The following list does not comprise all the collaboratories that the Center supports, but it provides an overview of some of our most exciting community partnerships.  They are grouped roughly by category, starting with community development; education, literacy, and youth initiatives; historical, cultural, and arts projects; public policy partnerships.

• Downtown Education Collaborative (DEC): DEC is a collaborative of seven educational and community partners committed to joint, community-based educational work in and with Lewiston’s underserved downtown neighborhood.  The members include not only Bates, but also the University of Southern Maine, Lewiston-Auburn, Central Maine Community College, Andover College, Lewiston Adult Education, Lewiston Public Library, and Empower Lewiston.  The DEC coalition has been meeting for more than a year; it has launched the Community Food Assessment project (described below); and this year it will open a downtown storefront center and hire a center director.  We envision DEC undertaking collaborative projects not only on health and nutrition, but also such issues as youth culture, downtown development, immigration, and college aspirations.  DEC offers an important gateway for Bates’ work with the downtown community.
• Community Food Assessment: This is the pilot collaboration undertaken by the DEC coalition.  Working with Lots to Gardens, the Maine Nutrition Center, Sisters of Charity Health System, and other stakeholders, students and faculty from Bates, USM-LA, and Andover are investigating nutrition needs and assets in downtown Lewiston-Auburn.  Over several years, this community-based research will lead to policy, service, and advocacy action.
• Y.A.D.A. (Youth + Adults + Dialogue = Action): In 2006, local agencies and HCCP staff convened to discuss how to make Lewiston/Auburn a more youth-friendly and youth-empowered place.  The group decided to undertake a study circles project, bringing youth and adult stakeholders together for public dialogue that would lead to the creation and implementation of solutions.  Members of the planning group include the Lewiston Public Library, the City of Lewiston, the United Way, Bates College, local public schools, many social-service providers, and diverse members of the youth community.  The study circles began in fall 2007, with students from Bates as well as USM/LAC taking part as participants, facilitators, observers, and note-takers.
• Schools, Literacy, and Education Partnerships: Collaboration with schools and other educators represents a core, ongoing commitment at the Harward Center.  Of particular note this year was work around issues of literacy and college aspirations.  Bates students are deeply involved in literacy work through education placements, programs such as America Reads and the Montello Reading Club, and volunteerism at Lewiston Adult Education’s Adult Learning Center.  This year, we offered a three-part workshop on literacy work related to teaching ELL (English Language Learners).  One of our most active partnerships has been with the Longley Elementary School, where Bates students are paired with elementary students through the Longley Mentoring and Bates Buddies programs to help build reading and social literacy skills.  Additionally, this year, several Bates students partnered with Longley teachers to focus on writing literacy.  The need to increase college aspirations in Maine was another focus of work for Bates faculty, students, and staff.  Students in Psychology and Education worked in the Lewiston High School Aspirations Lab and conducted research for the new Aspirations Program at Lewiston Middle School.  Others worked with the Mitchell Institute to conduct interviews with current high school students and recent graduates to identify barriers to higher education.  Bates students developed and offered aspirations programming for middle-school-aged children living at Hillview Family Development.
• Museum L-A Community History Project: Bates faculty, staff, and students continue a multi-year partnership with Museum L-A, a community-based museum of work and industrial community in the Twin Cities.  In past years, the collaboration has focused on collecting oral histories of millworker elders.  This year, it shifted to archival historical research, exhibition development, and support for the museum’s development as a community historical institution.  Students, staff, and faculty contributed to the development of two new exhibitions: “Portraits and Voices,” a collection of photographic portraits and oral histories of retired millworkers, and “Weaving a Millworkers’ World,” a traveling social-history exhibit about the history of millworkers’ community in the 20th century.  Two Honors Theses contributed photography and historical research to these exhibits, and Museum L-A’s curator is a recent Bates graduate who took part in the earlier community-based learning efforts.  Faculty and courses from four programs and departments—History, American Cultural Studies, Anthropology, and Visual Arts have contributed to this collaboration.
• Franco-American Heritage Center Memory Project: The French section of the Bates Department of Romance Languages and Literatures has forged an ongoing partnership with the Franco-American Heritage Center.  Concentrators have the option, for their Senior Thesis, of creating and analyzing a Francophone oral history with an elder of the local Franco-American community.
• Green Horizons Social Fabric Project: The Bates Museum of Art is sponsoring an innovative exhibition and art-making initiative, “Green Horizons,” that explores the connections between environmental sustainability, place-making, and the visual arts.  One of six artist-faculty partnerships commissioned for the project involves Center Director David Scobey and Portland public artist Christina Bechstein.  Entitled “Social Fabric,” it explores the role of weaving, story-telling, and mapping as community-building practices; Museum L-A, Empower Lewiston, Hillview Family Development, and other Harward Center partners collaborated with the “Social Fabric” team.
• Rwanda Genocide Project: Professor Alex Dauge-Roth of Romance Languages and Literatures has developed an original and important community-based research and community-based learning project on the Rwandan genocide.  Working with Rwandan NGO’s and government officials, he helps to collect and contextualize testimonies of the genocide.  In Winter Term 2007 (partly with funding from the Harward Center), he brought several Rwandan speakers to Bates; in Short Term 2008, he plans to lead a group of Bates students to work and collect testimonies in orphans’ villages in Rwanda.
• Policy Partnerships Internships: Led by Peggy Rotundo, Director of Strategic and Policy Initiatives, the Harward Center has sponsored an innovative policy partnerships initiative.  For the past two years, the Center brought David Elliott, a former legislative researcher for the Maine legislature, to teach a seminar and internship on the policy process, located in the Department of Politics.  Students are placed in governmental agencies or NGOs and pursue policy projects, based on their own interests and the needs of their partner organization, on such issues as sprawl, civil rights, municipal planning, and health care.  Graduates of this internship-seminar are active in political and civic careers, working for advocacy groups, state government, and electoral campaigns.