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Fall 2013 - Vol 6, Issue 1
In This Issue
Launching the Education Internship Program
Summer on the Coast
Growing Project Story Boost
Orientation Re-imagination
Community Partner Research in Invasive Plant Ecology (BIO 265)
Students in the Spotlight
Support our Bonner Leader Program!
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Dear Friends,

I spent a couple of days recently with civic engagement directors from other leading colleges and universities. The experience left me energized by new ideas and impressive peers. It also reminded me that Bates has been and continues to be a national leader in community-engaged learning, research, and practice. The cultivation of civic awareness, action, and leadership has been an institutional priority since 1855, and it continues to be a deeply held commitment that goes well beyond mission statement rhetoric. My Harward Center colleagues and I are privileged to help students, faculty, and staff bring the Bates legacy of public service and social transformation to life in our own day. As the examples featured in this newsletter attest, and thanks to dedicated on-campus and off-campus partners, that vital work is ongoing and impressive.

 

Best wishes,

Darby K. Ray 

Director

Launching the Education Internship Program 
Ellen Alcorn, Director, Bonner Leader Program and Assistant Director, Community-Engaged Learning Program

This fall the Education Department at Bates teamed up with the Harward Center and the Bates Career Development Center to launch a new year-long education internship program. Currently, ten Bates students are serving as interns in a variety of after-school community settings, including Lewiston Public Housing's Hillview complex, Lewiston Middle School's 21st Century program, and Tree Street Youth. According to professor Patti Buck, chair of the Education Department, "The internship experience represents a scaffolding of sorts within our community-engaged learning curricula. For interns, participation in an internship effectively serves as a bridge between course-based community placements and more independent capstone projects that are completed during the senior year." The internships also "help prepare participants for civic engagement and work life after Bates" by providing skills development and mentoring opportunities. Finally, internships "strengthen ties between Bates and the larger Lewiston community as students and community members work together to improve schooling in the region."

 

 
Now in its third month, the internship program has already been transformative for both Bates students and their community partners. At Lewiston Middle School, three Bates students are developing and implementing enrichment activities, community service opportunities, and a college access mentor program. "Having the interns has made my job so much easier," says Jenn Carter, Program Director for the middle school's 21st Century Program. "Having the Bates interns allows us to go so much deeper with our programs, and the kids appreciate them so much."
 
Bates students report learning more deeply about young people and their needs, as well as building important teaching skills such as curriculum design, student motivation, and behavior management. Says Bridget Feldmann, a Bates intern at Hillview housing, "My relationship with the students is very symbiotic because I'm learning as much from them as they are from me. This program has given me a sense of purpose at Bates and in the larger Lewiston community."
Summer on the Coast
Laura Sewall, Director, Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area and Shortridge Coastal Cente

The intent of the Shortridge Summer Residency is to facilitate coastal research and enrich our environmental work through an exchange of interdisciplinary experience and perspectives. To a significant extent, that goal was accomplished last summer. The 2013 Shortridge Summer Residency was lively, multi-disciplinary in scope, and unprecedented in numbers. Ten residents from four institutions used the college's Coastal Center at Shortridge as a base of operations over the summer season. Bates students Tyler Grees, '14 and Logan Greenblatt, '14 explored the Phippsburg peninsula as artists-in-residence, producing large scale photographs and sculptures that now enliven our coastal campus. Sara El Assad, '14 conducted senior thesis research in geology, specifically on sediment transport on Popham and Seawall beaches; and Cameroun Russ, '14 did thesis research to determine blue carbon storage on the Sprague Marsh. In addition, preliminary research was done by Michael Martin, '14 in an effort to clarify changing conditions on local clam flats. Brian Kennedy, '14 conducted economic analyses of seaweed production at the Maine Technology Institute in Brunswick while living at Shortridge and surfing (daily!) nearby. Two field researchers, Ellen Comeau and Iza Bruen-Morningstar, from the University of Maine and Prescott College, inventoried marsh-nesting and shorebird populations. In addition to all of this activity, two summer interns with The Nature Conservancy, Sarah O'Shea and Jacob Satler, used Shortridge as "basecamp" throughout the  entire summer.
         
