant to promote this Fellowship and recruit new talent for future cooperation
with the IJC. Is it working? Comment below…
It was somewhat of a mystery to me what the
IJC Fellow’s role in Michigan Sea Grant was until I was generously invited to
attend Michigan Sea Grant’s staff retreat in July. I met the whole Michigan Sea
Grant family, including staff from the University of Michigan office, educators
located across the state of Michigan, and staff based at “the other school”
(Michigan State, though I’m a proud alum and ambivalent about the rivalry).
I came to appreciate Michigan Sea Grant’s
mission to support research, outreach, and education for the benefit of the
Great Lakes. One word kept coming to mind amidst the organizational
navel-gazing facilitated during the retreat sessions: praxis. Praxis is the
practical application of theory to reality. Michigan Sea Grant works to fund
research and education ranging from behind the helm of a ship to behind the
keyboard of a computer.
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| Michigan Sea Grant staff up early for birdwatching, in search of the Kirtland Warbler in a Jack Pine forest near Grayling, MI |
By funding Fellowships like this one, Michigan
Sea Grant funds the praxis of what I’ve learned in school applied to the real
world of water policy and communications at the IJC. While my day-to-day is in
an office, it has the same praxis link
as a Sea Grant educator’s does out on a boat with a class of seventh graders
taking water samples. Which, by the way, I did when I was in seventh grade… but
that story is for another blog post.
In conclusion, this Fellowship is all about
making connections, from international government cooperation to actually
putting my degree to good use.
Until nex(us)t time,
Allison Voglesong
