In April, CELO celebrated community-engaged learning at our annual awards ceremony. Service Learning (SL) and Civic Learning (CL) courses work with over 150 community partners each year, and as in 2021, our awards this year offered special recognition of community partners who especially contributed to the education of UVM students by helping to conceive, create, and adapt learning opportunities in the context of the pandemic.

Community partners in service learning significantly enrich the student learning experience. More than simply hosts, they actively facilitating real-world application of learning, in ways that help students understand and address community priorities, while engaging directly with a variety of stakeholders. Service learning takes a number of different forms at UVM — direct service with client populations, indirect service that support organizations, project-based deliverables, and community-based research — so community partners play many different roles, as will be clear in the diversity of partners and organizations represented here.

Please join us in celebrating the wonderful contributions of our community partners over the last year; we’re so grateful for all that they do to keep UVM connected to the communities in which it is embedded.

DIRECT SERVICE PARTNERS

Danielle Harris, Director of Early Childhood Programs, Greater Burlington YMCA
Nominated by Prof. Lauren MacKillop in Early Childhood Education, Danielle and her dedicated team of early childhood teachers welcomed 60 UVM students into their classrooms. The GBYMCA could have easily asked to take a pause from teacher training in light of COVID, but they recognized teacher training as an essential element of early childhood and community wellness, and persevered in welcoming our students as partners on the frontlines — in spite of, and in light of, all the messiness of the pandemic.

Jada Secone, Teen & Youth Adventure Program Director, Sara Holbrook Community Center
When Jada was hired as the coordinator of after-school programming at the Sara Holbrook Center, she quickly re-established a collaboration with the Secondary Education Theory & Application course taught by Jen Prue, who nominated Jada for a CELO award. In response to the pandemic, Jada continued to devise ways for UVM students to lend support to, and mentor, the middle and high schoolers coming to the center. This ability to adapt to COVID circumstances — to which challenge Jada brought boundless energy and creativity — provided essential opportunities for pre-service teachers with otherwise limited opportunities to complete their real-world training.

Christina Burke, Preschool Teacher, Champlain Islands Parent Child Center
Larissa Liddle & Victoria Kuck, Head Start Teachers, Franklin Square Early Learning Center
Betsy Hoza of Psychological Science recognized Christina, Larissa, and Victoria as exceptional early childhood educators, who stand out amongst a larger group of extraordinary community partners working with Prof. Hoza’s Fit Kids program over the past six years. Fit Kids helps early childhood educators bring more physically active curriculum to bear in their classrooms via Kiddie CATs, a 30-minute program designed to engage preschoolers in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and teach them about the importance of physical activity. The program also supports the development of gross motor skills, allows children to engage in safe and cooperative play, and promotes health and fitness. UVM students work side-by-side with the teachers to implement Kiddie CATs, and the teachers provide feedback that helps shape how it is conceived and delivered in the future. Christina, Larissa, and Victoria demonstrated remarkable creativity, patience, flexibility, and empathy, modeling for the UVM students how to build high-quality relationships with the young children in their classrooms. They also act as mentors to the UVM students themselves, providing thoughtful support and constructive feedback as the students use Fit Kids to develop their skills working with young children.

COMMUNITY-BASED RESEARCH PARTNERS

Sarah Heath, Associate Director, UVM Career Center
Sarah partnered CDAE students in David Conner’s Applied Research Methods course for a community-based research project on UVM student beliefs and behaviors regarding the Career Center. Sarah was able to effectively frame the research and articulate its importance, engaging students not just in what research they would be doing, but also how its results would be used. In his nomination, David noted that student motivation often relies on the degree to which the partner can credibly articulate what will come from the results of the research, and that Sarah framed that context for his students superbly. Helping to draw out both student experiences and research findings — including those that critiqued existing Career Center practices — Sarah was gracious and open as students practiced giving potentially difficult feedback. She approached the research with an open mind and took student and instructor suggestions seriously, which in turn created much greater buy-in from the students themselves.

Kat Patterson, Implementation & Quality Specialist, SASH (Support & Services at Home) Vermont
Kat did exceptional work as a community partner to Jeanne Shea’s Culture, Health and Healing anthropological research course, in which students interviewed elderly SASH participants about their experiences of the pandemic and SASH services. Not only did Kat manage the background checks for the dozens of UVM students and frame the research context for them, she also worked with SASH coordinators all over the state to recruit 35 older adults to participate. COVID-related circumstances meant that a number of the volunteers participants had to withdraw, and Kat was especially patient in finding substitute participants so that all students could have a meaningful community-based research experience.

PROJECT-BASED PARTNERS

Theresa Messier, Superintendent, Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility
Theresa, as Superintendent of the local women’s prison, has partnered with nominator Kathy Fox on several service learning experiences with her Sociology students over the years, but she went above and beyond to accommodate projects during the pandemic. Helping students find ways to meaningfully engage with the women inside while still maintaining safe COVID protocols, Theresa’s (and her staff’s) diligence and creativity enabled the students to accomplish meaningful deliverables and valuable reflective learning. Projects included a mural in the dining hall space (pictured), designed and painted by UVM students and Prof Pamela Fraser together with some of the women inside; collages to inspire and hang in the living units; an inspirational, journal-like booklet of doodles and quotes; and a resource book for women to use upon release from prison. All these projects involved collaboration with the women inside the facility — a powerful experience for both UVM students and the incarcerated women — and they went forward even as the facility regularly had to go into various degrees of lockdown. Theresa's commitment to working with UVM students is the only way these projects could have occurred the way they did.

Gin Ferrara, Manager of Community Engagement, The Media Factory
Gin led collaboration efforts between the Media Factory and a series of CDAE Public Communications courses, including those taught by nominator Ben Dangl during the pandemic. As a hub for community media in the Burlington area, the Media Factory trains and supports new media makers and journalists, brings a diversity of voices into their studios and airwaves, and promotes free speech and community access to their resources, tools, and educational spaces. Ben noted that Gin did an incredible job coordinating and working with the students at a time when many students and community members felt isolated during some of the worst moments of the pandemic. Gin and other Media Factory members’ work UVM students during this time provided an outlet for students to feel more connected to the VT community, and — through the production of resource guides, podcasts, and interviews — contribute directly to the success of an important community media resource