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Winter 2010 - Vol 2, Issue 2
In This Issue
Coastal Clean-Up 2009-10
2009-2010 Student Volunteer Fellows
A Bonner Abroad: Dani Scherer
Food, Justice and the City: An Environmental Studies Community-Based Research Capstone Project
Origami Workshops at the Downtown Education Collaborative
Student Spotlight: Gina Petracca '10
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Letter from the Interim Director
Patrick Williams

Dear Friends,

 

I write this greeting on a gorgeous day in March, a month so far marked by less mud and more sun than most of the Marches in Maine I have experienced.  My 6-month stint as interim director of the Harward Center has nearly reached the halfway point, and I am still on a learning curve.  Teachers often say that you don't learn a concept until you teach it.  There must be a similar truth about organizational entities.  Until you function within them and make decisions that affect them, you don't really "get" them.  I am happy to say that "getting" the Harward Center has been a great pleasure.

 

This newsletter details many of the events and initiatives that have occurred since the last newsletter.  Let me add a more personal perspective.  I have taught at Bates for the last 27 years and loved every minute of my teaching life.  The Harward Center has broadened my teaching and learning in exciting ways.  Twice each month, I meet with the Center's community-based research fellows and talk with them about the joys and challenges of their action-oriented research projects.  We get to tackle some of the hard questions, such as the sustainability of their projects, that they may not have time for with their academic advisors.  I also have the pleasure of hosting our Public Works in Process talks, of which there have already been six this semester.  They have stretched me to think about issues close to home, such as how to teach students what it means to write for their community partners, and issues far from home, such as the U.S.-Mexico border and the history of immigration policies.  Not only have I had a chance to occupy the other side of the desk while inside the Harward Center, but I have had the wonderful experience of meeting with many community partners who serve as co-teachers of our students every day.  That some of them are my former students or Bates graduates has been an added bonus!

 

I hope that as you read about origami, lobster traps, and banking, you will share with me the sense that we are involved in an expansive and important mission at the Harward Center.  Please be in touch with your reactions, questions, suggestions, and stories.  I will be back in the Department of Psychology in July, but David Scobey and everyone at the Harward Center would love to hear from you.

 

Best wishes,

Georgia Nigro

Interim Director, Harward Center for Community Partnerships

Coastal Clean-Up 2009-10
Submitted by Laura Sewall, Director, Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area and Shortridge Coastal Center

Waves
On a windless day in late August, Hurricane Bill passed by offshore, sending giant waves that pounded Seawall Beach.  In the aftermath, piles of lobster traps and tangled rope were strewn down the beach and still rolling in the surf.  Two days later, volunteers were digging out traps, cutting line and loading traps into trucks.  For three more days, traps were transported to the Bates-Morse Mountain parking lot.

Traps in Water

Altogether, 150 or more traps were piled into a corner of the lot and hauled off to be recycled as an alternative energy source later that fall.

This local success story is one of those often unsung win-win partnerships between community, private and public entities.  On Seawall Beach, the removal and recycling of traps began with concerned volunteers from the Small Point community.  Bates College, the Maine Coastal Program, the Department of Marine Resources, a local excavator and local lobstermen all contributed to the success of the effort, and to clarifying a process for on-going clean-up and recycling.  The Maine Coastal Program-concerned with the number of traps that collect on our shores or remain, untended, on the bottom of the Gulf of Maine-is continuing to support efforts to collect unclaimed or destroyed traps. Those that are still able to catch marine life are of particular concern.  

Traps with Dozer
Volunteers are invited to join the Bates National Day of Service on May 2nd to help clean Seawall Beach, again in coordination with The Maine Coastal Program and others.  Participants will gather at the Bates-Morse Mountain parking lot at 10 am.  For more information please contact the BMMCA Director, Laura Sewall ([email protected] or 786-6078).  Lunch will be provided with an RSVP.  To join the Maine Coastal Program's efforts to collect marine debris during Coastweek, September 25th through October 2nd, please contact Theresa Torrent-Ellis at [email protected] or 287-2351.

Photo credits: Abbie Sewall, Laura Sewall

2009-2010 Student Volunteer Fellows
Submitted by Marty Deschaines, Assistant Director, Community Volunteerism and Student Leadership Development Program

SVFNow in its eighth year, the Student Volunteer Fellows program places students in community leadership positions.  They work with community organizations to plan volunteer programs that best meet the current local need and then they recruit students to become involved in the program.  They also make sure the volunteers are trained, scheduled and supported in their work.  One of the Fellows is responsible for campus outreach, working with student organizations and teams to provide interesting group opportunities.  In addition to the individual work, the Fellows function as a team: they meet each week to discuss their work, they plan monthly one-time volunteer opportunities and they manage a volunteer grant fund.

 

The program varies slightly each year as different students bring their individual gifts to their positions.  This year's Fellows are:

         Lorena Bustamante, a sophomore from Ecuador, coordinates the America Reads/America Counts program and the Project Storyboost work through the Lewiston School Department.

         Emily Crawford, a senior from Massachusetts, runs the Hillview After-School Program at Lewiston Housing Authority's Hillview Family Development.

         Catherine Elliott, a sophomore from Minnesota, focuses on literacy and educational opportunities for adults.  Lewiston Adult Education and WestSide Neurorehab are among her partners.

         Lil Henry, a sophomore from New Hampshire, works to provide volunteer opportunities around food security.  She works with Good Shepherd Food Bank, Trinity Jubilee Soup Kitchen, and the Nutrition Center.

         Pamela Mejia, a sophomore from Florida, works with Lewiston Housing Authority to provide volunteers for activities at residences for low-income elderly and younger disabled people.  The activities are designed to combat the isolation that many residents feel.

         Obichukwu Udeh, a sophomore from California, is responsible for campus outreach.  He is currently working to connect a student organization with a boys aspirations group where they can serve as mentors.

         Krystina Zaykowski, a senior from New York, coordinates the Longley Mentoring Program.  Her mentors are matched with 5th and 6th graders at Longley School and they meet for an hour each week.

As the Volunteer Fellows finish their work each year, they are instrumental in the selection of the group that will succeed them.


A Bonner Abroad: Dani Scherer
Submitted by Mary Therese Fleming, AmeriCorps VISTA

Dani Sherer
The Bonner Leader program had its first semester on campus this fall.  Students in the program spend eight hours each week working within the Lewiston-Auburn community, and also come together for trainings and reflections, building a sense of community around civic engagement at Bates.

 

Bonners who are interested can continue their community work while studying abroad, and this semester, one of our Bonner Leaders is doing just that.  Danielle Scherer, a junior at Bates, is spending her semester studying in New Zealand.  She left for her voyage six weeks before the semester started, so that she would be able to spend time working on an intentional living farm. 


Dani has started a blog to journal her experiences and to keep those of us in Maine updated on her travels.  Please feel free to share in Dani's adventures with us.

Food, Justice and the City: An Environmental Studies Community-Based Research Capstone Project
Submitted by Holly Lasagna, Associate Director, Community-Based Learning Program

The Environmental Studies program at Bates engages students from various disciplines. Each major follows a unique path to graduating with an ES degree.  Over the last year, the Environmental Studies department has been working to create a capstone experience that effectively integrates these varied student interests, passions and experiences.  Professors Holly Ewing and Sonja Pieck worked collaboratively with the Harward Center to develop a theme-based course that gives students the opportunity to engage in cross-disciplinary communication and collaborative research that brings their specific expertise from their concentrations to bear on issues that have local and global relevance. Ewing and Pieck decided to focus the course on the community food assessment, Local Food for Lewiston.

 

Local Food for Lewiston is a collaborative community-based project whose goal is to develop a comprehensive plan to improve access to healthy food for consumers, support local producers, and create sustainable food system solutions.   The aim of the project is to effectively address community food security needs through research, assessment and the identification of solutions.  Students in the capstone course implemented quantitative and qualitative research projects in collaboration with numerous community partners.


So, what do our faculty members and community partners have to say about the project?


"Our central goal is to work with individuals from the community to collaboratively create knowledge and products that ultimately will benefit residents of Lewiston and Auburn. At the same time, we expect to recognize our own position and role in the community differently."

- Holly Ewing, Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies


"Through various community-based projects, students are learning to grapple with the concrete, lived reality of hunger and food insecurity in Lewiston-Auburn, are acquiring methodological skills, and are gaining an appreciation for the sensitivity and humility needed to collaborate with community partners. Students and community members thus become co-creators of knowledge that will be of importance for future work trying to address food insecurity in the area."

- Sonja Pieck, Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies


"The strong collaborative support and community buy-in for this project is reflected in the active participation of Lewiston-Auburn's higher education institutions and in the broad base of support from community partners.  The involvement of the colleges and the community enables us to put together a dynamic demographic, food and transportation systems picture of Lewiston.  Through the Community Food Assessment (CFA) process, we will involve community members working in collaboration with higher education institutions and local non-profits in every phase of the work.  Our goal is to develop solutions that will engage all members of our community."

- Kirsten Walter, Director, Nutrition Center of Maine

Origami Workshops at the Downtown Education Collaborative
Submitted by Kristen Cloutier, Assistant Director for Center Operations
Currently taking place at the Downtown Education Collaborative is "Project Modular Origami," a continuing education course for teachers of mathematics, G/T teachers, special education teachers, artists, and paraprofessionals using modular origami for therapeutic reasons, social connectedness or improving fine motor skills. 

OrigamiModular origami is similar to origami, except instead of folding one single object, the folder creates many identical objects (units), then pieces the units together to form a much larger shape (such as a Platonic solid).  By incorporating the "modular" extension to the origami, the folder transitions into a three dimensional mode of thinking (spatial reasoning) which is a much higher level of thinking. One of the major difficulties students face with mathematics is the subject seems to be very procedure driven. Modular origami is an active and discovery-based teaching of mathematics, as it requires hands-on participation. It teaches students how to follow a procedure. There is no way that someone can hide and fall asleep in the back of the room while folding the models. Also, there is no way that students can make the models out of 12 or 30 units without an understanding of some fundamental properties of the object.  Modular origami also teaches students to see relationships between different models by examining various modifications of the procedure, and to work cooperatively.

Modular origami classes take place at The Downtown Education Collaborative (located at 219 Lisbon Street in Lewiston) on Tuesdays from 5:30pm to 8:30pm from January 26-May 18, 2010. For more information or to register, please contact Dr. Eva Szillery at [email protected].
Student Spotlight: Gina Petracca '10
Gina Petracca"Overall, my work with the Nutrition Center was productive, challenging, and fun. I learned a great deal about gardening and cooking from the Summer Youth Gardener program and how to go about collecting data on the availability, accessibility, and affordability of food in Lewiston because of the Community Food Assessment. I am incredibly proud of the final report I produced, because I devoted a great deal of time to analyzing the data and making conclusions based on my findings. My work at the Nutrition Center has made me realize what I would like to do in the future, with regard to my career and graduate school choices. And my senior thesis is inspired by my work with the SYG program. I have designed and taught a cooking program to high school students from the Lewiston community. The curriculum of the program is based on my summer research - it addresses the barriers that adolescents face with regard to healthy eating. My community partner is, once again, the Nutrition Center. Through this collaboration, the Nutrition Center and I hope to determine which aspects of the cooking classes are the most effective, so that they can be used in future classes taught at the Nutrition Center."
Questions?
Please contact Kristen Cloutier at [email protected] or 207-786-6202
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