This summer I worked in New York City at DonorsChoose.org as an Education Policy Intern on the human capital team. DonorsChoose.org is a national NGO on the front lines of the fight for educational equality, pairing classroom project requests from public schools across the nation with "citizen philanthropists" to help support students from low-income communities attain necessary supplies and resources for their education. DonorsChoose.org projects range from $5 requests for sticky notes for a literacy lesson to projects as large as funding for an entire AP STEM class or a coding class for a school. As an Education Policy Intern, I did research and outreach work to help build and cultivate DonorsChoose.org networks by researching the top education influencers, conferences, coalitions, and organizations that DonorsChoose.org should connect with in order to help grow their impact across the nation. I also worked on internally based projects to help train and inform the DonorsChoose.org staff on education policy for the monthly "This Month in Education" email which is sent to all staff, along with managing a number of programs that are aimed to connect staff back to the everyday experiences that happen within the walls of the classroom.

One of my favorite aspects of DonorsChoose.org is how innovative thinking is praised above all else. No matter where or who an idea comes from, if it is innovative it will be lauded. The organization is always striving to make everything better, embracing the philosophy that even if something is already good, it can always become better. One of my projects was reinventing their school visit program, which was already a good program, but they wanted to make it great! To have the opportunity to work at an organization like DonorsChoose.org where I was encouraged to think innovatively and provide my opinion from the very first day was really empowering and a lesson that I will surely take with me in whatever career path I end up taking.

My Bates education has instilled in me the need to give back to my community, which is the driving force behind the second phase of my proposed project. I want to tie my experience at DonorsChoose.org this summer to the Lewiston community through a series of information sessions and posters, with the aim of educating Lewiston teachers on how to use DonorsChoose.org as a resource within their own classrooms, as well as provide tips on how to make project proposals that are more likely to be funded. DonorsChoose.org does not have a very strong presence in the Lewiston schools, something that I aim to change through my project, because DonorsChoose.org is a wonderful resource in an era of tight school budgets. I am in the process of planning these information sessions and am hopeful they will inspire Lewiston teachers to use DonorsChoose.org as a resource. I feel so grateful for all the help and support I received from the Harward Center, which made it possible for me to work with the Donorschoose.org team last summer.

Last summer, I interned with a non-profit called ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability in Cape Town, South Africa. This organization aims to build the capacity of local governments to address climate change and other related issues such as biodiversity loss through providing specialist knowledge on topics such as assigning economic value to ecosystem services - e.g. clean water.

My work included conducting green building policy research and analysis on the local government level. This work culminated in a policy analysis document that will be distributed to cities or towns in Africa that are interested in pursuing a green building policy. Through this project, I developed policy research skills and more effective communication skills. Because I had to contact resource efficient/green building experts for this project, I learned the importance of emotional intelligence and patience when dealing with extremely busy individuals. In addition to policy work, I also assisted with database management and grant prospecting. For the latter, I honed the proposal writing skills that I developed during a Bates Short Term course called Grant Writing. I assisted the proposal writing team at ICLEI to learn more about the grantmakers through producing brief summaries of the grantmakers, contributing to brainstorming sessions, and identifying possible partners for the project. This work was important to the organization because non-profits are constantly seeking additional funding for projects.  

Outside of my internship, I had a chance to meet with officials from the City of Cape Town's Environmental Management Department. My discussions with them and my internship confirmed my interest in pursuing environmental work on the local government level, either through working with non-profits that help urban areas adapt to climate change or working on at a city's environmental management department. Next summer, I plan to work with a city that is leading the way in responding to climate change in the United States. My time working with ICLEI also sparked an interest in collecting and sharing stories about how people in urban contexts are responding to climate change and its effects and some of the innovative social entrepreneurs that are developing solutions to this problem.

Most importantly, this experience enabled me to realize the importance of finding a vocation or job that allows for the intersection of one's interests and talents. I believe this intersection is key to achieving a fulfilling career and life.

Through a generous summer grant from the Harward Center, I led English conversation groups with immigrants, asylum-seekers, and refugees at Lewiston Adult Education's Adult Learning Center. The students with whom I worked came to Lewiston from over ten countries, and their ages ranged from early twenties to seventy-seven.

