Fall 2010 - Vol 3, Issue 1
|
|
|
|
|
|
Letter from the Interim Director
| |
 Dear Friends,
As I left the house this morning to take my dogs for a walk in the woods, I heard a gunshot. Startled, I soon remembered that hunting season had begun, and ran inside to get orange garments for me and my dogs. I don't hunt, and although I love darts, I have no interest in target shooting, but I happily share the woods with hunters because we find common cause in conservation of the beautiful forests of Maine. Helping students find common cause with those whose views and behaviors differ from their own is a significant part of our work at the Harward Center. Often, our students easily find common cause with children who feel aggrieved or oppressed by the adults who supervise them, but find it harder to do so with their supervisors, who, unbeknownst to our students, labor long hours at meager wages under tough conditions. These difficulties invariably lead us into discussions about who the community really is in community-engaged learning. We welcome these discussions, and look forward to more
of them, even as they sometimes confound and challenge us.
My abiding love of the Maine woods is not shared by all. Indeed, some of the students in our Bonner Leader Program hope they never have to repeat a short hike through Bates - Morse Mountain Conservation Area they made in September. Part of  the orientation for Bonners and Student Volunteer Fellows, the hike took place on a weekend in September that saw flooding of the causeway hikers cross early in their walk. Our students had to remove footwear to cross the causeway, a feat accomplished by all, but not without duress for some. The hike led them to Seawall Beach, where students participated in an environmental stewardship project led by Laura Sewall, director of the Bates - Morse Mountain Conservation Area. The whole experience reminded us that an interest in civic responsibility does not necessarily encompass environmental concerns. The Harward Center staff plans to explore the relation between civic and environmental responsibility this year in its monthly professional development meetings.
Last spring, I wrote of my imminent return to the Department of Psychology. With David Scobey's departure for a new position at The New School, I have agreed to continue as Interim Director for two more years, a responsibility I find both humbling and exciting. Please enjoy this newsletter about our recent activities at the Harward Center, and get in touch with your reactions, suggestions, and new ideas.
Best wishes,
Georgia Nigro
Interim Director
|
|
|
|
|
Faculty Project Profile: Elizabeth Eames and the Androscoggin Bank Project
Submitted by Holly Lasagna, Associate Director, Community-Based Learning Program
|  It has now been almost ten years since the large in-migration of Somali refugees came to Lewiston.
During that time, there have been numerous collaborations between Bates students and faculty that addressed many immediate needs in the community, including education and tutoring courses and the creation of an innovative middle school aspirations program. The existence of this multicultural community has produced numerous rich opportunities for students to do community-based academic projects and research.
Elizabeth Eames in the Anthropology department has been one of the faculty members most engaged with the immigrant community. Eames has worked with these "new Mainers" to engage her students in addressing issues that have arisen with respect to the African community integrating into the Lewiston/Auburn community. In previous semesters, this work has included Professor Eames' "Production and Reproduction" students doing research in the fall of 2009 that informed a report on labor patterns of Somali immigrants. This project added much needed depth to the state report.
Professor Eames' current community-based research with her students focuses on a collaboration with Androscoggin Bank. Christine Conrad, senior vice president for marketing at Androscoggin Bank and a member of the Bates class of 1990 noticed an article in the Bates Alumni Magazine in the spring of 2009 about the work that Elizabeth Eames and her students had been doing with the refugee community in Lewiston. Conrad got in touch with Professor Eames to talk about how Bates students could help Androscoggin Bank address some questions they had about working with the Somali community. The resulting project has focused on helping the bank to develop banking practices that address Muslim banking practices along with creating a program to educate Androscoggin bank staff about cultural issues related to working with immigrant populations.
Over that past two years, Professor Eames' "Person and Community in Contemporary Africa" and "Production and Reproduction" classes have collaborated with Androscoggin Bank to inform the bank's development of products that are useful to the Somali community. Most Somalis are Muslim. Muslim Shariah law prevents them from using any form of banking that involves making interest or paying interest. "Part of the theme in the class is that choices are constrained, constructed and contextualized by values and by culture," Eames said. For local Somalis, economic choices are constrained by the incompatibility between Western banking practices and Shariah law, which guides how Muslims live their lives. The most obvious difficulty this presents is in the borrowing of money or having interest bearing accounts of any type. During the fall of 2009, students in "Production and Reproduction" learned, though research, that the most sought after bank product by Somalis was mortgages. There are models of other banks that have addressed this issue but none that has done so locally. So far, students have researched these other models and made recommendations for Androscoggin Bank. Students also developed, with African community members, some cultural bridging activities to help Androscoggin Bank staff become more comfortable with and knowledgeable about working with refugee community members. Currently, students are further developing specific recommendations about products that Androscoggin Bank can use to work effectively with Muslim community members. Both Eames and Conrad envision a continued collaboration to further research, design and help implement banking products that benefit the bank, the local economy, and the Somali community.
|
|
Introducing the 2010-2011 Student Volunteer Fellows!
