Civic Matters at USM
November 10, 2009
USM Community Service
Development of natural playgrounds. Supporting youth in foster care. The effects of milfoil on Sebago Lake’s water quality. Educating people about alternatives to commonly used soaps with chemicals that affect the environment. Identifying potential sites for public art installations.
Those and other projects will be highlighted in the first “Civic Matters,” a showcase of how University of Southern Maine students and their professors apply what they are learning in the classroom to community projects.
Civic Matters will be held from 8:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. on Friday, November 20, in USM’s Wishcamper Center, Bedford Street, Portland. For more information about USM’s 2009 Civic Matters Symposium, see www.usm.maine.edu/studentlife/community/forms/civicsubmission.html or call Alicia Ines Sampson of the Office of Community Service and Civic Engagement at 228-8092.
Last year, 2,349 USM students reported 45,134 hours of service in the community. These students, often led by their professors who design classroom projects around community action, fulfill USM’s promise of “engaged learning that transforms lives and communities.”
The projects that will be presented were done by students ranging in experience from Muskie School graduate students and College of Nursing and Health Professions students, to freshmen in environmental science and art classes. Many of these students mentored young people not much older than they, and worked with organizations that serve the needs of local youth. Others, holding a more global view, flew to the Dominican Republic to provide healthcare and education to residents of mountain communities. Other projects looked at preventing delirium among Maine’s hospitalized elderly; and how public transit in Portland could be improved to better meet the needs of residents.
Civic outreach projects at USM come to being in many ways. The College of Nursing and Health Professions has longstanding outreach projects required for graduation, such as the Dominican Republic trip or providing health care to Casco Bay island fishing communities. Other projects were designed around specific requests to various USM schools and colleges from local communities. Muskie Professor Sam Merrill, for example, tailored his “Sustainable Communities” course to respond to a request from Portland to help implement the recommendations of the Sustainable Portland Task Force. Merrill’s students each wrote a research paper on one of the recommendations, giving cost analyses and providing details about how to implement them. These class papers were compiled into a report submitted to the city that will guide the task force on which recommendations are reasonable to pursue.
Students, such as Art and Entrepreneurial Studies major and AmeriCorps Service Leader Rachel Church, took her art talent and created the Community Arts Initiative, using expressive arts as a means to build community among youth living in Portland Housing Authority complexes.
For more news, visit USM Today at www.usm.maine.edu/today
The University of Southern Maine (USM) offers its 10,000 plus students more than 115 areas of undergraduate and graduate study. USM’s location in southern Maine, a region cited as one of the most liveable in the country, offers a range of educational, cultural and recreational opportunities.
