Middlebury Honored at Vermont Campus Compact Awards
MIDDLEBURY, Vt. – A student, faculty member, the College, and a Community Partner all earned recognition at the annual Vermont Campus Compact awards, which were presented at a ceremony in Montpelier in April. Vermont Campus Compact facilitates civic engagement among the 24 members of the Vermont Higher Education Council.
Chelsea Colby ’17.5 was Middlebury College’s recipient for the Engaged Student Award for her multiple engagements with Addison County partners. Colby focused many of her efforts on local agriculture, food systems, access to and attitudes around local produce, and youth education. Throughout her co-curricular and academic experiences, in particular, she has carried forward initiatives with the student organization Nutrition Outreach and Mentoring (NOM).
In partnership with individuals at the VT Department of Health, Mary Hogan Elementary School, The Abbey Group, and NOM, Colby has helped launch monthly taste tests, using the Harvest of the Month curriculum at Mary Hogan Elementary School. Together, the groups have served more than 1800 samples of local produce, including parsnips, roasted sweet potato, and kale chips. Colby is pursuing a major in Environmental Policy with a minor in Education Studies.
Assistant Professor of Writing and Linguistics Shawna Shapiro was a finalist for the Engaged Educator Award, which is given to a faculty member who has made public service an integral part of their teaching and research to the benefit of both students and the community. Shapiro was recognized for her efforts to develop immersive learning opportunities for students through community-based projects in her courses and research.
Over the past year, Shapiro helped establish a Nepali Heritage Language Program for children in the Burlington/Winooski area while also connecting the project with her teaching at Middlebury. Shapiro was involved in the curriculum design, publicity, and grant-writing of the Nepali Heritage Language Program and further connected the work with her First-Year Seminar, “Language and Social Justice.”
The Engaged Partnership Award recognized Middlebury College’s work with Open Door Clinic, a free health clinic for uninsured and under-insured adults in Addison County, Vermont. The award honors partnerships between community organizations and Vermont campuses designed to address real and pressing community needs.
Open Door holds seven clinics per month and conducts a number of outreach clinics, primarily in the fall, when they visit about 30 farms throughout their service area. Middlebury College students fluent in foreign languages–especially Spanish and French–provide medical interpretation support to the Open Door Clinic team to facilitate communication with patients, 30 percent of whom have limited English proficiency.
Additionally, the Open Door Clinic has served as an internship host site for Addison County Privilege & Poverty Internships for many years and many more students involve themselves with various volunteering opportunities at the clinic, including EMT work, medical interpretation, front desk staff, and office help.
“Without Middlebury College students as volunteers, we wouldn’t have been able to see as many migrant farm workers as we have seen,” said Christiane Kokubo, an Open Door Clinic staff member.
“Not only do the ODC staff provide time and mentorship to the interns working with them, they also participate in discussion sections, reflection, closing events, and more,” said Tiffany Sargent, director of Middlebury’s Center for Community Engagement. “Our ODC colleagues willingly engage in discussion, explore deeply our work together, and act as true partners. We are so very fortunate to have such generous colleagues and partners at ODC!”