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Snapshots of Our Member Campuses |
Snapshots of our Member Campuses
"Literacy and Love of Words" a course from the Center for Creative Teaching requires each student to tutor a local child for 1.5 hours each week during the term. The students are also building connections with those they tutor, giving them positive role models who read, encourage reading, and pay special attention to kids. With 30 students out in the community, there is a lot of impact. A Bennington student and Raise Your Voice Civic Fellow organized the Dance for Democracy. Since she grew up in Bennington, she related to the young adults who complain about having nothing to do. With a "Month of Action" Grant of the Raise Your Voice campaign, she was able to coordinate a dance celebrating Democracy. It included food, prizes, a mock vote, voter registration, local politicians, and candidates speaking to young people. Many high school students attended, along with college kids, and politically active adults. This event truly brought everyone in the community together.. Faculty, Staff, Students, and Trustees are adding their names to the growing list of Vermonters who are taking part in the Play it Forward "Hidden Hunger" Video challege to have 5000 people see the video "Hidden Hunger" by Thanksgiving 2004 The Burlington College Student Association will host a Hunger Banquet on April 21, 2004 at 12:30 pm for the BC Community. There will be a non-perishable food drive as part of the May 29, 2004 Commencement Event. Burlington College offers a B.A. in social ecology
with tracks in alternative agriculture and food systems; social
and political theory; activism, organizing, and community development;
sustainable design, building, and land use; and popular education;
The program explores eco-philosophies and anthropological studies
which can provide an informed basis for our actions in order to
take us beyond a "band-aid" approach to environmental
problems. Students will combine theoretical study with experiential
learning in community organizing, political action, ecological
economics, organic agriculture and alternative technology. Students from the Social Welfare Policies, Programs and Issues course partnered with the Vermont Agency of Human Services on their reorganization project. With the passage of the FY2003 Appropriation Act, the Vermont General Assembly instructed the Agency for Human Services to recommend a comprehensive plan for reorganization of the Agency's operations. The students in this course assist the Agency by distributing Agency surveys to community residents, conducting survey focus groups to explain the survey to those in need, serving as scribes for the Rutland County Community meetings, and collecting the data and sending it to the Agency's home office It is the hope that the valuable feedback received from these surveys will allow the Agency to wisely spend public funds, improve coordination and eliminate waste and overlapping programs, enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the Agency's programs, and prepare the State of Vermont for the social dilemmas it will be confronted with in the years and decades to come. Students from the Community in American Society class actively participated in Rutland's United Neighborhoods (RUN) program "Crime and Substance Abuse: A Community Dialogue." This program brought concerned residents from Rutland communities together in organized discussions to produce an "action plan" to help understand and lessen problems of crime and substance abuse in the Rutland region. Students participated in various capacities including recorders for meeting minutes, data gathers and organizers, facilitators and community participants. This course required time and work outside of the classroom, usually in the evenings. The Motor Learning course, within our Physical Education Department, is currently working with the Vermont Adapted Ski and Sport (VASS) program. VASS is committed to furthering the equality and independence of individuals with disabilities by providing access to sports and recreational activities. While in the classroom and as volunteers working with VASS, students will explore three major themes in Motor Learning: the information-processing model, the whole verses part method of teaching and learning, and designing appropriate learning activities based on skill, learning style and ability of the learners. Students will leave this class with a better understanding of major Motor Learning concepts and with an appreciation for the value in establishing reciprocal relationships with community members. Champlain College recently started two new groups on campus, Students at Champlain for an Active Democracy and Student forum to promote civic engagement on campus. Champlain students hosted 10 deliberative dialogues on their campus engaging over 100 people in topics ranging from Gender issues, race issues, civil liberties, and the parking problem on campus. The Accounting program at Champlain has been involved in service-learning through the nationwide Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program, offering tax preparation to low-income and elderly citizens for the past 20 years. Upon hearing the plight of several families that were suddenly evicted from their homes in October 2003, one CCV Foundations of Reading and Writing class took action. The class coordinated fundraising efforts at their CCV site, eventually raising enough money for the evicted families to pay security deposits and rent for new apartments, but this class was not done yet. The families now had new places to live, but they had nothing to furnish their new homes with. The class continued their fundraising efforts and began seeking furniture donations from local stores. Within a week, they were able to help these families completely furnish their new apartments. In the Fall of 2003, twenty-four student reading
