Symposium Celebrates Campus-Community Partnerships for the Common Good May 7

Story posted April 27, 2009

Each semester hundreds of Bowdoin students enhance their learning through community engagement that connects them to the issues important to members of the greater Brunswick community. A symposium to highlight that involvement will be held Thursday, May 7, 2009, from 1:30 to 3 p.m., in the Morrell Room of Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick.

Joseph McKeen Center for the Common Good
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Check out the McKeen Center for the Common Good Web site, offering continuously updated content regarding community service opportunities, a schedule of events and other happenings.



This symposium provides a public forum for students to share posters, results and stories from both service and research projects they have carried out in local schools, social service agencies, cultural and environmental organizations.

In partnership with local organizations, students provide nearly 43,000 hours of service each year through research, problem solving and volunteer work. As students expand their understanding of an issue they also work to foster mutually beneficial ties between the campus and the community.

For more information, contact Janice Jaffe (798-4156) at the McKeen Center for the Common Good.

Refreshments will be served. All are welcome.

The following is a sample of this semester’s partnerships on display at the symposium:

Book Buddies and Coffin Elementary School
Volunteers work one-on-one as tutors and mentors with ESL students at Coffin Elementary School.

Economics 301: Economics of the Family and Volunteers of America CA$H Program
Students work with the CA$H program to help low-income families with tax returns as well as do outreach in the community to raise awareness about the EITC program.

Food Forward and Midcoast Hunger Prevention Project
Volunteers daily deliver unused food from Dining Service to Midcoast Hunger Prevention Program and once a week provide meals for those staying at the Tedford Family Shelter.

Geology 100: Environmental Geology and Hydrology and Androscoggin Lake Improvement Corporation
Students analyze aspects of water quality in selected stream and lake watersheds in nearby communities, providing data to area stakeholders.

Interdisciplinary Studies 240: Maine Social Research and Brunswick Housing Authority
Students conduct interviews and analyses to assess future housing preferences of Perryman Village residents.

Bowdoin Student Mentors and SAD 75
Bowdoin students mentor local youth one-on-one weekly at six schools in SAD 75.

Spanish 204: Intermediate Spanish and Mt. Ararat High School
Bowdoin and Mt. Ararat Spanish students team up for a day of cultural and language immersion on Bowdoin’s campus.

Tedford Housing Volunteers and Tedford Shelter
Students serve the evening meal at the Tedford Shelter five days a week.

Visual Arts 233: Architecture and Sustainability and Building Materials Exchange
Students document and provide re-use proposals for building components in the Old Brunswick High School to divert materials from the landfill and preserve historical continuity.

Volunteer Lawyers Project and Pine Tree Legal Aid
Students volunteer with Pine Tree Legal Aid to provide legal options to callers below the poverty line.

To learn about many other ways Bowdoin students, faculty and staff are involved in the community, visit the McKeen Center for the Common Good Web site.

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