Submitted by Marty Deschaines, Assistant Director, Community Volunteerism and Student Leadership Development
| The 2010-2011 Student Volunteer Fellows are working to set up their volunteer programs for the year. They attended two orientations in early September: an afternoon overview meeting, followed by a tour of Lewiston; and an all-day retreat with the Bonner Leaders at Shortridge.
- Vinnie Ciampi ('12) is recruiting for and setting up the Longley Mentoring Program.
- Libby Egan ('13) has interviewed and placed 14 America Reads and America Counts tutors in the local schools. She is also recruiting volunteers for the Project Storyboost program.
- Jessie Igoe ('11) has participated in the Hillview After-School program for 3 years and this year is serving as the coordinator.
- Ryan Katon ('12) is the Campus Outreach Fellow. He works with student organizations and athletic teams to get them involved in the community. He also sets up monthly one-time service opportunities. His first responsibility was recruiting volunteers to help with the Dempsey Challenge, a benefit for the Patrick Dempsey Center for Cancer Hope and Healing.
- Chelsea Pennucci ('11) focuses on issues related to food security. She recruits volunteers to work at the Trinity Jubilee Center soup kitchen, connects students with St. Mary's Nutrition Center of Maine, and takes groups to the Good Shepherd Food Bank.
- Diane Saunders ('11) is working with the Downtown Education Collaborative, continuing the work of building adult and family literacy volunteer opportunities.
- Danielle Traverse ('13) is planning social events at Lewiston Housing Authority's Blake Street Towers and recruiting volunteers to help with these and to connect with the elderly and younger disabled residents.
|
|
Periclean Faculty Leader: Emily Kane
Submitted by Georgia Nigro, Interim Director
|  Bates College is a member of Project Pericles, a nonprofit that helps colleges and universities make social responsibility and participatory citizenship important parts of their educational missions. In 2010, Project Pericles launched the Periclean Faculty Leadership Program, which recognizes faculty members in a wide variety of disciplines who participate vigorously in their institution's civic engagement efforts. This year, Whitehouse Professor of Sociology Emily Kane is our Periclean Faculty Leader. The Harward Center nominated Emily because she has constructed a developmental progression of courses in which students engage in community-based learning. Students in a 200-level course will do community action projects designed by Emily in collaboration with community partners; when they reach the 300-level Public Sociology course, they carry out community-based research projects in direct partnership with community organizations. This thoughtful course development made Emily an easy choice for the honor of Periclean Faculty Leader. |
|
The Perfect Season: Reflections of a Bates - Morse Mountain Gatekeeper
Submitted by Don Bruce, Gatekeeper, Bates - Morse Mountain Conservation Area
|  With green foliage fading and late-flowering asters in bloom, we bid a sad farewell to the summer sun and perhaps the most perfect season ever in Maine. Clear skies and sunshine prevailed allowing many to spend their day in the sun enjoying the natural beauty of the Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area.
Visitation records indicate the busiest summer ever at Morse Mountain. A full parking lot by noon with access closed was the common trend throughout the months of summer. "I've never seen it so busy," and "it was never so crowded before" were the comments exclaimed by surprised hikers and beach-goers.
Conserved primarily for educational purposes, the Bates - Morse Mountain Conservation Area is unique. There are very few undeveloped tracts of land dedicated to educational programs, study, and research. The rules at Morse Mountain are designed to protect wildlife and natural features and to preserve solitude and natural quiet beauty. With the busy summer, staff members were challenged like never before to carry a message of conservation, ecosystem protection, and low-impact recreation.
Despite these challenges, the spirit of Morse Mountain remains unspoiled and wild. On most days, a place of great solitude and quiet natural beauty. In our modern world of development, technology, and road rage we need places like Morse Mountain, a quiet and peaceful place to feel connected to nature. It's good for our soul. The rules at Morse Mountain can perhaps enhance our opportunity for connection with nature and our experience can be educational in its own right. If science helps us learn about nature, a hike at Morse Mountain may help us learn through nature. Surrounded in natural stillness, we quiet our minds and learn the language of the land. The earth does speak a certain language. If we could understand the language of the earth, what would it say?
