Tag Archives: Staff perspective

Conflict Transformation Spotlight: CCE Updates from 2022

Middlebury’s Center for Careers and Internship Students pictured with United States Senator Bernie Sanders in Washington, D.C.

This blog post draws from the remarks of Kailee Brickner-McDonald, Interim Director at the Center for Community Engagement, which were shared at the 2022 Clifford Symposium staff and faculty panel.

In September 2022, Middlebury College hosted the annual Clifford Symposium. This year, the Symposium focused on conflict transformation and the myriad ways Middlebury faculty, staff, and students address conflict at home and around the world. The keynote speaker at the Clifford Symposium was John Paul Lederach, Professor Emeritus of International Peacebuilding at the University of Notre Dame. Author of 22 books, including “The Little Book of Conflict Transformation,” and with experience designing and conducting training programs in 25 countries across five continents, Lederach is known for pioneering conflict transformation work, illustrating conflict transformation requires “both solutions and social change.”

Fourteen CCE students funded through the Conflict Transformation Collaborative presented at the student poster session on how their community engagement activities fall within conflict transformation. The Clifford Symposium also included a panel in which Middlebury faculty and staff shared experiential opportunities for Middlebury students to explore conflict transformation across the institution. As a panelist, Kailee Brickner-McDonald explained why the CCE’s mission focuses on providing community-based experiences to students: “Community-based experiences allow relationships and critical moments to emerge into spaces we can consider more expansive questions, social context, and complexity. The Conflict Transformation lens encourages us to build programs and relationships with more intention and support to make the most of those inevitable, challenging, messy spaces.”

Conflict transformation work with communities encourages students to expect and embrace the tensions that arise while working towards a collaborative solution. “This collaborative work,” Kailee said, “prepares students for lives of meaning and impact through community connection.” She outlined how the hopes of the Conflict Transformation Collaborative align well with the CCE’s mission for students to develop their civic knowledge, skills, and identities. Through their connections in communities, students can explore curiosities in three areas:

  1. Civic Identities: How do I contribute to conflict and peace? What are my responsibilities to and choices in my communities? How do my values and experiences drive my personal engagement?
  2. Civic Knowledge: How do I critique the situation from multiple lenses and perspectives? Do I understand the role of power and justice? What resources already exist in the community?
  3. Civic Skills: How can I practice cultural humility in interpersonal communication? How do I approach dialogue across differences? In what ways can I facilitate collaborative relationships? 

In each of these areas, what starts as a tidy-sounding, community-connected experience gets complicated by collaboration, gets real because of relationships, and gets instructive because of inquiry. The conflict transformation lens says to expect and embrace the tensions that arise from working on complex issues among different people and approach them as gifts– spaces where change can happen. Experiential learning opportunities embedded in community building activities offer:

  • Growth points in students’ development of their civic knowledge: students learn to critique their situations from multiple lenses and perspectives; students build their understanding of the role of power and justice
  • Places to apply skills that require practice: students practice cultural humility in interpersonal communication and try out dialogue across differences; students have a chance to facilitate collaborative relationships
  • Sparks that guide students to explore their Identities: students get to ask critical questions like: “How do I contribute to conflict and peace? What are my responsibilities, choices, and positionality in my communities? What do I still need to learn?”

On the panel, Kailee provided several examples of this work, including one from the CCE’s 2022 History in Translation trip:

Students participating in the History in Translation program (Experiential and Intercultural Exploration of Executive Order 9066) visited a “War Relocation Center” for Japanese Americans in World War II. “There they learned the language they’ve grown up using (like “internment camps”) is harmful and sanitizing– to their guide at the incarceration site who’s giving them a tour, and others.”

How did History in Translation explore this conflict on their trip?

CCE staff member Kristin Mullins, Assistant Director of Intercultural and Global Programs, worked with colleagues to bring students from Middlebury College and International Christian University in Mitaka, Japan, together for shared exploration, reflection, and conversation on this piece of US history. Despite the differences in geography, culture, and identities, all participants reflected on who they are and why certain language matters to them. Everyone learned something different about the far-from-homogeneous movement to recognize the impacts of Executive Order 9066 and the nuances and evolution of language choices and memory of the conflicts. Check out the program’s website to see how their work evolved– it captures the documents they collaboratively translated, photos from the experience, and reflections on their learning: History in Translation – Learning through translation (middcreate.net).

