By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
Keren Zhu’s graduate school work covers both the large and the small.
From creating an evaluation framework for China’s Belt and Road projects all over the world, to analyzing a food cooperative in a small Southeast Alaska town, it’s all interesting to her.
Zhu is a student at the Pardee RAND Graduate School of Public Policy in Santa Monica, California, working toward a doctoral degree in public policy analysis. She is one of two students from the school serving externships at this time with local nonprofits here.
Zhu and her colleague, Jalal Awan, are part of a tract of study at the school focusing on “community partnerships.”
Sitka is one of two cities in the U.S. chosen for the community partnership program, one of three tracts of study that students can choose at the school. The students are hosted at the Sitka Sound Science Center, which provides office space, training and other support.
SSSC Executive Director Lisa Busch said the relationship is working out well so far.
“We think the Pardee RAND School’s investment and interest in Sitka is exciting, and I think reflects well on our community,” she said. “We are an excellent place for future policymakers to study because our government and organizations are active, transparent and accessible.”
Keren Zhu, right, a doctoral degree student at the Pardee RAND Graduate School of Public Policy in Santa Monica, California, stands with Keith Niytray, general manager of the Sitka Food Cooperative, recently outside St. Gregory’s Catholic Church. Zhu’s has been participating in the co-op’s weekly box pickups and studying other issues related to food supply. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)
She added, “We are honored to have them based at the science center and can’t wait to see how they can help our community and (help solve) some of our toughest issues,” she said.
Zhu’s externship is with the Sitka Food Co-op, where she has been participating in the box pickups as she helps the coop “document the organization’s history, operational practices and challenges, and identify pathways forward.”
She said that, “in doing so I also seek to identify good practices that are transferable to other small isolated rural communities that are facing similar food security challenges.”
Her dissertation is in developing an evaluation framework for mega-projects. She’s halfway through her fourth year of graduate school.
Born and raised in China, Zhu earned her undergraduate degree in English in Hong Kong, and master’s degree in social anthropology from Oxford University. She worked for a U.N. agency in Geneva, Switzerland, as an intern and consultant, before returning to China to work at a newly established think tank for two years.
Her resume includes work on China’s Belt and Road initiative, which has drawn “lots of debates” over the years, particularly on the impact that the multimillion-dollar construction projects have on local communities.
Besides her policy work at the think tank, she also did some international affairs coordination, working with partners from Pakistan, Indonesia and Kazakhstan, for example, to help implement the Belt and Road Initiative projects.
In Sitka, she’s focusing on food issues, whether it’s the role nonprofits play in solving the challenge of getting organic produce, or covering the higher costs of food. She said she understands local comments after that first trip into a grocery store and finding the prices higher than in Santa Monica.
She does see the connection between Sitka and her dissertation related to mega-projects. She’s spending a lot of time talking to locals, and meeting people, and asking a lot of questions. One of her numerous careers was as a freelance journalist.
“In my case, I think it’s less direct, but I’m definitely learning a lot that can not only shape my dissertation, also shape my long-term research agenda,” Zhu said, taking a break from sorting food and handing out boxes at the coop. “I am using some of the multi-stakeholder elicitation techniques that I use for my dissertation to understand how communities think about food security issues and how communities think about food co-op as their business model.”
Her goal with the Sitka Food Co-op is to develop a case study “to understand its institutional history, operational challenges, and help provide some projections and recommendations for its future development,” she said in an email introducing herself. “I’m taking this opportunity to learn more about infrastructure projects and their relationship with the local community.”
She’s hoping not only to learn about Sitka, and the Co-op, but be able to use her experience to help out and make suggestions for improvement. She’s struck by the prominent role that nonprofit organizations play in Sitka society, to help cover needs. In China, many of these roles would be covered by the government.
She also has been interested in the role that Alaska Pulp Corporation played in Sitka, its history and the controversies around it.
“Sometimes the Belt and Road Initiative is often compared to the Marshall Plan in many ways, so I think understanding the development trajectory of the pulp mill and the local impact indirectly will help me understand the Belt and Road infrastructure mega-project impacts,” she said. The pulp mill was the first Japanese investment in the U.S. after World War II.
On May 22, Zhu will return home to California, where she teaches a class at the University of Southern California in program and policy evaluation.
Jalal Awan, another PhD student at Pardee RAND Graduate School, is working with Sitka Conservation Society on food security issues, and looking at potential sources of funding under President Biden’s American Rescue Act and American Jobs Plan.
Keith Nyitray, general manager of the Sitka Food Co-op, said the externship has been going well with Zhu.
“We’re fortunate the (Pardee RAND) school felt what we were doing was worth a case study,” he said. The case study Zhu is working on tracks the food co-op’s history - “what we did wrong as well as what we did right, and looking for options as we move forward into the future.”
Nyitray said Phase 2, with the next externship starting in August, will involve creating a “how-to guide to do what we’re doing.”
“We’re setting a new model - a buying club-cooperative hybrid - that other communities could use as a model for their needs,” he said.
