Trina Van Schyndel
Community engagement; education research; graduate education; professional development; program development; qualitative research; sustainability leadership
Background & Expertise
Trina Van Schyndel, PhD, is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment. She works on the Learning and Development team where her scholarly work bridges education program research and development, with a specific focus on supporting graduate students’ sustainability leadership development. She has spent the last two decades working in program development, training and teaching, advising and mentoring, and recruitment and admissions roles at universities, schools, nonprofits, associations and government agencies. She also previously held leadership roles within higher education community engagement associations, including Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life, Campus Compact, and the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement.
She earned her PhD in higher, adult and lifelong education from Michigan State University and her MS in natural resources with a focus on environmental education from the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point. Her dissertation focused on professional identity development of community-engaged practitioner-scholars through participation in professional associations while they are in graduate school. Her recent publications and presentations focus on understanding and supporting community-engaged graduate students and community-engaged boundary-spanners in higher education. She is a proud Midwesterner and transplant to Minnesota.
Inside the Sustainability Competencies Shaping Future Leaders
Climate adaptation, food systems change and biodiversity loss are all complex challenges that require more than just technical expertise to address. They call for a shared set of skills and values that guide people to work across systems and disciplines.
In the world of sustainability education, these skills and values are known as competencies. We spoke with three members of the Institute on the Environment’s Learning & Development (L&D) team to unpack the concept.