The CCE’s work explores conflict not just through topical exploration of current and historical conflicts but also in interpersonal dynamics embedded in all relational programs. Kailee provided another example working with two student leaders of an alternative break program at Middlebury:

The co-leaders/friends were preparing for an environmental justice-themed trip, but after one felt like her voice didn’t matter in their decision-making, their friendship started to erode, and one considered leaving the team. CCE staff worked with them to navigate their interpersonal conflict, support collaboration, and create a positive and affirming space for both students. As Kailee put it, “The collaborative, relational aspect of community engagement work–in this case, the co-creation of a logistically-heavy, team-based learning experience–created a hurdle, and a chance for these students to practice the appreciative inquiry, listening, and participatory decision-making skills they gained in their leadership training and discussed in staff advising conversations, to try out navigating interpersonal conflict in a new, restorative way.”

The CCE’s programs, reflective and inquiring spaces, and interpersonal dynamics contribute to how we address conflict transformation here at home and abroad. Kailee provided one last example to demonstrate how conflict transformation shows up in our work with students who are engaging with various communities:

A student in a Privilege & Poverty summer internship was working with a community organization that addresses housing access. After multiple experiences seeing clients return to the shelter due to factors beyond which the organization can support, the student zooms out to question the policy choices and social constructions that make houselessness a possibility in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. They bring these questions back to their internship cohort gathering and, through reflective conversation, realize they’re not alone in questioning the adequacy of direct service and their role in social change. Students begin to marvel at the interconnectedness of their work across different social services organizations and begin to identify how much they don’t know that they want and need to know, with an eye to the next semester’s course catalog. Students also build connections and develop mentors at their internship sites, allowing them to connect with others about how they’re sustained in doing this challenging, necessary work.


In closing, Kailee remarked, “Working with students to develop their civic knowledge, skills, and identities certainly leads to personal change, but that change also translates into how students engage as humans strengthening communities and contributing to the public good– at the personal, interpersonal, local/community, and national/global levels.”

The CCE is excited to be involved in this challenging and far-reaching work alongside other partners at Middlebury and to see how our work with communities grows and develops throughout the Conflict Transformation grant. For more information on the Conflict Transformation Collaborative, visit the Conflict Transformation website and Instagram.

Finding Your Place

For many students, beginning college can be an exciting, albeit challenging time. In addition to the new academic expectations and experiences, new students are often discovering an entirely new community both on campus and in a new town or state. At Middlebury College, first-year students, 97% of whom come from another state or country, join a thriving campus community of more than 2,500 students in a town of more than 8,500 people. A vital part of integrating into the Middlebury community is finding your place, whether that be through a tight-knit group of friends formed during New Student Weekend, a program hosted by the Anderson Freeman Resource Center, or weekly club meetings organized by one of the student organizations on campus. 

At the Center for Community Engagement, our goal is to support each Middlebury College student in finding their place on campus, locally within Middlebury and as a global citizen. We offer a wide array of programs, courses, and clubs that can fit into any schedule, focused on a multitude of interest areas like civic leadership, youth & mentoring, global engagement and language programs, and more. Many of our student leaders are varsity athletes or work-study students, and we find ways to help them find community engagement opportunities that fit with their busy schedules. While each of our program areas may speak to a different skill set or passion project, each shares a similar goal: to encourage students to engage in self-exploration, self-expression, and consider their place and power in whatever community they belong to. 

For many students, CCE programs provide a space for students to make friends, build a support network, and find personal and professional growth opportunities. Madelyn Lander ‘23, who founded the CCE supported community engagement organization Yellow House Community Club shared the following quote about her experience at Yellow House Community, which inspired her to start the Middlebury club:

 “Every day was different, and every week I discovered a new part of our community here in Midd that I had never known existed before. With Yellow House I traveled to farms in the area, volunteering with Yellow House residents to give back to the community which supports us, went on more hikes than I could count, and spent hours in the kitchen making lunches and helping to prep dinners with everyone.” 

In addition to the experiences available through student-led organizations, community connected learning courses provide an experiential learning opportunity that encourages students to engage in hands-on community building activities. CCE staff teach a Community Connected Learning course (INTD 121), which is a great way for new students to start building community with project support. Emily Carfi ‘21, who served as a Community Connected Learning Course Project Assistant said:

“[Community Connected Learning] was a great way for me to pursue community work with great guidance during such a difficult time of year. I learned about fellow Midd students’ involvement in the community, and I also learned about different organizations that are located in Addition County, which I hadn’t heard of before. It was so inspiring to see how all these students contributed to different organizations meant to serve different groups of people in need.” 

For students who would like a more individualized connection with the CCE, we offer Find My Place meetings, which students can schedule by visiting go/FindMyPlace. Find My Place meetings provide an opportunity for students to meet with any CCE staff member to talk about options for volunteering that work best for their schedule and capacity. Through these meetings, students can see first-hand how customizable community engagement opportunities are at Middlebury College. We strive to ensure that students can choose their own adventure, with structure and support from the CCE every step of the way. 

The Center for Community Engagement is intentional about creating a diverse set of experiences available to students interested in getting involved, but the possibilities aren’t limited to what we’ve already created. Each year, the CCE provides flexible funding through the Community Engagement Organization leadership group so that students can work on individual or group projects which may or may not lead to the development of a new student organization. This year alone, we’ve supported students in creating five new student organizations focused on collaborating with community partners. We also support grant programs like the Cross Cultural Community Engagement Grant that encourages students to dedicate their time to intercultural dialogue and exchange. We fully believe that every student should be able to find their place here at Middlebury, and if it doesn’t already exist, we’re here to help you create it.

A yellow house with white trimming sits with a copse of trees on one side and a green grassy lawn on the other. Two yellow Adirondack chairs sit facing the camera in the grass.

Staff Reflection: Shannon Lyford

Shannon Lyford is the Assistant Director for Educational Partnerships at the Center for Community Engagement. This week, she provides a thoughtful reflection on her experience joining the CCE team in a time of transformation for the Middlebury community at large and how she works alongside community leaders to navigate challenges created or exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. To learn more about the ways in which the CCE creates meaningful connections with youth in Addison County, visit our Community Engagement Organizations website or email Shannon Lyford at slyford@middlebury.edu. 

Coming into the CCE as a new staff member this past summer put me in a unique position to learn and identify how the CCE can play a role in addressing the rise in youth educational challenges caused by COVID. The pandemic has impacted the world on a global scale, causing varying degrees of trauma among all of us. While adults have had jobs disrupted and social commitments canceled, children have seen school moved online and isolation from peer groups. As children’s brains are still developing, these social interactions are critical for children to learn social skills and self-management skills. The pandemic has made it more difficult for children to interact with others in settings that are important to develop positive social-emotional skills. Masks and social distancing, important safety measures allowing children to be physically together, also prevent children from learning how their words and actions impact others using facial and other visual cues. Our children need additional support now more than ever, coming out of a period of global stress and isolation.

Youth with marginalized identities (for example: BIPOC youth, LGBTQIA+ youth, disabled youth, youth living in poverty) and youth living in rural environments have faced even greater challenges during this time. Youth with marginalized identities often have less access to afterschool programs or educational supports than their more privileged peers. In rural communities, like much of Middlebury’s local Addison County, transportation challenges and political polarization have led to greater isolation during the pandemic and increased conflict at schools between students. Efforts to support our children must take the identities of individual youth into account in order to provide an equitable experience for all.

Schools are working to support students during this challenging time, requiring major adaptations and often preventing a sense of stability for children in the schools. For youth experiencing grief, mental health issues, or the effects of poverty and/or racism, these changes have been especially challenging. For many youth, the pandemic has created a level of stress that has caused them to act out against teachers and other students. There has been a significant rise in behavioral challenges in schools across the US, from verbal arguments, physical fighting, bullying, property damage, and other defiant behavior. Children witnessing violent behavior from other students are often scared to come to school, disrupting the learning of all kids. In some schools across the country (and in Addison County schools), children have become increasingly polarized in their views, often aligning with the views of the adults they live with. Schools have also seen an increase in bullying and harassment behaviors among children with different viewpoints, often leading to BIPOC or LGBTQIA+ youth being targeted and feeling unsafe and unsupported in their school.

A small child facing the camera sits in the grass next to an adult who is facing away from the camera. In the background, an adult and a child sit in colorful Adirondack chairs.
Shannon meets a Community Friends mentee at the Community Friends Fall 2021 Match Day.

In addition to the pandemic and all the social-emotional challenges associated with the disruption, disappointments, and isolation that we’ve all faced over the past two years, schools are also facing staffing shortages which weakens schools’ ability to provide important supports to children. The understaffing in schools combined with higher social-emotional needs has led to the need for schools to rely more heavily on volunteer and community support; this has also provided an opportunity for community engagement organizations to play a role in supporting youth. One local middle school, Middlebury Union Middle School (MUMS), recently brought parents of students together to facilitate a conversation around solutions to the current school climate. MUMS identified several areas of focus impacting many of its students and families including transportation, joy and connection, outdoor time, and food access.

The CCE has strengthened its efforts to connect with schools during this critical time, joining local school board meetings and connecting with community engagement committees with school districts. As a new staff member at the CCE (and new employee to Addison County!), I came into the role during a challenging time with a fresh view- an experience that was both refreshing and challenging. I sought to form connections with as many staff in the local schools as I could. I connected with school counselors, social-emotional leaders, and teachers about the needs of their students and how the CCE could support their efforts to educate their kids in a safe and nurturing environment. As a team, the CCE spent time discussing our response to the difficulties faced by schools. We continue to listen and connect with schools to understand how best to provide support, and we continue to seek opportunities for Middlebury students to get involved, as aligned with Middlebury and K-12 school COVID guidelines.

Our Youth & Mentoring CEOs continued to work with kids as much as possible given restrictions around vaccinations. Community Friends met with their mentees virtually to continue strong mentoring relationships they’ve formed with local youth. Nutrition Outreach and Mentoring (NOM) brought virtual cooking classes to local kids’ kitchens, dropping off fresh ingredients and guiding kids and their adults through cooking healthy meals together. Page One Literacy Project have created virtual read-alouds with kids to get them excited about reading, and they have also worked closely with the Ilsley Public Library to create craft kits for kids to take home and learn about different stories. I have been inspired by the efforts of our Middlebury leaders to adapt to continue providing critical support to children during the pandemic.

During these challenging times, it’s important to remember the strength of our communities. By coming together to address issues that impact us all (and the future of our community and country), we can better support each other and find solutions. While connection looks different now than it has in the past, the pandemic has made it clear that coming together as a community, and ensuring that everyone in our community has a voice at the table, is the only way forward.

Community Connected Learning Course Spotlight: Cassie Kearney ’22

In the fall of 2020, Cassie Kearney ‘22 participated in the Center for Community Engagement’s first Community Connected Learning course. Here is the reflection she shares on her learning experience from the semester.

Last fall, Cameron Weiner (2020.5) and I engaged in service-learning through a partnership with the Center for an Agricultural Economy (CAE) to complete a final deliverable/product for the Community Connected Learning course. Founded in 2004, CAE is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that strengthens the Hardwick and greater Vermont food system by implementing programs that increase farm and community viability. Our interests and aspirations to diminish food insecurity while forming intimate connections with Vermont communities aligned well with CAE’s mission. For our final project, we constructed a COVID-19 impact assessment, which we titled, “Voices of the Pandemic: Perseverance, Hope, and Community.” We wove together personal narratives and published research to identify successes of CAE’s impacts on Northeast Kingdom (NEK) communities, specifically Hardwick, and to recognize needs and gaps where individuals were lacking/slip between the cracks. Our deliverable only contains one small glimpse of CAE’s COVID-19 response and impact, featuring the voices of farmers who have received resources and support from CAE, participants in the Hardwick Community Meals program, garden bed recipients, Grow Your Own workshop leaders, and community organizers involved in the Hardwick Area Food Pantry (HAFP) and the Hardwick Area Neighbor to Neighbor (HANN) group. By discussing personal narratives and pandemic data, we hoped that it would become evident how relief programs had been fruitful thus far and how these initiatives could be more diverse and effective as the COVID-19 crisis continues.

I loved my experience in this class because of how service was naturally intertwined within an academic curriculum. Understanding why communities are in need of resources, specific assistance, or care is the first step in deconstructing dominating power structures and dismantling the inequalities that sustain them in the first place. The overall success of the partnership made me so grateful for the opportunities provided by Middlebury, and working with CAE has been one of the most enriching, rewarding experiences of my college career so far. I was able to have an unparalleled, immersive semester in collaboration with CAE and community members despite never physically being present in Hardwick. I believe that this success speaks to the significance of the two-way street and reciprocity inherent in service-learning. Accountability and a shared knowledge of each side’s capacities, limitations, strengths, and weaknesses are critical in forming partnerships. If students are not wholly committed and focused on how they can best contribute to a specific community’s needs and strengths, then the organization can suffer detrimental effects – ultimately, the partnership could develop into a time and energy sink. Fortunately, that was not the case at all in my work with CAE.

My favorite part of the course/my project would definitely be forming relationships with the CAE staff and Hardwick community members. The enthusiasm, generosity, and mission of the CAE staff, along with the passions and excitements of my course instructors, made this service-learning experience so fun and fulfilling. The workload for the class never really felt like actual homework – I enjoyed what I was doing and realized I could actually help others in a virtual manner. In general, community engagement is so important to me because I love helping other individuals. Also, all of the community members that I interviewed or spoke with were so welcoming and receptive even though I was the outsider. I was very careful when navigating this line between learning about the community for my project and intruding on the good of the community/studying the community for academic obligations. Published literature shows many issues with short-term service-learning and the goals of higher institutions of learning. My supervisor, Lylee, once mentioned: “The best partnerships are the ones when both sides feel like they got the better deal.” I always tried to maintain reciprocity in my collaborative work with CAE, and I think that our partnership turned out the most fruitful that it could have been in COVID-19 times.

Seeing what I was learning in class being put into action or experiential learning was so valuable for my future goals to do nonprofit work in the Public Health field. I could witness how academic principles played out in my own experiences with community members and the CAE staff. Throughout the course and my partnership, I learned how to best identify and describe self-reflective practices, active listening, social location, privilege, and positionality. Fully comprehending how these personal factors impacted my perspectives and evaluations of a community separate from my own challenged me and pushed me to analyze common judgements and stereotypes. I learned to never take anything at face value; assumptions often automatically create barriers and further exclude members of society who are discriminated against or disadvantaged. Lastly, I have become mindful of the dangers of shaping communities as entities in deficit and shifting my frames of references to understand the situations of individuals divergent from my own situation here on campus and in the broader Middlebury community.

After Middlebury, I plan to get a higher degree in Public Health with a concentration in community or behavioral health. I would love to engage in nonprofit collaboration, so this course and partnership definitely prepared me for my future endeavors. This summer, I will also be working in a similar partnership program through the Forest Foundation. I will be making my own project by working with a nonprofit in the Boston area (organization is TBD). In addition, this course taught me how to concretely explain my goals and intentions (even when they aren’t fully formed!), to have confidence when facing obstacles or uncomfortable interactions, to utilize my creativity without fear, and to research and examine issues independently with a great deal of freedom.

Highlight: Community Connected Learning (CCL) Course

As a member of the larger Experiential Learning Center (ELC) ecosystem with the Center for Careers and Internships and the Innovation Hub, the Center for Community Engagement (CCE) is the primary site for students and local partners wishing to involve themselves in roles with activities that strengthen communities and contribute to the public good. 

Recently, however, the Center for Community Engagement has been able to branch itself out and expand its purpose into the academically-credited arena through its Community Connected Learning (CCL) course. For years, the CCE has been collaborating with faculty in stimulating community-connected experiential learning opportunities for students. To continue this aspect as well as to make the opportunities more versatile and with a project-focused format, the CCL class was developed. The creation of the course also stems from the cravings students expressed for experiential learning opportunities in and out of the classroom. Thus, the CCE launched its first CCL course in the fall of 2020 as a way to support students in their community-connected learning ventures. The course instructors were CCE Director, Ashley Laux, Assistant Director, Jason Duquette-Hoffman, and Assistant Director,  Kristen Mullins. 

To give students another chance to pair community engagement services with academic credit, the CCL course was offered again to students this Spring 2021. This semester, the class is led by CCE Assistant Directors Jason Duquette-Hoffman and Kristen Mullins, and Program Director, Kailee Brickner-McDonald. For both Fall and Spring, the class had 47 students altogether who participated and developed various projects topics with community partners. 

By offering the Community Connected Learning course, the CCE is able to broaden its work and mission goal. When asked how this class connects to the center’s objective and the College’s mission, the instructors collectively responded, “CCE’s work and mission carries some assumptions. A core assumption is that the liberal arts has a responsibility to the public good. We also believe that students’ civic development – their sense of themselves as active and contributing members in their communities; and the skills and knowledge to be successful in that work – are important elements of their liberal arts education. And that we – staff, faculty, students – are members of the communities in which we are learning; and as such have an ethical responsibility to do no harm. And, ideally, that we are contributing to the public good of these communities.” 

The CCE also hopes the class will prove beneficial to both students and community partners. Instructors of the class expressed their hope to “deepen students’ civic knowledge, skills, and identities through work that matters in the current moment, with partners in our communities who have so much to teach us.” Additionally, the instructors shared the collaborative nature of the relationships between students and community partners that make their involvement full of transferable lessons and meaning with each other. 

Instructors encourage students to take this course not only for its cross collaboration with local partners but also because of the empathy, perspective grasping, awareness of self and others one may gain from it.

Two students share their experiences towards the course’s positive influence for engaging in community projects. 

Emily Carfi 

Class Year: 2021

Major: Psychology Major, GSFS minor

For my project, I continued my work with Charter House Coalition, a homeless shelter located here in Middlebury. My project focused on homelessness and food insecurity during the pandemic and I worked to coordinate a safe, off-campus cooking group to provide a weekly meal for the shelter with other students, while following Covid safety guidelines. In addition to this, I created a “crowd” recipes list with dishes that can serve roughly 100 individuals. These recipes also include vegan and vegetarian alternatives to serve all guests at Charter House and to create a more inclusive meal experience.

This course was a great way for me to pursue community work with great guidance during such a difficult time of year. I learned about fellow Midd students’ involvement in the community, and I also learned about different organizations that are located in Addition County, which I hadn’t heard of before. It was so inspiring to see how all these students contributed to different organizations meant to serve different groups of people in need. I also learned a lot about what it means to engage in service learning, which is separate from volunteerism, and this is a crucial aspect to community involvement. I additionally gained a lot of communication skills, while expanding upon some existing organizational and work-related skills. This course was so beneficial and couldn’t have been introduced at a better time. In the end, we provided likely 500+ meals in the Fall semester, which was an exceptional accomplishment that I am proud to have been a part of facilitating.

I still am continuing my community work during my last semester here at Middlebury, working closely with Charter House to provide a weekly meal and to get students involved in community engagement. I have always had a passion for helping the community, but this course has helped me to progress this passion and utilize skills to the best of my ability.

Emily Hyer

Class Year: 2023

Major: Neuroscience major, Spanish and Global Health double minor

I worked with an organization called the Early Care and Learning Partnership. We researched early child care in Addison County and its relationship to health outcomes and COVID-19. My work involved interviewing child care experts, sending out a survey, and setting up social media like mail chimp and Facebook. I really enjoyed the course and how you could make it into an experience that best suits your interests.  I learned a lot about what community engagement means and how it is best used in a specific community. It also taught me the necessary skills to work in a community mindfully and ethically. I also learned a lot of personal skills from my project work–communication, active listening, and how to be organized and professional.

My favorite part was getting to work alongside my two project leads Cheryl Mitchel and Dr. Brakeley. They are both such strong and inspiring women who have had such a huge impact on the community in the years they have dedicated themselves to working here. I was so inspired and motivated by their stories and felt privileged to get to meet them. Getting to work on such a hands-on project has made me feel much more connected to Addison County. The course made me realize how much cool and impactful work could be done right here in Addison County, and pushed me to get more involved with the clubs I am a member of.

Grant Spotlight: Academic Outreach Endowment Grant

This blog is on Niwaeli Kimambo’s, Assistant Professor of Geography, Fall 2020 course.

An analysis of deforestation in protected areas shows tree cover and tree cover loss alongside protected areas boundaries (map by Charlie DiPrinzio ’21)

The Center for Community Engagement supports Middlebury College faculty seeking to deepen student learning through collaborative projects with community organizations. We recently had the chance to connect with Dr. Niwaeli Kimambo, Assistant Professor of Geography and talked more about her Fall 2020 Remote Sensing and Land Use in Sub-Saharan Africa course (GEOG 0351). With support from an CCE Academic Outreach Endowment Grant, Dr. Kimambo was able to partner students with the World Resources Institute (WRI) on a project entitled, “Mapping Landcover Change in Restoration Landscapes.”

Prior to embarking on extensive forest restoration, WRI partners needed to understand the landscape changes that have taken place historically in target restoration sites and remote satellite imagery is a powerful way for analyzing such changes. Students worked with the WRI to perform these needed preliminary analyses of landscape change, contributing to a more efficient preparation for restoration activities. Students conducted analyses for restoration areas in Malawi, Cameroon, Niger, and Rwanda. Below are Dr. Kimambo’s reflections on this collaboration.

How have community collaborations contributed to your teaching and research? 

Collaborating with Dr. Arakwiye at World Resources Institute has enabled me to bring real-world problems to the classroom and inspired new avenues of research. I found that students were more engaged with the content because there was an audience on the other end: someone who was keen to see what they came up with. The collaborations that started in the classroom have also spilled over into research, and will certainly spill back into the classroom.

Can you share an example of a particularly gratifying moment of student learning related to the community-connected project you facilitated?

We held several workshops of work in progress with our community partner. After one of these workshops, one student remarked how it was evident that lessons learnt in the classroom can be applied to solving world problems. As a teacher, knowing that students can apply what they have learned in my class is important to me. The project made that very apparent.

Do you have any advice for those who may seek to collaborate on a project?

Start small, plan early, and take advantage of technology. The current pandemic moment spurred more virtual communication, which allowed collaboration with a community partner who was on the other side of the globe!

Dr. Kimambo’s WRI colleague reflected on the partnership by sharing, “My collaboration with Middlebury students has pushed our work forward in the use of geospatial technologies for monitoring landscape restoration. Here are some examples of how:

  • Middlebury students compared various tree cover maps and even generated new ones of their own. This was an illuminating and impressive exercise. I would be interested in pursuing this topic further, particularly assessing how Collect Earth data can be used to further improve tree cover maps of our target landscapes.
  • During workshops and in their final writeups, Middlebury students gave me valuable feedback on the geospatial surveys I had designed. For example, students pointed out challenging components such as, i) how to estimate tree cover and tree density inside a plot; ii) what land cover types are difficult to interpret satellite imagery. Having this information has already helped me improve our training materials and will ultimately lead to a better implementation of restoration monitoring work in the target landscapes.”

National AmeriCorps Week

americorps banner

Interested in serving diverse communities across the country in a variety of essential roles? Join Community Engagement and CCI during National AmeriCorps Week for an AmeriCorps Panel on Tuesday, March 8th from 12:30-1:20 pm @ the 118 South Main St. Conference Rm. Hear from several current and former AmeriCorps members about the ins and outs of AmeriCorps, including benefits and how to apply. Check out the event on Facebook!

Lunch provided! Please RSVP by Friday, March 4, 2016 to Elle Bacon, ebacon@middlebury.edu.

Alicia Roderigue is the AmeriCorp Team Leader for the City of Burlington’s Community and Economic Development Office. She is responsible for providing support to team members at their service sites, facilitating bi-weekly team meetings, and leading topical discussions related to issues surrounding social justice, diversity, and marginalized populations. Alicia also serves as the program liaison between more than fifteen non-profit organizations and City Departments and CEDO.

 

Eimilie Bishop serves as a AmeriCorps State Member at the Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services as an Outreach Coordinator. She advocates for restorative justice indicatives in crime victim services. She also does outreach services to victims of crime with disabilities or have limited English proficiency.

 

Elle Bacon serves as the AmeriCorps*VISTA at Middlebury College’s Community Engagement Office. Elle works on continuing initiatives related the Privilege & Poverty Academic Cluster, as well as annual Community Engagement events. She strives to mobilize and educate students through service in areas of poverty alleviation.

 

Benji Thurber is the Communications and Technology Manager at Mobius. Benji graduated from Middlebury College in 2008, and received his Bachelor’s degree in English and American Literature. Benji joined Mobius as an AmeriCorps VISTA member (through the Vermont Youth Tomorrow program) in 2009, and helped recruit new mentors, promote public awareness of the mentoring cause, and expanded the Mentor Discount Card program for mentor pairs in Chittenden County.  Benji transitioned to a staff position with the organization in 2011, and worked collaboratively with mentoring programs and funders across the state to expand the organization into Vermont’s Mentoring Partnership.  In his current position as Communications and Technology Manager, he manages communications and marketing for the organization, and works with mentoring agency staff to expand public awareness efforts across the state. He is also the administrator for the Vermont Mentoring Database, an online system that allows mentoring agencies to store program information on the Mobius website, apply for grants, and manage information and outcome data for their mentoring matches.