News » Harward Center

Bates again named to the Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction

Bates News — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 17:33:07 +0000

David Longdon '14, a Bates economics major from Accra, Ghana, spent summer 2011 as a leadership intern with Lots to Gardens, a youth-focused organization in Lewiston. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

For the sixth year in a row, Bates College has received prominent federal recognition for the quality of its engagement with the community.

Bates has been named to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction, one of a range of honors that the Corporation for National and Community Service bestows on colleges and universities whose civic engagement, service-learning and volunteerism lead to exemplary levels of meaningful outcomes.

The 2012 Honor Roll recipients were announced on March 12 at the American Council on Education’s 94th annual meeting, in Los Angeles.

The honor recognizes Bates’ commitment to significant collaborative engagement in greater Lewiston-Auburn. First named to the honor roll in its inaugural year, 2006, Bates was one of 110 colleges named to the 2012 Distinction list. Criteria for the honor include the scope and innovation of community-based projects, levels of student participation, incentives for involvement and the extent to which the school offers academic service-learning courses.

The Harward Center for Community Partnerships is Bates’ hub of college-community initiatives. The center partners with more than 125 community organizations and facilitates the volunteer involvement of two-thirds of Bates students, and the academic involvement of one-third.

In the past year, through courses, theses and independent studies, 963 Bates students and 45 faculty members gave more than 41,478 documented hours of academically-based community work. Students provided more than 11,923 documented hours of volunteer service during the academic year, of which some 1,044 hours involved mentoring in local schools.

Bates student leaders are instrumental in coordinating programs, pursuing academic and work-study based initiatives, and continuing key collaborations. Specific roles include Bonner Leaders, Community-Based Research Fellows and Student Volunteer Fellows.

Administering the award is the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency that leads President Obamaís national call-to-service initiative, United We Serve, and engages more than 5 million Americans in service through its Senior Corps, AmeriCorps and Learn and Serve America programs.

The corporation oversees the honor roll in collaboration with the federal Education and Housing and Urban Development departments, as well as the Campus Compact and the American Council on Education.

Peterson Project concludes Midsummer Lakeside Concert series

Bates News — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 19:39:14 +0000

In a late program change, a performance by the eclectic, rootsy Peterson Project concludes the annual Bates College Midsummer Lakeside Concert Series at 6 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 12, in the Florence Keigwin Amphitheater at the college’s Lake Andrews.

Sponsored by the Garcelon Society, the Bingham Betterment Fund and the Harward Center for Community Partnerships at Bates, these family concerts are open to the public at no cost. Listeners are encouraged to bring a picnic and lawn chairs or blankets.

An alternative site will be announced in case of rain. For more information, please call 207-786-6400.

This local ensemble offers a mash-up of blues, bluegrass and jazz. Blues harmonica player and vocalist Mark Peterson, bluegrass fiddler and banjoist Mike Conant and upright jazz bassist Tim Clough mix all these influences together to produce a distinctive sound, rounded out by guitarist and singer-songwriter Andrew Bohrmann and singer Jane Cooper Pasquarello.

The ensemble Irish Hill, which shares members with the Peterson Project, was originally scheduled to play this concert.

Hammered-dulcimer player Harry Vayo continues Midsummer Lakeside Concerts

Bates News — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 18:58:52 +0000

Hammered-dulcimer player Harry Vayo continues the Bates College Midsummer Lakeside Concert Series at 6 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 5, in the Florence Keigwin Amphitheater at the college’s Lake Andrews.

Midsummer Lakeside concerts take place on Thursdays in July and August. The series concludes on Aug. 12 with the Celtic-bluegrass fusion band Irish Hill.

An alternative site will be announced in case of rain. For more information, please call 207-786-6400.

A master of the hammered dulcimer and a self-described healing musician, Vayo performs his own compositions, Celtic and Asian tunes, Beatles songs, Cajun sounds and an occasional classical piece. He has made two recordings and has appeared at the Common Ground Fair and New Year’s by the Bay in Belfast, among many other Maine venues.

A local quartet, Irish Hill offers a heartfelt blend of Celtic, bluegrass and old-time fiddle music. The players are guitarist Scott Williams, mandolinist Roberta Hill, fiddler-banjoist Michael Conant and bassist Tim Clough. Rich harmonies by Hill and Conant round out Irish Hill’s distinctive sound.

Eclectic folk-rock group the Zulu Leprechauns to continue Midsummer Lakeside Concert series

Bates News — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 18:45:21 +0000

The eclectic folk-rock group the Zulu Leprechauns continues the annual Bates College Midsummer Lakeside Concert Series on Thursday, July 29, in the Florence Keigwin Amphitheater at the college’s Lake Andrews.

Midsummer Lakeside concerts start at 6 p.m. on six consecutive Thursdays in July and August. The series will continue with hammered-dulcimer player Harry Vayo and the Celtic-bluegrass fusion band Irish Hill.

An alternative site will be announced in case of rain. For more information, please call 207-786-6400.

Here’s the remaining summer schedule:

July 29, The Zulu Leprechauns: These eclectic, improvisational folk-rockers play a mix of original and familiar music, incorporating styles from West Africa, rock ‘n’ roll, bluegrass and folk. In addition to their own songs, they cover such artists as Neil Young, Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, Lou Reed and Robert Johnson, among others. They have made three recordings: the eponymous “Zulu Leprechauns,” “Mixed Messages” and their latest, “L.A. To Zaire.”

Founded in 1993, the ensemble comprises bassist John Shaw, banjoist and electric dulcimer player John Schwellenbach, percussionist and violinist Annegret Baier and percussionist Jeff Howe. Their instrumental arsenal includes djembe, six-string bass, guitar, dumbek, conga, shakers and cymbals. They have played the Maine Festival, Congress Square Festival and New Year’s Portland, along with such venues as Portland’s Oak Street Theater, the Waldo Theater and the Camden Opera House.

Aug. 5, Harry Vayo: A master of the hammered dulcimer and a self-described healing musician, Vayo performs his own compositions, Celtic and Asian tunes, Beatles songs, Cajun sounds and an occasional classical piece. He has made two recordings and has appeared at the Common Ground Fair and New Year’s by the Bay in Belfast, among many other Maine venues.

Aug. 12, Irish Hill: This local quartet offers a heartfelt blend of Celtic, bluegrass and old-time fiddle music. The players are guitarist Scott Williams, mandolinist Roberta Hill, fiddler-banjoist Michael Conant and bassist Tim Clough. Rich harmonies by Hill and Conant round out Irish Hill’s distinctive sound.

Folk band Highland String Trio to continue Midsummer Lakeside Concert series

Bates News — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 18:22:30 +0000

The Highland String Trio, a Maine folk band, continues the annual Bates College Midsummer Lakeside Concert Series on Thursday, July 22, in the Florence Keigwin Amphitheater at the college’s Lake Andrews.

Midsummer Lakeside concerts start at 6 p.m. on Thursdays in July and August. Also on the schedule are the eclectic folk-rock group the Zulu Leprechauns, hammered-dulcimer player Harry Vayo and the Celtic-bluegrass fusion band Irish Hill.

An alternative site will be announced in case of rain. For more information, please call 207-786-6400.

Here’s the schedule for the remainder of the series:

July 22, Highland String Trio: Lauren Scott, Chris Bannon and Walt Bannon are known for their energetic blend of Celtic, bluegrass and Americana. Scott is a fiddler who also performs with the band Fiddle-icious. Chris Bannon plays guitar and mandolin, and Walt Bannon provides vocals, flute and guitar.

July 29, The Zulu Leprechauns: These eclectic, improvisational folk-rockers play a mix of original and familiar music, incorporating styles from West Africa, rock ‘n’ roll, bluegrass and folk. In addition to their own songs, they cover such artists as Neil Young, Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, Lou Reed and Robert Johnson, among others. They have made three recordings: the eponymous Zulu Leprechauns, Mixed Messages and their latest, L.A. To Zaire.

Award-winning singer-songwriter Anni Clark to continue Midsummer Lakeside Concert series

Bates News — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 21:11:00 +0000

Maine singer-songwriter Anni Clark continues the annual Bates College Midsummer Lakeside Concert Series at 6 p.m. Thursday, July 15, in the Florence Keigwin Amphitheater at the college’s Lake Andrews.

Midsummer Lakeside concerts take place on six consecutive Thursdays in July and August. The series will continue with the folk band Highland String Trio, eclectic folk-rock group the Zulu Leprechauns, hammered-dulcimer player Harry Vayo and the Celtic-bluegrass fusion band Irish Hill.

An alternative site will be announced in case of rain. For more information, please call 207-786-6400.

Here’s the complete schedule:

July 15, Anni Clark: Nominated for “Female Vocalist of the Year” at the 2006 Texas Music Awards, this veteran Maine singer-songwriter has released seven albums and appeared with the likes of Shawn Colvin, Richie Havens and Patty Larkin. Audiences love her humor and expressive power.

