Past Academic Outreach Endowment Grant Recipients

Examples of Faculty Projects 

Mapping Landcover Change in Restoration Landscapes

Funding supported a series of virtual workshops that allowed a collaboration between an upper-level remote sensing course in the Geography Department and the World Resources Institute (WRI).  Prior to embarking on extensive forest restoration, WRI needed to understand the landscape changes that have taken place historically in target restoration sites and work satellite imagery is a powerful way for analyzing such changes. Students worked with the WRI to perform these needed preliminary analyses of landscape change, contributing to a more efficient preparation for restoration activities.

Native Presence and Performance: Reclaiming the Indigenous Narrative

​​​​​​​In this First Year Seminar, students respectfully engaged with and supported leading local Abenaki culture bearers as well as and Native playwrights from around the country, who shared how their work contributes to their nations’ goals and who illuminated how cultural expression supports ongoing Indigenous survivance.  Funding supported honoraria for guests to the seminar as well as registration fees for students to participate in Abenaki Heritage Week events.

Henry L Sheldon and His Museum, Then and Now

​​​​​​​Through this collaboration with the Sheldon Museum, students examined crucial primary source materials related to the founding of the museum and worked to make these important archives more accessible both for the museum staff and for external researchers. Other goals included more firmly establishing provenance of some of the original artifacts of the Museum, thereby increasing the knowledge base of the collections and bringing greater public awareness to the museums’ collections. Funding supported needed professional photography of artifacts and archival research assistance.

Lyme Disease Surveillance in Addison County and a Teaching Module for High School Students

​​​​​Funding allowed a faculty member to hire a summer research assistant to continue a tick survey of Addison County in an effort to better understand Lyme Disease risk. This was, in part, in response to data from the Centers for Disease Control that indicated that Vermont had the highest incidence of Lyme disease in the nation in 2013. The faculty member and research assistant then partnered with three MUHS biology teachers to offer a course module that was based on their research.

Centro Cultural Movil—a Socially Engaged Design Project

Grant money funded the design of a mobile hub Centro Cultural Movil (CCM) in partnership between Architectural Studies and Migrant Justice in Vermont. CCM will provide access to community resources to Latino farmworkers that are in isolated contexts.

Lincoln Stories

Grant funding enabled a faculty member to give their students in a Spring 2018 class the opportunity to conduct extensive interviews with a wide range of Lincoln residents. Inspired by an earlier service-learning course called Starksboro Stories, this course culminated with students devising engaging ways to offer these stories of land and community back to the town.

ESL Community Partners

Connected a January 2018 course in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) with local organizations that support refugee/immigrant students. Supported instruction, create resources, and build relationships.

Artistic Exchange, Choreographic Networks, and Dance Diplomacy in Mexico

Grant money funded the Middlebury Dance Company to participate in an artistic exchange by creating a show in collaboration with the EPDM conservatory, in Mazatlan, Mexico. This developed an ongoing artistic / study abroad collaboration with the EPDM conservatory, Delfos Danza, and gave students the opportunity to participate in a global choreographic network of artists, and open up intercultural opportunities in Central America.

Social and Emotional Development Community Project

Funding helped a professor engage the students in his social/emotional development class to work with three local community early education centers. Students volunteered during lab periods, gaining skills working with infants/children while also supporting the work of early childhood educators.

Chinese Outreach Program in the Public Schools

Funding allowed a faculty member to hire a student assistant, provide mileage reimbursement, and purchase materials needed to train and embed Middlebury College student volunteers in a local elementary school with partner teachers for regular language lessons (both teacher and class). They also served in the after-school program meeting twice per week for an hour each session.

Examples of Student Projects

Lyme Disease Surveillance in Addison County and a Teaching Module for High School Students

Funding allowed a faculty member to hire a summer research assistant to continue a tick survey of Addison County in an effort to better understand Lyme Disease risk. This was, in part, in response to data from the Centers for Disease Control that indicated that Vermont had the highest incidence of Lyme disease in the nation in 2013. The faculty member and research assistant then partnered with three MUHS biology teachers to offer a course module that was based on their research.

Treatment Response among Refugees, Immigrants, and Asylum Seekers in a Community Outpatient Mental Health Clinic

Reviewed the psychological evaluations of 179 refugees within the mental health clinic Connecting Cultures and compared various factors from the evaluations with attrition. Results helped the clinic adjust its practices in order to retain clients that desperately need mental health services.

Disability Policies, and People with Disabilities in Jordan

Grant funding enabled a student to examine the Jordanian policy-making process regarding disability policies through critical disability theory. The student worked within the Royal Hashemite Court of Jordan, as well as a number of community members to analyze the current relationship between the first stage of policy development led by the Hashemite family and the final stage of evaluation of effectiveness by Jordanian citizens with disabilities.

Immersive Art and Accessibility

Grant funding enabled a student to explore recent academic work in deaf cultural studies regarding the relationship people of deaf and deaf-blind experiences have with music. This lead to a proposal for the creation of an installation at the Middlebury Museum of Art allowing those of deaf and deaf-blind experiences to engage with music.

Portraits: (In)justice

Grant funding enabled students to spend time in New Orleans and Middlebury, working with local restorative justice groups to collect personal narratives. Their partnerships with the community organizations such as The Rethinkers (Kids Rethink New Orleans Schools), helped them build relationships with individuals in order to document their stories.

Rural (In)visibility: Documenting and Analyzing Support Networks for Undocumented Oregonians

The grant allowed a student to document, share and analyze developments within support and rapid response networks for undocumented Oregonians to increase statewide learning and collaboration.