Sixteen individuals and organizations are the recipients of the third annual Bates College Harward Center for Community Partnerships Awards.  Recipients were recognized in a celebration at the Edmund S. Muskie Archives on May 8, 2009.
 
Firmly rooted in the academic purpose of the College, the Harward Center serves as a focal point for connected learning that fuses academic discussion and community.  In union with this mission, award recipients connect Bates with the larger community through collaboration, research and service.
 
The following individuals and organizations were honored:
 
� Rick Speer, recipient of the 2009 James and Sally Carignan Award for Career Achievement;
 
� Jess Adelman, Bates class of 2009, and Erin Bond, Bates class of 2009, recipients of the 2009 Harward Center Student Award for Outstanding Community-Based Academic Work;
 
� Michelle Ladonne, Bates class of 2009, Julie Miller-Hendry, Bates class of 2009, and Erin Sienkiewicz, Bates class of 2009, recipients of the 2009 Harward Center Award for Outstanding Community Volunteerism and Student Leadership;
 
� Assistant Professor of Dance Carol Dilley, recipient of the 2009 Harward Center Faculty Award for Outstanding New Community Partnership Initiative;
 
� Associate Professor of Anthropology Elizabeth Eames, recipient of the 2009 Harward Center Faculty Award for Sustained Commitment to Community Partnership;
 
� Holly Lasagna, Director of the Service-Learning Program, recipient of the 2009 Harward Center Staff Award for Outstanding Support for Community Partnership;
 
� Ed Plourde, Budget Manager, recipient of the 2009 Harward Center Staff Award for Community Volunteerism and Leadership;
 
� Shayna Malyata, recipient of the 2009 Harward Center Community Partner Award for Outstanding New Initiative;
 
� Ron Hood, recipient of the 2009 Harward Center Community Partner Award for Sustained Commitment to Partnership;
 
� The Gov. James B. Longley Elementary School, recipient of the 2009 Harward Center Award for Outstanding Community Project/Partnership;
 
� Lucy Neely, Bates class of 2009 and Janneke Petersen, Bates class of 2009, recipients of the 2009 Bates-Morse Mountain Award for Environmental Stewardship;
 
� The Androscoggin Land Trust, recipient of the 2009 Bates-Morse Mountain Award for Environmental Lifetime Achievement.

The collaboration between the Lewiston Housing Authority (LHA) and the Harward Center has a long, rich history.  Initial projects included one of Lots to Gardens' first community gardens and an afterschool program started by an Anthropology class, the goal of which was to increase interaction between the newly arrived Somali immigrants and LHA's Hillview public housing community.  Since then, our nearly-10-year collaboration has become multi-faceted and complex, with hundreds of community-work-study, volunteer, summer fellowship, service-learning, and senior thesis students taking part in a variety of programs and projects at Hillview, an LHA low-income housing complex, and Blake Street Towers, an LHA senior and younger-disabled building.  "I can't begin to say what a difference Bates students have made, what an impact they have had, on our programming," says Carla Harris, manager of resident services for Lewiston Housing Authority.  "Bates students have become part of the grain of LHA." 
 
LHA is one of our major "collaboratories," partnerships that integrate teaching, research and community aims in co-created, long term undertakings. Current activities include: faculty research in the area of economic self-sufficiency; Developmental Psychology students coordinating an after-school aspirations program for female Somali middle-schoolers; community work study students overseeing an after-school homework help program; student volunteers implementing social activities for seniors at Blake Street Towers; and summer fellowship students coordinating programming for children and adults.  In addition to providing hands'-on help and valuable research, Bates students have also brought financial resources to LHA through small grants administered through the Harward Center.  "We would not be capable of doing everything we do without all of these different resources," Harris says.
 
While Harris stresses the value of Bates students to LHA, the LHA collaboratory has been invaluable to the education of numerous Bates students, many of whom begin in their first years as volunteers and wind up basing much of their coursework, including senior theses, there.  Much of this is due to the fact that Harris acts very much as a co-educator for students.  "I look at students as assets," says Harris, who is as concerned about what she can give to the students as what they can give to her.  "You get back from students the time that you put in with them."
 
Aubrey Nelson, a recent Bates graduate and currently working as a VISTA for the Harward Center, has spent much of the past year helping to organize a boys' aspirations program at Hillview.  She too attests to the value of Hillview to Bates students.  "It allows students to connect with different generations and different cultures," she says.  And on an even more basic note:  "You get free hugs and people who are so excited to see you."

This summer season will mark the initiation of the Summer Residency at the Shortridge Coastal Center.  Five student interns will be working on various environmental projects, including research, service and program development.
 
With the technical and financial support of the US Fish and Wildlife Services, Elyse Judice and Carter Kindley will monitor salt marsh restoration in the Sprague River Marsh at the Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area (BMMCA).  Their research will determine the efficacy of methods to restore the marsh's hydrology and food web, and their data will be analyzed with the help of geology professor, Bev Johnson.  Kurt Schuler will be working with Mike Retelle, also from the Geology Department, to continue documenting and monitoring barrier beach processes on Seawall Beach at BMMCA.  Kurt's work is funded by a grant from the Small Point Association for on-going research designed to understand environmental influences on the area's coastline.

Alex Hernandez will be working with Laura Sewall, Director of BMMCA, to develop a comprehensive management plan for the area.  Alex's work will primarily consist of mapping and describing, for management purposes, plant communities and other environmental features of the area.  Emily Grady will be working with Julie Rosenbach and Laura Sewall to develop an environmental leadership program for Bates college students.

"I finally got to the office and saw what you had all done for us.  The collection is now useable and I will be able to add to it.  Out of confusion and chaos has come order and beauty...It is like Genesis all over again. You and Pat and the students and other faculty have given us an invaluable gift.  It was beyond me to know what to do.  Thank you for all the time and expertise you have invested in the Friends of Seguin. "

--Ken Young, Friends of Seguin Board of Directors

Alexandre Dauge-Roth, an assistant professor of French at Bates College, is one of three Maine college professors to receive a 2009 Maine Campus Compact award for infusing public service and civic engagement into their teaching.

Dauge-Roth will receive a Donald Harward Faculty Award for Service-Learning Excellence in the Maine Campus Compact's eighth annual faculty and student awards ceremony on April 16 at the Maine State Museum.
Dauge-Roth researches the Rwandan genocide of 1994, exploring personal, literary and film narratives created since Hutu extremists massacred as many as a million Tutsi and moderate Hutu. In the four years since he came to Bates, Dauge-Roth has fostered a correspondence between Bates students and survivors of the genocide.
During a 2006 trip to Rwanda, he established a network of genocide survivors who have corresponded in French with students in his seminar "Documenting the Genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda" to document survivors' stories.

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