To further the Shortridge Summer Residency objectives in 2014, a small number of positions will be offered through the office of the Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area at the Harward Center; stay tuned for announcements. For more information, please contact Laura Sewall: [email protected]

Growing Project Story Boost
Brenna Callahan, Student Volunteer Fellow, Class of 2015
While walking through the hallways at Montello Elementary School, it is virtually impossible not to wave to all of the smiling students walking back and forth to their lockers, grabbing things out of their backpacks or going to get a drink of water. It is also common to see Bates students walking with Montello students on their way to the library to read together for a bit. The Bates and Montello students walking through the halls together are part of a program called Project Story Boost (PSB).

PSB is a program that was created in the 1990s by researchers at the University of Southern Maine. It is designed to expose young students to rich childhood stories, basic story structures, and other literacy skills. The program is based off of the idea that students who have been exposed to rich literature before they enter school have a significant advantage over students who were not. PSB works specifically with students who may not have had the same level of exposure to literacy as some of their peers. Through the program, students learn that stories have a beginning, middle and end, that words are read from left to right, and that "once upon a time" and "happily ever after" are common literary expressions.

This year, there are fourteen Bates volunteers who read one-on-one with four different Montello kindergarten, first and second graders for 30 minute sessions, twice a week. The one-on-one environment allows Bates and Montello students to build a relationship and provides them with the opportunity to develop the literacy skills they need and a love of reading in an intimate environment. At the end of each session, Montello students retell one of the stories, and Bates students are able to track their level of engagement and level of comprehension.

The program at Montello has grown over the past couple of years, now serving upwards of 50 students. Over the course of the semester, Bates students have seen comfort levels of their students rise, energy levels go up and a love of reading fostered. It is always so hard for me to walk back to my students' classrooms as they usually beg to read "just one more" as our time is up. As the program at Montello continues to develop, we hope that literacy levels go up and that a love of reading is fostered in each student.
Orientation Re-imagination
Darby Ray, Director 
Prospective Bates students almost always hear about the college's strong commitment to "informed civic action" (Bates mission statement). Once they matriculate as new students, however, it can take a while before civic engagement as an institutional priority makes it onto their radar screens. . . until now, that is, thanks to a new focus on civic mission within entering student Orientation.

While orientation programs at many colleges and universities use a large-scale community service project or day of service to introduce students to the off-campus community, this approach runs the risk of unwittingly creating a deficit-based understanding of the community by highlighting the neediness of the community in contrast to the resources or strengths of the college. To counteract this tendency, an assets-based approach to community engagement was shared with entering students during their very first days on the Bates campus.

As they traversed their new campus home in small groups as part of Orientation, students made a stop at a community garden next to the Harward Center. Part of a city-wide "Lots to Gardens" program founded and directed by a Bates graduate, the garden was the perfect setting for an assets-based introduction to the local community. There, students met Ayman Mohamed, a local youth who recently started his own business making sambusas, a Somali pastry filled with vegetables and/or meats. As students enjoyed Ayman's delicious sambusas, they were welcomed by another community member and invited to become active citizens of Lewiston/Auburn, one of Maine's most diverse and interesting communities where opportunities for collaboration and creativity abound. Later, students heard about some of the many community-engaged learning, research, and volunteer projects undertaken by Bates students in collaboration with community partners. Eventually, new students gathered in their first-year residential centers to develop a plan for how they would begin to get to know their new home--not just the Bates campus but the wider community of which it is part. Students were challenged to think about community engagement as a two-way street in which students and off-campus community members learn from and benefit each other in reciprocal ways.

A garden conversation, a Somali pastry, words of welcome from new neighbors and willing partners. . . In sum, an experience of radical hospitality as the foundation for genuine community.
Community Partner Research in Invasive Plant Ecology (BIO 265)
Lea Johnson, Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology   

From food crops to lawns, people move plants from one place to another. Ornamental shrubs move into housing developments, ships dump rock ballast scooped up on another continent, and weed seeds hitchhike in bags of grain. Once they arrive, some of these species will thrive. Some have left pests and predators behind, while some leak chemicals into the soil that stunt the growth of other species, and others grow large and fast. Whatever the reasons, some become invasive species - and make major changes to the ecosystems they invade. Many people have seen or heard of kudzu (Pueraria lobata), a climbing vine in the bean family that smothers trees and engulfs houses in the Southeastern US. So far, kudzu finds Maine a bit too cold, but other species can crowd out native plants and cause economic damage here.

 

Students in Visiting Assistant Professor Lea Johnson's course in Invasive Plant Ecology (Bio 265) are learning to identify, understand and manage invasive plants. After a visit from Maine State Horticulturalist Ann Gibbs, they began researching species chosen by members of the Maine Invasive Species Network to address gaps in available information. With access to Bates' libraries and scientific journals, Johnson's students are making useful information available by preparing fact sheets that summarize what's currently known about how these species got here, how they grow, and what can be done to control them.  

 

In Auburn, at the Androscoggin Land Trust's Alexander-Harkins Preserve in the Sherwood Forest Conservation area, the class makes its way through prickly multiflora rose (Rosa multiflora), around tall bush honeysuckles (Lonicera morrowii), and under hanging vines of oriental bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus) - all ornamental imports from parts of Asia with climates similar to the Northeastern US. GPS units in hand, the students count stems and check for effects of management. They will combine this data to make maps of invasive plant populations, and report their findings to the Androscoggin Land Trust. Knowing the boundaries of new infestations will help the Land Trust to target its efforts to remove these unwelcome visitors and protect native biodiversity. 

Students in the Spotlight
Martha Deschaines, Assistant Director, Community Volunteerism and Student Leadership Development
The Harward Center's Public Works in Progress lunchtime series highlights the community-engaged work of Bates community members. Two of the fall term's most exciting programs featured presentations by students who worked in diverse non-profit settings over the summer thanks to funding through the Harward Summer Student Fellowships program.  These summer fellowships, granted through a competitive process, allow students to partner with a non-profit agency anywhere in the world to design an eight-to-ten week project linked to their academic and career interests. 
 
In the summer of 2013, half of the Fellows chose to develop projects right here in Lewiston, providing valuable staff and leadership support to St. Mary's Nutrition Center of Maine, the Health Clinic at Trinity Jubilee Center, the downtown ArtWalk program through L/A Arts, Community Concepts, and the Lewiston Housing Authority's Hillview Family Development program.

In other parts of the country, students pursued project assistance with Futurewise, a public interest group in Seattle; legal aid support with the Volunteer Lawyers Project in Portland, Maine; resettlement service to refugee clients at the International Rescue Committee in Baltimore; education program development with the Children's Museum of New Hampshire; and support for a men's initiative with Jane Doe, Inc., a sexual and domestic violence prevention agency in Massachusetts.
 
By all accounts, the opportunity to immerse themselves in the daily work of these organizations helped students build their skills and pursue their passions while collaborating with others to make a difference in the world. Their presentations brought their work to life in creative and compelling ways, making audience members wish for their own summer fellowship experience.
Support our Bonner Leader Program!
Bates is actively seeking funds to support its Bonner Leader Program.  If you have questions, or would like to support the Bonner Leader Program, please contact Ellen Alcorn at the Harward Center at 207-786-8235.

For more information about the Bonner Leader Program at Bates, please check out these videos (note that you will be redirected to the Bates College channel on Vimeo):

Video: The Bonner Leader Program - a passion for community service and civic engagement at Bates

Questions?
Please contact Kristen Cloutier or visit us online.