Outreach

Former UMass Boston Chancellor JoAnn Gora once said:

"Community outreach is the obligation of any university, but I've observed that at UMass Boston it seems to come naturally, not as an obligation but as something fundamental. Capable people choose to work here because they want their expertise to meet the test of usefulness beyond our classrooms, offices, and laboratories.

"From the sampling of outreach projects described (below), I hope that you will get a sense of the full range of what we do--always together with friends in the communities around us--to strengthen our state's economy, nourish its young people, protect its environment, keep its citizens well, and enhance its quality of life."

• What is Envirolab? At UMass Boston, it's a 65-foot motor vessel, the Enviro-lab III, used for teaching and research by the Harbor Explorations program. Every year some 150 cruises set out from the university's Fox Point dock with students and teachers aboard for multidisciplinary, hands-on studies of the biology, chemistry, physics, and geology of the coastal environment, as well as explorations of navigation, meteorology, local history, and human impact issues in Boston Harbor. Harbor Explorations serves Massachusetts students from the fifth grade through college, and teachers from elementary, middle, and high schools. The program is a collaboration between Project Oceanology, Massachusetts Marine Educators, and the university. Since the program began in 1986, more than 150,000 students and 7,000 educators have taken part.

• The Center for Green Chemistry has a research group which has a multidisciplinary collection of students from Chemistry, ECOS, Biology, Biochemistry, Psychology and Computer Sciences. It is their belief that new, innovative, breakthrough technologies are going to be required in order to provide society with materials and processes that will not harm human health or the environment. By applying the principles of Green Chemistry in a broad spectrum of applications, they aim to contribute sustainable alternatives for industry's use. All researchers in the group participate in K-12/community outreach initiatives in environmental and science/math education. They also have an active program to visit or host groups of people to illustrate Green Chemistry as a proactive vehicle for pollution prevention, and are committed to bringing the benefits of environmentally benign research to the nonscience community.

• In higher education circles, there is no shortage of rhetoric upholding the value of "partnering with the community." But what exactly does a successful university-community partnership look like anyway? For students enrolled in the course, taught by Human Services Professor Joan Arches, participating in HIC CUP (Healthy Initiative Collaborative: Community University Partnership) qualifies as a capstone course in youth work. For members of the nearby Harbor Point community, the project has great potential for empowering youth and matching more and more UMass Boston resources with community needs.

• Thanks to a recent $1.5 million National Science Foundation grant, middle schoolers in Boston, Dedham, and Milton will be learning from University of Massachusetts Boston math and science graduate students as they study the Neponset River Watershed. This project brings together our math and science graduate students, including people from our Environmental, Coastal, and Ocean Sciences Department, and with guidance from our Graduate College of Education, sends them into the community to help middle schoolers better understand their own environment.

• As childhood obesity reaches epic proportions, and physical education classes and recess are scaled back or eliminated entirely in our schools, a UMass Boston professor is rising to the challenge of making exercise an integral part of a child's life. Avery Faigenbaum, associate professor of exercise science, is leading the way by creating and fostering exercise programs for children at Dorchester's Murphy Community Center. "Community-based physical activity programs for youth groups have the potential to help children establish lifelong, healthy behaviors," he says. Every week, Faigenbaum and four volunteer students from UMass Boston's degree programs in physical education and exercise science hold free, community exercise groups for kids. Project JUMP, a program with 7 years of success, works with children from ages 5 to 8, promoting physical activity and having fun with noncompetitive games.

• "We look to UMass Boston for support in everything from district-level planning to teacher coaching and curriculum advice," says Boston Superintendent Thomas Payzant. He calls the university's relationship with his system "one of the richest and deepest education partnerships in the nation." The partnerships extend beyond Boston to Cambridge, Somerville, and communities throughout Massachusetts. They involve students of all kinds, teachers at all levels, and critical issues from the MCAS exam to physical fitness.

• As part of a year-long study of relationships between people and the environment in which they live, middle school students from Little House Alternative School in Dorchester worked with sculptor Laura Baring-Gould of UMass Boston's Arts on the Point project to beautify the long-neglected William Meaney Playgound. They landscaped the playground, planted flower beds, repaired benches and equipment, and installed their own art work.

• Prof. Chi-kan Richard Hung of the College of Public and Community Service is working with Boston Haitian REACH 2010 to gauge the effectiveness of coordinated, community-based efforts to reduce the incidence of HIV/AIDS in the Boston-area Haitian population. The project also is also assessing the coalition- and capacity-building efforts of organizations in Boston's Haitian community that attempt to address this critical health concern.

• The Gerontology Institute's New England Pension Assistance Project (NEPAP) helps low-income older workers and retirees navigate the often complex maze of pensions and retirement income, Social Security, and investment. Through counseling and referrals to appropriate professionals, NEPAP helps individuals assess government and corporate pension policies, understand eligibility criteria, obtain and protect their pensions, and maximize their standards of living. Since its inception ten years ago, NEPAP has served more than 2,700 people, helping them claim more than $12 million in income and benefits.

• There are 76 million aging baby boomers in the USA. The average annual cost for nursing home care is $55,000, and $27,000 for home health care. What can be done? The Gerontology Institute's Yung-Ping Chen proposed a social insurance plan supplemented by private insurance and out-of-pocket payments. Chen published a synopsis of his plan in a Boston Globe op-ed piece.