Dr. Gail Gunst Heffner

Emerita Professor; Co-founder of Plaster Creek Stewards

Education

BA, Grove City College, Psychology and Religion, 1975
MPIA, University of Pittsburgh, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (Concentration in Economic and Social Development), 1980
PhD, Michigan State University (Interdisciplinary Program in Urban Studies and Resource Development), 2005

Professional Experience

Director of community engagement, provost’s office, 2004-present
Associate director, Center for Social Research, 2001-2004
Director of academically based service-learning, Service-Learning Center, 1994-2001

Academic Interests

Urban sustainability, reconciliation ecology, environmental justice, American racism

Professional Services

Grand River Corridor Planning Committee (appointed by Mayor and City Commission), 2014-present.

Board of directors, Healthy Homes Coalition of West Michigan, 2006-present; vice president of board, 2008-12; president of the Board, 2012-15.

Board of directors, Lower Grand River Organization of Watersheds (LGROW), 2013-present.

Advisory council, Groundswell (Grand Valley State University), 2009-present.

Caucus leader, Congregations Organizing for Racial Reconciliation (CORR), 2008-present.

Professional Associations

Urban Affairs Association (UAA)
Christian Community Development Association (CCDA)
Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE)
Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU)

Awards

Regional Centres of Expertise (RCE) Award for Outstanding Flagship Project, given to Plaster Creek Stewards at the 9th Global RCE Conference, Okayama, Japan: November 4-7, 2014

Grant from Michigan Department of Environmental Quality to the Plaster Creek Stewards, for the Plaster Creek Watershed Restoration Project 2, $1,145,915, 2015-2017.

Grant from Environmental Protection Agency Urban Waters to the Plaster Creek Stewards for Reducing Stormwater in the Lower Grand River Watershed through Green Team Training and Regional Rainscaping Planning, $60,000, 2014-2016.

Grant from Michigan Colleges Foundation for creation of the Green Team, $7,000 to the Plaster Creek Stewards project, 2013.

Honoree, Women and the Environment Symposium at Grand Valley State University, sponsored by West Michigan Environmental Action Council, February 2013.

Grant from Michigan Department of Environmental Quality for Watershed Education and Restoration, $515,367.28 to the Plaster Creek Stewards project, 2013-2015.

Research and Scholarship

Restoring a Degraded Stream: Reconciliation Ecology in the Plaster Creek Watershed

Restoration of Native Plants and Habitats(2)

Restoration of Native Plants and Habitats in Urban Areas

The goal for this project is to find the best method to restore an area of lawn to native habitat, more specifically to shortgrass prairie. The soil itself presents the biggest obstacle as it has been with nutrients, and compacted.
We planted a shortgrass prairie on the edge of the Ecosystem Preserve at Calvin with 6 half meter squared test plots set up within the larger prairie.
This project will be available for data collection and assessment in the coming years data that will be compared with the baseline data set we collected this year. For our initial data set we recorded the height of each plant, a bird’s eye view photograph of each plot, and a rating for the health of each plant that was the average of three different individual ratings on a 0-5 scale.