Campuses for Environmental Stewardship (CES) - Norwich University Narrative I. Reasons for Participation a. Norwich University chooses to offer an integrated, interdisciplinary set of curriculum modifications built around geology, environmental engineering, sustainable architecture, and outdoor education, all in collaboration with the Town of Northfield and its many partners, to develop a flood zone education park. We do this because one of the our founding principles almost 200 years ago was to promote experiential learning, cast in the framework of “service before self.” The University’s original concept of developing the citizen soldier has evolved to match the changing nature of our nation, now striving to develop leaders to implement change for the good, from the global stage to the local neighborhood. b. The thrust of the Davis Education Foundation’s CES program dovetails with our evolving goals. Our Chairman of the Board of Trustees, former Army Chief of Staff General Gordon R. Sullivan, recently presented a challenge to our students, faculty, and the community-at-large as a Todd Lecture titled National Security Implications of Climate Change. The challenge: “find your own way to make a difference, to do something, and not sit back waiting for others.” This proposal meets that challenge. II. Our Participants a. Faculty Committed to Participating Tara Kulkarni, Asst. Prof. of Civil Engineering (2011); B.E., 1998, University of Pune; M.S., 1999, University of Toledo; Ph. D., 2004, Florida State University. Registered Professional Engineer. Matthew Lutz, Assoc. Prof. of Architecture (2007); B.F.A., 1993, Savannah College of Art and Design, M.Arch., 1999, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Registered Architect. Thomas Roberge, Asst. Prof. of Physical Education (2014); B.S., 1992, Johnson State College; M.S., 2005, St. Michael’s College, Ph.D. 2014, North Central University. David Westerman, Charles A. Dana Professor of Geology (2000), Associate Vice President for Research (2007); B.S., 1969, Allegheny College; M.S., 1971 and Ph.D., 1972, Lehigh University. b. Participant Experiences Dr. Kulkarni has been a leader in her Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in expanding the role of service-learning (S-L) as part of their curriculum, integrating S-L projects into several of her courses. From the 2012 projects, one big success was a rainwater harvesting system designed for Flynn Elementary School in Burlington, VT, that was used by the school to apply for a $5,000 grant from Lowes, which they received. More recently, 30 engineering students participated in Fall 2014 in nine different service-learning projects, working with ten different community partners. Prof. Lutz comes out of the School of Art and Architecture with a program designed to designed to implement useful constructs that are in balance with their environment. The School’s emphasis on passive solar design and sustainability fits perfectly with our proposed integrated, community-based project. Prof. Lutz integrates community-based learning in every design laboratory; examples include working with the Town Planning Office of Shelburne to propose alternatives to the current RT. 7 business corridor, designing and building an outdoor classroom for the Northfield High School STAR Program (Students Taking Alternative Routes), and offering design proposals for the expansion of the Vermont Food Bank food-shelf program. Prof. Roberge recently established a new outdoor education track in the Department of Biology and Physical Education. This suite of courses was initiated last fall and included S-L components in partnership with the Northfield and Roxbury school systems, focusing on respecting our environment when enjoying the outdoors (leave no trace), and how lack of respect affects our health and the health of the ecosystem. Dr. Westerman developed the Environmental Science program at Norwich and has a long history of teaching and carrying out research in the environmental field, primarily centered on natural causes of variation in water quality. His recent Math-Science Partnership grant through the Vermont Department of Education funded a collaborative mentoring project involving four NU faculty and four local Northfield Middle School – High School science teachers. c. Reasons for Participating There is a collective set of motivations within our team. All participants are committed to taking action to preserve and restore the environment, and it’s time to step up and be heard. Participation in the project provides excellent motivation to do things we long have wanted to do. We can’t continue to bemoan the apathy of the public about their responsibilities without making a more directed effort to engage them. We recognize that to have a beneficial impact on the environment, particularly as it relates to climate change and sustainability, education across disciplines is critical. Our current problems are interdisciplinary and will require participation throughout the hierarchy of players, from the teachers to the students at all levels, from civic leaders to their constituents, and from scientists to humanists. We think that the most important question that needs to be asked is “what can I do as an individual?” and we think we can facilitate others finding their way to contribute. At the same time, we see that we can offer more to our students and to members of the local community if we collaborate across disciplines. III. Our Issues a. What? The largest overriding issue regarding the future of Earth’s habitability is climate change, with the myriad repercussions that stem from the current warming trend. We want to focus on this tremendous issue, while carrying out a project that highlights the need for interdisciplinary solutions. Our specific project addresses living with flooding, and we seek to use this as a means of helping our students, members of the local community, and ultimately the world at large as they face the process of designing solutions to global environmental change. b. How? Our plan is to develop a set of S-L modules in four courses with community partners who are already collaborating on development of land purchased by the Town of Northfield, VT. The land is in the 100-year flood zone, and it is the Town’s intention to develop this land as a flood-education park designed to experience flooding without harm. We hope to become part of this collaboration and bring an educational component to the project, serving our Norwich students who participate in the four modules, the community partners (including local school children at all levels), and a broader audience. The four courses span several disciplines. The largest is a section of Introduction to Geology (Westerman) with a mix of 40 students including General Education students across all disciplines, plus geology and environmental science majors. The remaining courses are populated by upper-level engineering students (Environmental Engineering - Kulkarni), architecture students (Introduction to Passive Environmental Systems – Lutz), and physical education students (Outdoor Education – Roberge). Each course will bring strengths to the project. Geology provides an understanding of the flooding issues; engineering and architecture work collaboratively design and implement a solution; outdoor education connects it all together to communicate the results. Each group of students must connect with the others to prepare their contribution, and community groups interact with all four working teams. At the end of the project, interdisciplinary teams bring those results to the partners and the public. Assessment tools will be implemented to examine the effectiveness of including service-learning in an interdisciplinary suite of courses, with the intent of preparing results for presentation and, if warranted, publication in a pertinent scholarship of teaching and learning journal. IV. Our Partners We have arranged to partner with the Town of Northfield, which was hit very hard in 2011 by Tropical Storm Irene. A stretch of developed riverfront along the Dog River was damaged to the point of condemnation. The Town has wisely purchased this land, which is readily accessible on foot from both Norwich University and the local schools, and they plan to develop a park where the land will undoubtedly be flooded repeatedly. The beauty of this partnership is that the Town is already in a collaborative arrangement with a substantial number of partners of its own, providing a built-in community for us to work with. These partners include Friends of the Winooski River, Northfield Middle-High School, VT Housing and Conservation Board, Mad/Dog Trout Unlimited, Northfield Rotary Club, Winooski Natural Resources Conservation District, and US Fish and Wildlife Service. V. Our Capabilities a. Programmatic Capability A robust grant and project management system is in place at Norwich within the Office of Academic Research. A full-time Director of Sponsored Programs will oversee the mechanics of post-award processes. Matching funds have been budgeted for FY16 to supplement this grant, primarily for small summer stipends for course development as well as for travel. b. Project Manager Dr. Westerman is a seasoned teacher, scholar and administrator, with more than 40 years of experience in academia. He has served as Chair of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and as Associate Vice President for Research (AVPR) at Norwich, as President of the Maine and Vermont Geological Societies, and as Vice President of the Vermont Chapter of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society. As AVPR he has managed dozens of grants these past eight years, including several of his own such as Influences on Variations in Stream Water Chemistry in the Dog River Watershed, a VT - EPSCoR grant supporting four faculty and their students. VI. Our History a. Previous Campus Compact Awards Kulkarni received “Service-Learning in Environmental Engineering” - Vermont Campus Compact and the TD Charitable Foundation– Environmental Service-Learning Teaching Mini-Grant in 2012. b. Building Off Campus Compact Kulkarni’s CC and TD Bank awards were followed by two VT EPSCoR grants: “Impacts of Phosphorus on Surface Waters from Onsite Wastewater Treatment Systems in a Changing Climate” (2013-2014), and “A suitability model for Green Infrastructure/Low Impact Development Projects to manage stormwater in Vermont watersheds” (2014-2105). More recently she has obtained EPA funding for the S-L-based project “Pervious Concrete Filters for Sustainable Water Resource Management” (2014-2015). All of Kulkarni’s projects include student researchers and community partners, and they are all connected to environmental stewardship. This example is provided to show that a small investment can lead to far larger results, and to hopefully convince the review committee that another investment in Norwich will pay off handsomely. (submitted April 8, 2015)