Clark’s music has been described as “folk, pop and blues with a dash of Maine humor.” Twice a finalist in the well-known songwriters’ competition at the Kerrville Folk Festival, Clark was invited to be a judge for the event in 2001. In 2003, she won both “Female Artist of the Year” and “Folk Artist of the Year” in Jam Music Magazine’s Readers’ Pix Awards. Clark also works as an education tech in special education in Saco, Maine.

Steel band opens Midsummer Lakeside Concerts

Bates News — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 19:14:03 +0000

The Caribbean-inspired, Massachusetts-based Pan Loco Steel Band opens the annual Bates College Midsummer Lakeside Concert Series on Thursday, July 8, in the Florence Keigwin Amphitheater at the college’s Lake Andrews.

Midsummer Lakeside concerts start at 6 p.m. on six consecutive Thursdays in July and August. The series will continue with Maine singer-songwriter Anni Clark, the folk band Highland String Trio, eclectic folk-rock group the Zulu Leprechauns, hammered-dulcimer player Harry Vayo and the Celtic-bluegrass fusion band Irish Hill.

An alternative site will be announced in case of rain. For more information, please call 207-786-6400.

Here’s the complete schedule:

July 8, Pan Loco Steel Band: Former students at Berklee College of Music and the University of New Hampshire, the Pan Loco Steel Band came together in 1991. Consisting of two steel drummers, an electric bass player and a percussionist, the group concentrates on authentic Caribbean music.

Steel pan players Bob Lucas, a Bay State native, and Justin Petty, who grew up in the U.S. Virgin Islands, founded the quartet in Boston, and they arrange the band’s music. Bassist Gerry Rollock hails from Trinidad, and teaches and plays in the Boston area. Percussionist Sean Skeete has performed with ensembles as diverse as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Alvin Ailey Dance Theater and Blue Man Group.

Meanings and metrics

Bates News — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:39:37 +0000

Inside Higher Ed, an online news and opinion site devoted to college and university issues, published a provocative essay by David Scobey, director of the College’s Harward Center for Community Partnerships, who argued that the humanities should embrace calls for assessments of how well students are taught. “There are two overriding reasons: one strategic, the other educational,” he wrote. [More...]

Bates alum's documentary to be shown

Bates News — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:25:15 +0000

A Bates College graduate’s documentary about a citizen response to a controversial construction proposal in Lewiston will be screened at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 25, in Bates College’s Pettengill Hall, Keck Classroom (G52), 4 Andrews Road (Alumni Walk).

Presented by the Harward Center for Community Partnerships at Bates, the screening of “Neighbor by Neighbor: Mobilizing an Invisible Community in Lewiston, Maine” is open to the public at no cost. For more information, please call 207-786-6202.

Created by Craig Saddlemire, a Lewiston resident and member of the Bates class of 2005, the film follows the response to the 2004 Heritage Initiative, the city of Lewiston’s plan to build a four-lane boulevard through a low-income downtown neighborhood. The project would have displaced 850 residents and destroyed playgrounds, vegetable gardens and historic buildings.

Residents of the neighborhood, supported by Bates student organizations, organized the Visible Community Initiative and halted the construction project.

Saddlemire became involved with the project when members of the Visible Community wanted raw video footage to serve as a record of the group.

The film documents a significant period in Lewiston’s history, depicting how the town dealt with urban revitalization during a depressed economy. It provides not only a record of the work of the Visible Community, but also a visual chronicle of changes in the neighborhood through the past five years.

“Once I started videotaping for the group, I never stopped,” says Saddlemire, who now has his own film production company, Round Point Movies. “This movie documents how hard some of the residents downtown have worked to make good lives for themselves in this neighborhood, and how much a misguided development plan can affect their lives.”

After his senior year at Bates, Saddlemire settled in downtown Lewiston and took a more active role in the initiative. The idea for a documentary developed when the Visible Community applied for a grant from the Self-Development of People Fund to develop a master plan for downtown Lewiston, created by the residents.

The group used grant money to document the planning process and edit other footage into a comprehensive history of the work the Visible Community had done.

After the Heritage Initiative was defeated, the organization lobbied to replace a closed city park, held demonstrations and eventually authored its own master plan for downtown Lewiston.

“Through the film, current students will be able to see how Bates students played a supportive role to the downtown residents, who in turn really impacted the Bates students that were involved,” says Saddlemire. The Visible Community, he says, effectively brought town and gown closer.

“The film demonstrates that there’s a lot to learn about the world beyond academia, and you can do that by just stepping off campus,” says Saddlemire. “People have misconceptions about downtown Lewiston, and I think seeing the people in this film tell their story will make people who hold those misperceptions think twice.”