So now summer is gone and vacations are over. Many have gone back to school or to work. Fall has arrived ushering in another change. The grand finale of the season begins with leaves transforming from greens to reds and yellows like an elegant fireworks display. Summer is a time of growth and autumn of harvest. Our love of nature and Morse Mountain grew in the summer sun and rooted deeply in our heart. May we harvest that growth with memories of the fine sunny days during the summer of 2010 and remember that most perfect season.
|
|
A Definitional Exploration of the Bonner Leader Program
Submitted by Ellen Alcorn, Assistant Director, Community-Based Learning Programand Director, Bonner Leader Program
| When I think about the Bonner Leader Program (which, as I am the director, means all the time!), I puzzle about the language. "Bonner," after two years of close association, I think I have come to understand. The Bonner Foundation, located in Princeton, N.J., has a network of 80 campuses across the country devoted to promoting access to higher education by providing students with scholarships (at least 60% of Bonners must be eligible for work-study) as well as promoting the importance of service on college campuses.
 "Program" I also understand. There are key elements common to all Bonner programs: students are required to spend six-to-eight hours per week doing work in the community and two additional hours engaged in training and reflection opportunities (here at Bates, students are able to choose from a menu of opportunities covering a wide variety of topics, such as time management, effective tutor mentoring, facilitation, grant-writing, networking, and conflict resolution). In addition, Bonners participate in service trips, and are asked during their four years in the program to undertake at least one "summer of service."
But what about the word "Leader?" Here, puzzlement grows, as "leader" is a word with multiple connotations. A trip to Merriam-Webster's, which defines a leader as "a person who has commanding authority or influence," doesn't seem particularly helpful, particularly in the context of civic engagement, which at its best calls for collaboration and mutuality rather than command and authority.
Recently, Bates College adopted a new mission statement, which provides more help in understanding the word "leader": Since 1855, Bates College has been dedicated to the emancipating potential of the liberal arts. Bates educates the whole person through creative and rigorous scholarship in a collaborative residential community. With ardor and devotion--Amore ac Studio--we engage the transformative power of our differences, cultivating intellectual discovery and informed civic action. Preparing leaders sustained by a love of learning and a commitment to responsible stewardship of the wider world, Bates is a college for coming times.
In this definition of a "leader" - someone who "engages the transformative power of our differences," who "cultivates intellectual discovery and informed civic action," who is "sustained by a love of learning and a commitment to responsible stewardship of the wider world" - I see clearly reflected the 23 young men and women who comprise the Bates Bonner Leaders. These are students with full course loads and wide-ranging intellectual interests, who act as class president, who run student organizations, who sit on various college committees, and yet who still carve out eight hours a week in their schedules to devote to their Bonner work, not out of a sense of obligation, but rather out of a passion  for a wide range of issues and a deep sense of commitment to engaging with the world beyond the Bates campus.
And so I arrive at this definition of the Bonner Leader Program: The Bates BLP (we love our acronyms at the Harward Center), part of a national network devoted to promoting access to higher education as well as service on college campuses, helps students to become responsible stewards of the wider world, through a developmental program of community work and ongoing training and reflection sessions designed to encourage informed civic action as well as the transformative power of engaging with differences.
Bates is currently seeking funds for the Bonner Leader Program. If you have questions or would like to support Bonner, please contact Matt Hanson in the Office of Advancement at [email protected] or 207-755-5988 or Ellen Alcorn at [email protected] or 207-786-8235.
|
October Civic Forum Series
Submitted by Peggy Rotundo, Director of Strategic and Policy Initiatives
| The Harward Center has put together an exciting group of panelists and speakers for this year's Civic Forum series, which explores civic, political and policy issues that are significant to the Bates community, Maine and beyond.
A panel on "Wrestling with School Reform in Maine: National Strategies, Local Realities" looked at the different perspectives on educational reform and how they come together here in Maine. Featured were former Speaker of the Maine House and Deputy Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Education, Glenn Cummings; Norm Fruchter, Senior Policy Analyst, Annenberg Institute for School Reform, Brown University; Leon Levesque, Superintendent of the Lewiston Public Schools; and Joan Macri, Associate Director of LearningWorks at the University of Southern Maine's Lewiston-Auburn College.
Later in the fall, Dr. William Hsiao, professor of economics at the Harvard School of Public Health, and international expert on healthcare finance, spoke on "Taiwan's Health Reforms: Lessons for the U.S. and Maine." Dr. Hsiao served as the architect of Taiwan's single payer healthcare system and has been hired by the Vermont Legislature to design different options for their universal healthcare system. Dr. Hsiao was also in Maine to testify before the Joint Committee of the Maine Legislature dealing with the implementation of the recently enacted federal healthcare reform law.