While my lessons included reading, listening, and writing components, I particularly focused on helping students develop confidence in their spoken English skills. One way to do this was by creating dialogues that introduced practical vocabulary words that can be useful to people who have recently come to the United States. One dialogue, for example, allowed students to practice calling 911. After discussing important vocabulary words and reading the dialogue aloud, students turned over their papers and pretended to call me, the fire dispatcher; upon my questioning, they provided their own names and addresses. If students should ever need to call 911 for themselves or a neighbor, they now have the English skills and self-sufficiency to do it.

Throughout a summer of conversation and Q&A sessions, I also learned about my students' lives, jobs, families, religious customs, favorite foods, the weather in their countries of origin, and what they liked about Lewiston. They, in turn, learned about important parts of my life. I regard the friendships and relationships that I have formed with students at the Adult Learning Center as the most meaningful part of my summer experience, as well as my time at Bates College.

My Harward Center Summer Fellowship gave me the opportunity to work full-time with youth programs and community members in Fort Kent, Maine to create a new structure: Unite FK. The mission of Unite FK is "to provide the community of Fort Kent with a website complete with all youth programs, events, and opportunities. By increasing collaboration between all individuals tied to youth development, we will expand opportunities for all adolescents in the region. The efforts of Unite FK will improve Fort Kent's status as, 'a great place to raise your children'." By August 7, 2014, the website was officially published, fully functional, and sharp-a clear success.

The development of Unite FK did not come easily, however. The entire project revolved around creating and testing new structures. In January of 2014, several community members asked me to take the project on. In response, I formed a summer internship program, calling upon local high schoolers to join me in the work. Full of creative energy, the interns were sorted into three teams: analysis, communications, and technology. We worked side by side with various community members, listening to all the voices tied to local youth programming, and putting together the blueprints and information for the website. We designed and built the site, planned and hosted a website launch dinner, and created an advisory board and independent study program for sustained development. As a group, we learned that a central component to successful community work is resiliency.

The notion of creating something new was frightening for all of us involved. If something did not work, we knew it was because of the structure we had created. The only way to achieve our goals was to be persistent and confident. When obstacles came our way, we would readjust, try something new, and carry it through with confidence. Extracting as much knowledge as possible from community members, we learned that every individual in Fort Kent had something to teach us. The only difficult part of working with community members came with the fact that many are overbooked. In order to work around this reality, my interns and I had to be persistent, as well as respectful, in order to get the information and advice we were seeking. Resiliency became most important when we were relying on these community members.

Another difficult component to the creation of Unite FK was being forced to respond to situations that were out of our control. Two weeks out from the launch dinner, for example, the local middle and high school athletic director, whom we had met with several times, resigned from his post. Everything we had discussed had to be discarded. Another situation that remained out of our control revolved around our website launch dinner. The projector provided by the local university gave off a purplish hue, and no one from the technology department was to be found. One of the intern's main projects was the creation of a promotional video that was to be premiered at the dinner. He was frustrated that he couldn't display his short film the way he imagined. But it was a confident resiliency, an attitude that our internship group carried, that left the community members at the dinner impressed by our work.

In the end, I put together a group of high schoolers and built a website that boasts professionalism, utility, aesthetics, and an important movement centered around Fort Kent area youth. More than that, I witnessed the power of Fort Kent as a community rich with resources: its people. Not only did the project allow me to learn and exchange ideas with community members ranging from 15-75, but it created ways for them to learn and exchange ideas with each other. The website is just a small, physical representation of all that took place in Fort Kent this past summer. And it wouldn't have been possible without the Harward Center.

This year the Harward Center worked with Maine Campus Compact and the Campus Election Engagement Project to encourage Bates faculty, staff, and students to participate actively in the local, state, and national election process.

Pre-election voter registration efforts in conjunction with student groups, residence halls, and TurboVote resulted in over 180 new or corrected voter registrations, both in Maine and in students' home states. In addition, 372 Bates students either completed new voter registration cards or updated their addresses at the polls.

Election-related events on campus ranged from presentations by and discussions with political science and government professors from Boston College, Bowdoin College, and Marquette University; screenings of politically-focused films; issue-related panel presentations on local referendums; phone-banking; and canvassing.

Election night results parties were held in Chase Hall with nearly 250 people in attendance. The season will finish off with a critical assessment of campaign ads by students in Rhetoric 391: Presidential Campaign Rhetoric and a Great Falls Forum in downtown Lewiston featuring election analysis and commentary by Bates professor of politics John Baughman.

We are proud of the efforts put forth by our students, faculty, and staff to promote participation in electoral politics as an important expression of civic responsibility. We look forward to expanding upon these efforts in future elections!

Coastal flooding is now a well-known risk on the eastern seaboard, raising difficult questions about low lying infrastructure, town budgets, flood insurance, emergency procedures, and land use policy. During the 2014 summer, Mark McCauley '15 and Nick Stewart '17 (now at Yale) helped to launch a new initiative, The Shortridge Coastal Policy Fellowship, for the purpose of providing answers to those difficult questions-or at least initiating the conversations that might do so.

For six weeks, Mark and Nick considered the impacts of sea level rise on Maine coastal communities, while focusing on the question: How might small Maine communities prepare for increased flooding of roads, homes, and lands? They began their inquiry by studying "marsh migration" maps developed by the Maine Geological Survey. The maps depict various sea level rise and storm surge scenarios, indicating the low lying areas and infrastructure that will be most impacted by flooding in six coastal towns. Mark and Nick identified possible land use methods or strategies that could be implemented to protect both landowners (from property loss) and taxpayers (from recurring damage and rebuilding costs). From that starting point, the work progressed rapidly toward community-wide presentations on the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) new flood maps and the National Flood Insurance Program.

In the fall of 2014 the Harward Center launched or refined several co-curricular programs designed to invite and equip increasing numbers of students to participate in the civic mission of the college. One such program focused on students who serve as leaders within residence halls. As part of their training in late August, sixty student leaders enjoyed a three-hour program that included a reception with local city and non-profit leaders, a guided walking tour of downtown Lewiston, a short program at a downtown museum featuring the history of Lewiston-Auburn and some of the ways Bates students have become involved off campus, as well as dinner catered by a local restaurant. By the end of the evening, residence hall leaders reported feeling motivated and equipped to be sources of civic information and encouragement for their fellow students. Since then, they have led their peers in diverse community-engaged programs, from exploring the Lewiston Farmer's Market to cooking brunch for elderly and disabled residents of a public housing complex. Assistant Dean of Students Erin Foster-Zsiga, who oversees residence life staff and programming at Bates, has become an important partner in the effort to boost civic learning and action through the residence hall system.

"It was refreshing to get off campus, also to spend time with a generation other than 18-22 year olds."   

"Being from Lewiston/Auburn, it was meaningful to me to be involved with an organization that benefits the community that has shaped who I am. I also didn't know this organization existed until this course, so it made me more aware of my own community and made me proud to be a local seeing even more wonderful aspects of these cities."  

"The city of Lewiston has been a very valuable part of my Bates experience. I have spent my four years volunteering in various spheres of the Lewiston-Auburn community, and I have developed relationships within the local community that are equally as important as those I have developed at Bates. The cities offer so many applicable learning opportunities for students such as myself, and really serve as another classroom in which I can use the skills I have garnered at Bates in productive and progressive ways that have a positive impact on members of the Lewiston-Auburn community. When I come back to Bates in the future, I will not just come back to the campus but I will come back to Lewiston."

My community-engaged learning project/assignment/experience:

"Bates students always demonstrate a high level of professionalism, motivation and interest in learning, which is immensely helpful to our work."   

"The enthusiasm of the Bates students is always a welcome addition at our school. Our students look forward to reading with the Bates students or playing with them on the playground."   

"Since [our clients] live in poverty and are sometimes isolated, they often do not have the opportunity for educational and enrichment programming outside of their normal social circles. Therefore, student involvement in their lives is huge. Exposure and involvement with students often make a monumental difference in their lives."

Working with Bates students, staff, and/or faculty: