Monthly Feature

For our first newsletter we wanted to offer a snapshot of projects in each of the three focus areas of our COPC grant: Community Inclusion, Youth Empowerment, and Affordable Housing.

Community Inclusion

“The CYBER Project” (Connecting Youth to Bangor and Electronic Resources) partners Shaw House, Bangor ’s homeless teen shelter, with the University of Maine to bring youth new media training in the context of life planning and work-skills development.  By bringing together UMaine’s New Media Department with the Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies (CCIDS), five modules have been developed so that the first curriculum progressively builds upon the next, while still allowing flexibility for new students to join at any stage.  

Led by Professor Owen Smith and Research Associate Janet May, graduate students Andy Hurtt (New Media) and Scott Clement (CCIDS) have been engaging students at the Shaw House every other Wednesday night since mid-February.  Their goal is to provide a core curriculum of person-centered planning with higher education aspirations and hands-on skills that involves media tools in imaging, web design, video, etc. “All of the new media material we use comes from a 270 level course, so at the end of the 5^th module, it’s cool to tell them that they have ‘passed’ a University of Maine class,” says Andy.  

With the recent addition of four new iMacs with built-in video cameras, Scott says that their work is going well.  “It’s been nice to keep seeing some of the same faces.  The kids we come in contact with live in the moment and really don't know what they are going to be doing from one day to the next.  They might not know what they are doing Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday nights, but some of them know what they are doing Wednesday nights.  One kid even changed her schedule to make time for us.”  Now that the kids have gravitated to the technology, Scott adds that he’d like to strengthen more of the academic and job-skill connections.

Community and university COPC partners are welcome to learn the modules while working alongside the youth.  Contact Scott (scott.clement@umit.maine.edu) for more details.   

Youth Empowerment

Last December local Bangor High School students, under the direction of UMaine doctoral student Jessica Brophy, launched Common Corner, the first Bangor newsletter written by youth, for youth.  With the guidance of Professor Shannon Martin, the project connects UMaine’s Department of Communication and Journalism with teens from the Salvation Army’s Powerhouse Teen Center.  

There also has been strong behind-the-scenes support from the community.  The Bangor Public Library, where Jessica and the students meet every week, provided a tour and helped the students obtain their own library cards.  As the newsletter was just beginning to take shape last fall, staff from the Bangor Daily News visited Jessica and the teens to offer tips on newspaper design and content layout.

Jessica proudly asserts that the newsletter is entirely written by the kids—she’s only there to help them think of possible stories, set up interviews, and offer her expertise in journalism.  The feedback from students has been very positive.  “I enjoyed distributing the papers and writing the stories.  I would like to write more for future issues, meet more often, add artwork and make it bigger.”

The only challenge has been getting kids to break away from their busy academic and athletic schedules to come write. “This is a big project and a lot depends on the interest and commitment of the teens.  I hope we can keep the project interesting and fun for students—and also keep them learning about media practices and the world around them.”  Since March, the project has garnered some great media attention, including: a place on the Powerhouse Teen Center website (http://www.thepowerhouseteencenter.org/); a radio interview on Q 106.5; air time on WLBZ Channel 2 news; a space on the City’s website and their “Did you know” newsletter; a space on the City’s public access channel; and a feature in the Bangor Public Library’s newsletter.  From the outreach efforts and the students’ feedback about the project, Jessica is confident that the publication will only get better with time.

New students are always welcome!  For more information contact Jessica at jessica.brophy@umit.maine.edu. 

To view issues of the Common Corner go to www.umaine.edu/mcsc/COPC/commoncorner.htm.  

Affordable Housing

Since last fall UMaine’s Center on Aging has been convening a wide ranging group of community partners—including residents—to tackle housing issues such as affordability, availability and access.  The group is beginning with a needs assessment and then will be identifying collaborative solutions to the most pressing housing problems for the area’s elderly and special needs populations.  For more information, go to the Center on Aging’s website:  http://www.umaine.edu/mainecenteronaging/
copcresources.htm.  

You may also subscribe to a housing listserv for participants by sending an email to majordomo@mainecenteronaging.org with the words “Subscribe housing” in the BODY/TEXT of the email (not the subject line).

A second project, under the guidance of UMaine’s Dr. William Davids and engineers and architects from WBRC Architects and Engineers, involves students from the School of Engineering .  This summer second-year student Andrew Clark will conduct assessments of the downtown’s infrastructure and walk-ability.  Over the coming academic year and in the summer of 2008, civil engineering students will then take these assessments and further develop them into concrete plans for enhancing physical structures and transportation in the downtown.

Together, these two projects will result in a current assessment of how the region is faring, broad recommendations, and concrete ideas for meeting the region’s current and future affordable housing, transportation and service needs.