The Harward Center for Community Partnerships leads Bates’ efforts in community involvement, including programs in service-learning, community volunteerism and environmental stewardship. The center works with community partners to meet community needs and, in the process, to integrate civic engagement with the Bates educational experience.

Help Wanted

Bates Magazine — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 16:10:45 +0000

If you apply for a job cleaning houses or rounding up shopping carts, should a high school diploma or General Educational Development certificate be an essential qualification?

Yes, according to employers in Lewiston and elsewhere in Maine. “Employers assume a basic level of literacy if you have that,” says Chip Morrison, president of the Androscoggin County Chamber of Commerce.

No, say many members of Lewiston-Auburn’s growing Somali community.

Since 2001, some 3,500 refugees from violence in Somalia have settled in Lewiston, and the GED requirement imposed by some employers often bars these new Mainers from work they’re well-equipped — even overqualified — to perform. “You don’t actually need the GED to push carts at Hannaford,” says Ismail Ahmed, a Somali immigrant and consultant to employers seeking to hire Somalis.

These contrasting perspectives provide evidence of a cultural divide that Bates students explored in a high-profile research project last fall. Their work followed on the heels of a state Department of Labor report that found severe unemployment among Somalis of working age, with only 49 percent finding work between 2001 and 2006.

Wanting better insight into the obstacles facing Somalis in the job market, the Chamber and Lewiston’s branch of the state-run Maine CareerCenter asked members of a senior anthropology seminar at Bates to investigate.

Supported by $2,000 in grants from the Harward Center for Community Partnerships, the students spent weeks asking Somali job-seekers and employers about impediments to regular employment for the Somalis. And the students’ report, Perceived Barriers to Somali Immigrant Employment in Lewiston, could be summed up by the famous line in Cool Hand Luke: What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.

Employers and would-be employees alike cited the Somalis’ lack of English skills as the single biggest employment barrier. (Perhaps surprisingly in a society still aching after Sept. 11, religious prejudice was not termed a major obstacle, although certain Muslim beliefs such as the untouchability of pork did pose practical problems for some employers.)

But there are other differences that create barriers to Somali employment.

Maine employers are integral members of a U.S. economy that’s money-based, heavily systematized, rigorously clock-oriented. The Somalis, in contrast, as the report notes, have a “flexible, spiraling” sense of time that doesn’t play well in the world of the time clock.

And they come from a system of exchange based less on the bottom line and more on personal forms of reciprocity such as swapping goods or favors. For instance, Somalis are more likely than most Americans to lend each other money at no interest, buy groceries together in bulk, or arrange work shifts so that parents can trade off minding the children, says Julia Merriman ’09 of Villanova, Pa., who served as one of two principal investigators on the project.

“It’s less about competitiveness, and more about pooling resources to gain as a community,” she says.

For these new Mainers, the employment situation feels urgent. “They have families to take care of,” says the other investigator, Daisy Hackett ’09 of Ipswich, Mass. For them, getting a GED can’t be a top priority. “They’d rather just get menial jobs that they can do without even speaking English.” (The report also says that English literacy isn’t always an issue, citing a pharmacy technician whose non-U.S. degrees aren’t recognized here.)

This cultural divide — “a big clash,” in the words of associate professor Elizabeth Eames, an anthropologist who led the Perceived Barriers project — afforded an excellent case study for the 17 students in Eames’ “Production and Reproduction” seminar, which studies comparative economics.

Working primarily with 20-member focus groups, the students interviewed job-seekers from the Somali community, local employers, and mediators between employers and potential immigrant employees.

Toward easing the situation, the report advocated “best practices” devised by some employers, such as “conversation partners,” native English speakers who pair up with a Somali employee to help relieve communication difficulties.

Among the employers she interviewed, Merriman says, “people were happy to share what worked and what didn’t, and that was just a great forum for conversation.”

The class presented its findings publicly at a Chamber luncheon in December, and the printed report appeared in January — by which time the deepening economic recession had moved the goalposts way down the field.

The overall unemployment rate locally jumped from 4.7 percent in December 2007 to 7.4 percent a year later. And with growing numbers of well-qualified workers in the unemployment lines, barriers to Somali employment that were high to start with suddenly grew even taller.

Still, the report and its recommendations for helping employ Somalis will remain viable beyond the economic slump. “This report should not collect dust on the shelves of the powers that be,” says Ismail Ahmed.

In fact, in the state with the nation’s oldest population, immigrants like these will eventually become essential to Maine’s workforce — although that doesn’t help Somali families who need jobs now. “Here is a workforce that is just working in,” says Ahmed. “It will take awhile, but they will be very productive in the long run.”
By Doug Hubley, photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen