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COMMUNITY PARTNER INTEREST FORMS
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The Art Department has worked with area arts educators to contribute to K-12 curriculum development. The Business Administration Department has long made important contributions to the community and its organizations through student internships and faculty consulting. Approximately a year ago, department faculty helped design a professional development program for high school business educators. Business Administration Department students developed a database to allow the Rutland Housing Coalition to track homeless clients. Recently students in a marketing research class undertook a study on behalf of the Vermont Historical Society to investigate why the annual number of visits to the state’s historical sites has declined. Other students in this class worked with the Investor Protection Trust and with a local group interested in establishing a railroad museum in Rutland, Vermont. Students from the Communication Department, under the supervision of the department’s senior faculty member, developed public service announcements promoting seat-belt use for a coalition of Vermont law enforcement agencies. A student-produced documentary on the Rutland Family Court was used to convince the state legislature to appropriate funding for a new court. Students in a service-learning course helped a rural school improve internal communications and its relationship with the local community. Through the department’s Video Magazine course, students provide public-access television coverage of local elections and topics such as an innovative court diversion program. Students create web sites for not-for-profit groups and, as interns, make notable contributions to organizations like the American Red Cross, a community theater/performance space, and the local PEG-access cable television station. A fall 2004 course in Media and Politics researched policy issues relevant to the November 2004 elections and brought these to the attention of the campus community. A documentary workshop course, in conjunction with a social work class, produced a 20-minute videotape exploring the lives of the poor in the surrounding region. A spring 2005 semester mass communication course looked at race, gender, and class in contemporary media and will deliver presentations on their studies to local K-12 schools. Criminal Justice students have participated in a program at the local correctional facility to teach inmates decision-making skills. Two students volunteered to serve as members of Reparative Boards that help the courts and the Department of Corrections arrange alternative, community-based sentencing. Another student assists the Police Explorer Program of the Rutland, Vermont, Police Department. An Economics faculty member has helped teachers meet the “highly qualified teacher” requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind law. In a variety of ways, the Education Department supports the college’s America Reads program; typically half of the students serving as “reading partners” in that program each year are education majors. The department’s service-learning Foundations of Education course results in students contributing to approximately six different community agencies. Recent examples include an initiative whereby education students assisted elementary school children in the use of technology. Faculty increasingly seek to ensure that program-related work that students do in area K-12 schools directly supports school improvement plans. One of the department’s faculty had students in her spring 2006 curriculum course write guides for all the cultural programs to be provided to area elementary schools during 2006-2007 by the ArtsReach program (see below). Through the newly established Castleton Center for Schools, the department has sponsored most of the 102 professional development courses offered over the last year to strengthen and support area schools and their staffs. For the past two years, members of the English Department have sponsored and helped plan a summer institute for educators, focused on the teaching of writing using Vermont authors. In ENG-1061, the department’s required English Composition course, in addition to learning the forms of writing most important to academic thought and expression, students also have a unique opportunity to develop interpersonal communication competence while interacting with a community member involved in hospice or home care. They attend weekly meetings with this individual, listen and learn her/his life story, and tape-record and transcribe the resulting narrative. Ultimately they produce a finished version of this memoir, write a paper in which they reflect on their experience, and present their work to the class as well as to the individual. A Geography professor recruited a student to write a curriculum guide to help teachers of early-grade children prepare their students to attend a college musical performance by a group from Mali. This same faculty member also has helped teachers meet the “highly qualified teacher” requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind law. History program faculty helped plan, contribute to, and direct a three-year project to improve the teaching of American history in southern Vermont schools. Students in a history service-learning course developed tour maps for the Rutland Historical Society and helped organize the group’s extensive artifact and document collections. History faculty have agreed to support the community outreach education efforts of the Hildene Foundation, situated on the estate of Abraham Lincoln’s son Robert Todd Lincoln. Mathematics Department faculty have made significant contributions to the improvement of K-12 math instruction in southern Vermont through the Vermont Math Partnership initiative. Students are helping schools assess their needs for math content, pedagogy, and curriculum development and will be making presentations to each of the schools on their findings. Under the guidance of in-service teachers, mathematics majors offer remedial assistance to students in local schools. Castleton’s Music Department has provided professional development for Vermont music educators and enriches public elementary and secondary schools through traveling student performance groups. In spring 2005, the Music Department began offering its Harmony Road music program to the 1st and 2nd graders at Castleton Elementary School. Harmony Road is a comprehensive music program that emphasizes keyboard playing. Children develop music literacy and ear-training skills through a combination of singing and playing both rhythm instruments and keyboards. The Music Department hopes to expand this program to include students from Poultney and Fair Haven elementary schools in the near future. Natural Sciences Department faculty are engaged in field research in support of the region’s cities and towns, including one community that faces what appears to be a “cancer cluster.” These faculty have, with their Education Department colleagues, become important partners in an effort to help in-service teachers strengthen their science content knowledge and pedagogy. The department also has organized and supports an “Outdoor Classroom,” open to area grade school classes for the purpose of nature and science education. The astrophysicist who the department recently hired has been working with the regional citizens’ astronomy club to recondition the college’s observatory and make it available to area residents for stargazing and study. This same faculty member led a “star club” at Ludlow (Vermont) Elementary School, including by organizing and attending the club’s weekly meetings. A college geologist and his students helped children at a local elementary school use GIS technology to map the campus of their school and the natural resources present there. Most recently, a Natural Sciences Department geochemist supervised an area elementary school teacher in a study of arsenic in the drinking water of her school. Through the Nursing Department’s strong commitment to service-learning, students make numerous contributions to citizens of the region. Working in local schools, home health agencies, and senior residential and community centers, students provide health promotion, health prevention teaching, and other nursing interventions. For example, students work with the staff of Park Street Health Share to create and deliver health and wellness education focused on nutrition, proper medication use, exercise programs, and compliance with the therapeutic management of any health problem. Similarly, each fall students help administer flu vaccine to the public. Physical Education Department students teach skiing to handicapped children and adults participating in the Vermont Adaptive Ski and Sport program. The department’s majors have for many years hosted an annual Halloween party for town children and frequently volunteer to coach 6th through 8th grade teams at area schools. Exercise Science students help organize a “Spring Into Health” fair, an ambitious annual event open to the public and offering free health information and screenings. Students in PED-2810 developed a recreational program for a Rutland (Vermont) elementary school. Students in PED-3140 organized and ran an after-school recreational program for children in the college’s local community. Psychology Department faculty and students help some Vermont schools make sense of reams of data on student learning and related demographic characteristics. They have worked with an area K-12 school to develop a highly successful program of interventions addressing the needs and challenges of disruptive boys and are, more generally, involved in assessing school climate and designing interventions to improve it. Faculty and their students have evaluated a seatbelt use education campaign, outcomes of an area court diversion program, the after-school programs of seven area schools, an innovative detoxification program for women offenders, and a drug rehabilitation program in Burlington, Vermont. Psychology faculty help train Vermont police officers, and department students conduct research on training quality at the Vermont Police Academy. Graduate students have taught at the local correctional center; a number of students have worked in the Rutland Court Diversion program; and two students presently work for the new regional Drug Court, doing evaluations and performing paralegal duties. Students have also undertaken internships in a wide range of social service, criminal justice, and correctional agencies. Students of the Social Work program helped the Vermont Agency of Human Services plan a reorganization of the agency’s regional services by administering surveys and conducting public meetings to determine what changes should be made. Another group of students helped a developer plan a low-income housing project by holding meetings among residents of existing low-income facilities and conducting door-to-door interviews of these residents as well as citizens in general. (The new facility, reflecting significant input from this student-led process, is presently occupied by very satisfied residents.) Last year, students in the Social Welfare Policy, Programs, and Issues course attempted to reach all 300 homeless families/individuals served by the Rutland Housing Coalition to assess satisfaction with Coalition services for the homeless and to determine what else is needed. A social work service-learning course sponsored an on-campus debate among the six candidates running for state senate in the last election. Students also assisted in voter registration efforts and collected and displayed campaign literature from most statewide candidates. Students of the Social Issues Club, advised by a social work faculty member, took the lead in organizing a holiday diner party for 150 homeless people of the county. In fall 2004, social work students administrated a survey to poor residents of the region on the conditions of poverty and, in collaboration with communication majors taking a documentary workshop course, produced a 20-minute documentary entitled “I’m Still Poor.” In the fall of 2005, students taking SWK-4010 worked with the Rutland Housing Coalition to identify the difficulties men and women face when trying to re-enter society after incarceration as well as the needs and demands of the community in such instances. Students facilitated neighborhood meetings and made home visits to gather intensive neighborhood input on this subject. The information gathered was presented to local and state policy makers. Sociology students participating in a Community Action Seminar course performed a “campus mapping” activity that analyzed college decision-making processes and opportunities for student “voice,” and reported their findings to the President’s Cabinet. These and other students have organized several important campus dialogs on matters of common concern. One member of the department and his students helped the Rutland United Neighborhoods organization identify and begin to address key community concern regarding crime and drug abuse. A sociology professor organized a first-year seminar course in Introduction to Sociology, based on service-learning principles, to marvelous effect. After collecting several tons of garbage from the banks of a beautiful Vermont river, students learned basic principles of sociology by sorting and inventorying the waste, investigating its sources, and studying both the demographics of the community that produced the waste and the factors that contribute to illegal dumping. Students in SOC-2130 implemented and assessed Phase One of Castleton’s “Green Campus Initiative,” a comprehensive plan written by students in Anthropology and the Environment, a spring 2005 service-learning class. Phase One of the project, begun at new student Orientation in 2005, initiated recycling in every building on campus, educated the community on the need to recycle at Castleton, modified the plan for the program as needed, assessed the recycling project, and determined what aspects of the initiative should be pursued during 2006-2007. Spanish program students and faculty regularly contribute Spanish language and culture enrichment programs to local communities, senior citizen groups, and elementary schools. Working with a faculty member, student majors started a Spanish Club in a geographically remote school. They also helped with the Physical Education Department’s Halloween party and during the week prior to this event met with local children to make masks and learn about the Mexican “Day of the Dead.” Most recently, they organized a “Mexican Adventure Camp” as part of a summer enrichment program for area children. Spanish program faculty strive to be responsive to the professional development needs of local Spanish teachers and have organized meetings, workshops, institutes, and courses tailored to meet these needs. In 2003, Castleton’s Theater Arts Department initiated a highly successful “drama camp” for young children of the region. The department has run the camp annually since. Last year, one of the department’s senior majors and his colleagues taught elementary students from three area schools theater techniques and helped them produce a series of short plays for students, parents, and other guests. Whenever the chosen play is appropriate, the department produces special matinee performances of mainstage productions for area elementary and secondary schools.
Alternative Spring Break (ASB) is a student-run organization that endeavors to promote service at the regional and national levels through programs (scheduled to occur during breaks in the college calendar) that immerse students in different cultures, heighten social awareness, and promote a lifelong disposition toward social action. ASB is a year-round commitment that seeks to raise awareness of global issues through education and through intensive service-learning experiences benefiting the host community while fostering kinship among participating Castleton students. Castleton’s ASB group was founded in 1995 by students who wanted to make a difference through a program that represented a striking “alternative” to traditional college spring-break trips to resorts like Cancun. They planned a trip to Boston, Massachusetts, where they worked with the homeless, the elderly, and the blind. What began as an interest among just a few students to travel within the New England area has grown into an international commitment. In 2004, 14 Castleton students traveled to Nicaragua and worked with Project Chacocente. Another student group returned to the same site in 2005. Following this life-changing experience, two graduating seniors returned to Nicaragua as full-time volunteers. Others have gone down to serve as volunteers over the summer. This year’s ASB trip was to the Gulf Coast town of Houma, Louisiana, to assist with repair and relief efforts necessitated by Hurricane Katrina. Since 1997, Castleton’s America Reads volunteers have been providing reading practice, support, and positive modeling to young children with the goal of fostering a child’s enjoyment of reading, skill in reading, and sense of competence. In the past year alone, 28 Castleton students and one college administrator served 245 children. The program took place in six Vermont schools, one New York school, an after-school program at the Castleton Town Free Library, and some area daycare centers. Sponsored by the college’s Fine Arts Center and in its third year, Castleton’s ArtsReach program provides area elementary schools and their children free access to inspiring arts and cultural programming. Each year approximately 10 music, theater, and dance events are offered, the majority of which are presented by groups from distant lands. As a result, the generally very sheltered students of homogeneous rural Vermont gain positive exposure to uniquely broadening experiences. (Most of these events are “piggy-backed” on the schedule arranged for the Soundings program, which the college requires of all new students.) |
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