partners read a combined total of 2,046 hours with 569 elementary
school children at sixteen sites through Community College of
Vermont's America Reads program. The M.A. Concentration in Partnership Education is designed to enable graduates to assume leadership positions in educational and community environments, and bring the ideals of a more just, equitable, and caring society into his or her practice. "Students from the Special Topics on Energy and the Environment class spent the semester working with Efficiency Vermont in order to get every household in Poultney to 'Change a Light.' The goal was to replace one energy inefficient light bulb with an energy efficient compact fluorescent bulb. The students did most of the groundwork, from handing out bulbs at Williams Hardware during Parents Weekend to making calls and delivering bulbs themselves. This project received much press and was very successful. There was an end of the semester celebration with Efficiency VT, Williams Hardware, the town manager and the students from the class. Each were given a personal letter from the governor." "The Leisure Systems Design and Evaluation class worked with the Supervisor of Rutland City Parks and Recreation to conduct a region-wide inventory of recreation facilities and programs. This information will be used to help plan for the scope of and services offered in the Rutland Regional Recreation Center, currently in its planning stages. The students reflected on this work in the form of both a written document and a formal presentation given to staff members from Rutland City Parks and Recreation." "The Poultney Partners Mentoring Program was
established in the fall of 2003 as a result of several initiatives
resulting from meetings by the town and Green Mountain College
over the last year on how the two could work more closely together.
Both groups identified mentoring of youth as an important need
in Poultney and a good service opportunity for college students.
The mission of Poultney Partners is to foster caring, supportive,
and meaningful connections between older and younger students
in the Poultney community. There are currently 43 mentors from
GMC and 43+ mentees from the elementary and junior high schools.
This has been a highly successful program with great press and
feedback from both Poultney and Green Mountain College." As part of a unit on Classical and Operant Conditioning, students in Dr. Gina Mireault's Introductory Psychology ventured out of the classroom to the North Country Animal League to learn to apply the principles of learning. Their task was twofold: learn the strengths and weaknesses of learning theory through its application, and teach shelter dogs some basic etiquette to shorten their stay in the shelter and ease their transition to home life. Johnson State College's strategic planning process
includes the integration of academic and student life experiences.
The college is determining strategies to develop a full and accessible
range of co-curricular programming that is dynamic, well supported,
linked to academic curricula, and deeply embedded in the life
of the college. A focal point of this will be service learning. Students at Lyndon State College used a Month of Action mini-grant to create a video about civic engagement happening at campuses across the state. The college's community assembly is modeled on the traditional New England Town Meeting. All students, faculty and staff members may participate, each with an equal vote. The monthly assembly governs community life and serves as a forum for college-wide issues. Community sentiment figures heavily into administrative decisions, and Town Meeting representatives serve on a number of faculty and administrative committees, and represent the students at trustee meetings. Town Meeting distributes thousands of dollars to committee projects and student initiatives. The Fall 2003 ES 401 course tackled three different projects related to the theme of environmental justice. The primary community partner was the Toxics Action Center (a statewide organization located in Montpelier), but each of the three groups also worked with local citizen groups in communities facing environmental injustices. The students have been fully immersed in issues such as cancer clusters with a variety of environmental pollutants as likely causes, and rural communities battling multi-national mining corporations. It was a mind and eye-opening experience for them-many have expressed the desire to be more civicly engaged, to continue an active role either on these issues or issues facing their hometown local communities, and several will be pursuing graduate work in public health. Students from this class displayed results of their work at Toxic Action Center's annual conference and participated in a media press release for the statewide map of toxic sites that they produced. Students from an Environmental Policy class spent
the semester researching data related to sprawl and its effects,
and specifically, any data that might explain the relationship
between the outflow of population from the biggest town to smaller
towns in the county, high property tax rates, and the larger town's
stagnant housing growth. This data was then presented to town
and county officials, lawmakers, and planning boards, and printed
in an article in the county newspaper. New England Culinary Institute Students in the Bachelor of Arts in Food and Beverage Management program spent the term working with the Northeast Organic Farming Association and VT FEED (Food Education Every Day) program to further the mission of promoting sound eating habits in children. Students examined current practices in school cafeterias, family dining habits, food availability to schools and budget-minded families, as well as the nutritional needs of young people. Through their research, and self-managed team, students worked in conjunction with the community partner and their Nutrition professor, to put together a presentation and supporting materials that VT FEED will be able to use to continue with their mission of educating schools, parents, and children about the importance of healthy eating. In staying with the mission of NOFA, students focused on supporting Vermont farmers and food producers. Students in Geoff Davison's PE class (Programming
and Activities for the Disabled and Aging) organize competitions
for Special Olympics participants who normally train for one sport
for eight weeks and then have only one opportunity to compete.
This process, repeated for several sports that the athlete may
be involved in, can be quite boring. The class-organized events
therefore provide an intermediary event as well as another opportunity
for competition. Because of the great work his students have done,
Norwich University has become one of only eight US universities
to be chosen to implement Special Olympics curriculum throughout
the department. SL was a major component of this success. Six students in Wendy Cox's Architectural Design Studio were invited by The Keene Community Trust to find creative solutions to some of the site development and planning issues currently facing the Town of Keene, New York. The team's focus was to promote features that fostered a sense of community and allowed for pedestrian access to services and amenities. After developing plans and making recommendations, a bound volume of their work, with original color graphics, was presented to the Keene Valley Library. Students in one section of Rowly Brucken's Historical Methods course interviewed Norwich staff, faculty, and alumni about their experiences with civil rights issues and struggles. They will present their completed research papers to a committee which is forming a Museum of Acceptance on the NU campus. From this pool of about 30 NU community members, several will be chosen for formal induction and all documents will be displayed in the Norwich University Museum of Acceptance. As a result of taking a First Year Seminar course that focused on Peace and Justice issues a student was paired up with a third grade class at a local elementary school in Burlington, VT. As a result of this experience, the SMC student was matched up with a young girl that made her residence in a local homeless shelter. Her experience with this young girl and with COTS (Committee on Temporary Shelter) resulted in her becoming a regular volunteer with this organization. This past year, she organized all the volunteer coordination at two shelters: The Family Firehouse Shelter and The Main Street Shelter both located in Burlington. Also, she initiated a project to establish a sustainable mentoring and tutoring program at both of these shelters. Throughout the Fall 2003 semester, the Holistic
Nursing: Populations at Risk nursing students collaborated with
Southwestern Vermont Medical Center and area churches to host
Flu Clinics for the Bennington community. Sixteen students spent
three hours each day for four weeks administering flu shots to
area residents for a total of approximately 1000 hours of service
to the community. For a resident(s) who could not pay, the College's
nursing students administered the flu shot for free. During the Fall 2002 semester, the Advertising class
worked with 12 non-profit agencies including Meals on Wheels,
The American Red Cross, Bennington Coalition for the Homeless,
and The AIDS Project of Southern Vermont to write and produce
public service announcements on the College's radio station. Springfield College of Human Resources Springfield students and the Springfield College Center for Social Change partnered with the St. Johnsbury Academy to produce a one-act play names shoes about the difficult experiences that low income people encounter on a daily bases. This play was performed for local 5th and 6th graders to educate the local youth on the issues of poverty. Springfield College has partnered with different
organizations such as the Department of Corrections Workcamp and
a Mood Disorders Support Group to host art shows for the community
that help educate people about different issues in their community.
In 1999 Environmental Science students surveyed sediment levels in streams in the Caspian Lake watershed in Greensboro, Vermont, using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. Students in Service Learning repeated the surveys in 2003. Greensboro Association members used the results to inform road management practices in the watershed. Serendipitously, the student findings are relevant to an Act 250 review, currently in progress. Students in Foundations of Outdoor Education and Leadership led teambuilding activities with 6th graders from both Craftsbury Academy and Wolcott Elementary. Next fall these students will be in the same 7th grade class. The 36 students broke into small groups comprised of students from both schools, learned each others names, and then participated in a variety of problem-solving activities ranging from trying to balance the whole group on a small platform, to negotiating an "acid river" by helping each other balance while walking on a cable between two trees. The activities demanded that the participants work together, and in the course of the two-hour session, new friendships were forged that will make next year's 7th grade class a more socially positive environment. Meanwhile, the Sterling College students who facilitated the activities learned a lot about managing a group of 6th graders! Students in Woodlot Practices helped two Eden, Vermont
landowners thin some of their forested land. Students learned
precision chainsaw tree-felling techniques on the selective thinning
project. The landowners wanted to donate the small diameter maple
trees that were cut to Sterling's Emergency Heating Assistance
Project. Students in Tools and Their Application-a first-year
class that teaches safe, efficient use of tools important to natural
resource work-cut, split, and stacked the wood. Throughout the
winter, firewood was delivered to Craftsbury residents who couldn't
afford to buy firewood. Nancy Welch's English class, Literacy Politics, works with teens in the Teen Futures Program at the King Street Youth Center to expand their use of the web, poetry, and creative writing, while studying the differences in access to education based on socio-economic status. Richard Schramm's CDAE class created the Food Farms and Schools Program, which works to link the Burlington School system with local farmers in order to create more healthy options for student lunches, and to expand the use of local farms as suppliers in an effort to create a more sustainable community. Lynne Bond's Community Psychology class works with the City of Burlington Community and Economic Development office to survey specific neighborhoods about community involvement and leadership, and created recommendations for community leaderships training. Two permanent results are the ongoing Forums on Racism program and the Facilitative Leadership Program, both offered by CEDO. Jackie Weinstock's Human Development and Family
Studies class (all first years) works on 4 different projects
with the Burlington Boys and Girls Club (a dance class, a home
work club, a rock climbing program and one other) while studying
the concept of bullying in class. In keeping with Vermont Law School's dedication to experiential learning, the South Royalton Legal Clinic offers second and third year J.D. students the unique opportunity to represent clients in actual civil cases. Student clinicians provide help for persons otherwise unable to afford counsel in areas such as family law, juvenile law and children's rights, Social Security, welfare and unemployment compensation, civil rights and civil liberties, landlord-tenant relations, consumer protection, bankruptcy, contracts, wills, and federally subsidized health care and housing. They have recently begun to provide some representation in immigration law, as well. Qualified students seeking to sharpen their research,
advocacy and litigation skills, while advancing the goals of environmental
protection, may enroll in Vermont Law School's Environmental and
Natural Resources Law Clinic. The Clinic builds on our expertise
in environmental and natural resources law and our extensive connections
throughout the local, regional, and national conservation communities.
Student clinicians work on behalf of public interest, environmental,
and conservation organizations, and learn how to find their way
through the complex maze of laws and procedures that regulate
economic development and resource extraction activities. Vermont Technical College has formed a strong partnership
with Foundation for Excellent Schools through mentoring and Early
College Awareness days. VTC is partnering with Braintree Elementary School
to create a “Documenting our Communities” project. Wellness on Wheels Project Bringing Youth Voice to State Policy Restructuring State Services with Input from
Communities |