Closing out the Civic Forum series will be a panel of distinguished journalists in November discussing "The Role of Journalism in a Democracy." Standards of excellence in journalism will be addressed as well as journalism's role in holding government accountable, and the changing landscape of media and its implications in a democracy.
The Civic Forum events will be rebroadcast as part of the Maine Public Radio's "Speaking in Maine" series.
|
News from the Coast
Submitted by Laura Sewall, Director, Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area and Shortridge Coastal Center
| Shortridge Summer Residency
 Four students participated in the 2010 Shortridge Summer Residency. While living at Shortridge, students were able to conduct research, work with a local conservation organization, and provide assistance in the management of both Shortridge and Bates - Morse Mountain Conservation Area.
Working under the supervision of Professor Mike Retelle, Molly Newton, '11, collected data on Seawall and neighboring beaches in Phippsburg. Along with data collected by students in previous years, Molly's senior thesis will reveal changing coastal conditions in the Morse Mountain region, including the erosion of Popham Beach in 2009 and 2010.  Molly presented her preliminary findings to The Small Point Association in August.
Zach Ross, '11, worked with the Kennebec Estuary Land Trust in Bath, while living at Shortridge. Although Zach proved to be helpful in the office, his primary work was in the field surveying river and stream barriers throughout the lower Kennebec River region. Together with several others, Zach was able to catalog over 300 barriers to fish and wildlife passage. The inventory will help the state, towns and conservation organizations determine the bridges and culverts most in need of replacement in order to restore the natural hydrology and habitat of the estuary.
Brigid Dunn, '11, served as an assistant to the Director of Shortridge and the Bates - Morse Mountain Conservation Area. Her primary task was to clear and map the Shortridge Trail, which joins trails owned by the town of Phippsburg and Phippsburg Land  Trust. Brigid completed a trail brochure that will guide visitors to Shortridge to the area's extensive and globally-rare woodlands.
Throughout eight weeks of summer research, Ingrid Knowles, '11, collected fish, soil and water samples from the Sprague River Marsh to assess the effectiveness of ditch plugging as a method for marsh restoration. Ingrid's work is the continuation of earlier preliminary research that suggested a difference in carbon isotopes found in plugged and natural pools on the marsh. Her thesis will help to clarify how restoration efforts, funded by the US Fish and Wildlife Services, have impacted the marsh over time. Ingrid's work is also funded by USF&WS, and supervised by Professor Bev Johnson.
Eradicating Invasives at Morse Mountain
Invasive plants are becoming a significant problem all over the country. Purple loosestrife, non-native honeysuckles, phragmites, Oriental bittersweet, Japanese barberry and Japanese knotweed are the worst offenders in Phippsburg. In addition to out-competing native plants, invasive plants generally yield little nutritive value for native wildlife.
The Bates - Morse Mountain Conservation Area (BMMCA) is relatively free of invasives, although a significant patch of purple loosestrife has threatened the Sprague River salt marsh for nearly a decade. Over most of those years, volunteers dead-headed flowers before going to seed in hopes of eventual die-off. Beetles were also used as a natural pest to the plant, but high tides flooded the area and greatly minimized the beetle population after a single season.
With consultation from US Fish and Wildlife Services (USF&WS), The Nature Conservancy and other land managers, the BMMCA Director, Laura Sewall, enlisted a licensed applicator to treat the half acre patch with an herbicide in 2009. The project was funded by USF&WS, and is now in its second year. After a second application in early August, the patch is nearly eradiated and many native plants have rapidly returned. According to Mike Morrison, the applicator and a consultant on New England salt marsh plants and insects, the habitat is richly restoring itself with a great diversity of native salt-tolerant plants.
With the help of wildlife biologist, Ron Joseph, USF&WS recently awarded BMMCA a grant of $20,000 to continue work to eradicate other invasive plants in the "greater BMMCA region." The Kennebec Estuary Land Trust was awarded $15,000 for the same purpose, insuring that the lower Kennebec River region has the best opportunity to restore itself to native healthy habitat.
|
Student Spotlight: Matthew Baker-White '13
|  "Working with the Community-Based Research Fellowship program this summer enriched my summer in many ways. Having the CBR Fellows program allowed me to do research for the first time in my academic career in a pressure-free environment that encouraged me to try something I otherwise would have been reluctant to do. By doing research with the community here in Lewiston, I got to see a whole different side to the place I live. It also gave me a solid group of peers to go to with questions, concerns, and any issues that came up during my CBR project. The CBR program was great for me this summer--working with the other CBR fellows, the Harward Center, and most importantly the community was an incredible experience for me."
|
|
Questions?
Please contact Kristen Cloutier at [email protected] or 207-786-6202
Or visit us online.
|
|
|
|
|
