Partnerships

The network of partnerships which the Center has cultivated continues to be an important resource for both curricular and research projects and programs over the past year. Some important events related to that network include

A. Women’s Transportation Seminar
The Director continues to attend meetings and maintains connections with the Women's Transportation Seminar. She attended a joint WTS/ASCE event in Providence RI. Topic of the event was "Blackstone River Valley Heritage Corridor": Design Opportunities and the RIDOT Enhancement Program. Assumption's UTC will also co-sponsor a careers event at Assumption College in the fall with the WTS.

B. International Brotherhood of Teamsters
The UTC joined the Peer Technical Assistance Network (PTAN) of the Skills for Tomorrow program sponsored by the education department of the Teamsters. PTAN members are representatives from local and regional councils whose school-to career programs have been given the best practices award. As a result of last year's meeting at Assumption College with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, a school in St. Paul, MN, participating in the Skills for Tomorrow program, applied for and received a grant from the UTC to develop a curriculum unit.

C. Interdisciplinary Environmental Association
The Director was unable to attend the IEA conference in England last summer.

D. Heritage Harbor Museum
As a result of the request from the director of Providence, Rhode Island's Heritage Harbor Museum, Dr. Albert Klyberg, Assumption's UTC held a summer workshop for social studies teachers in the middle school. This came about after two brainstorming sessions with educators and after a meeting with Prof. Anita Danker and Dr. Klyberg. Curriculum lessons and materials created as a result of this workshop will be presented to Dr. Klyberg to be used in the new Heritage Harbor Museum when it is completed.

E. Blackstone Valley Education Network
The Center has been working with organizational members of the Education Network and representatives of the John H. Chaffee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor Commission to develop a working document of "Curriculum Connections" to be used by educators in the Blackstone Valley.

In its first year the Center launched a series of initiatives in order to provide a variety of opportunities for students in the undergraduate college, in continuing education and in the graduate program to explore the relationship between transportation and the environment in their academic programs. College faculty have continued to embrace the Center’s mission and instituted the following:

1. Advisory activities in the Department of Education continue to encourage prospective K-12 teachers to explore the Center’s theme in their course work on pedagogical methods in history and the social sciences. This year, students covered the transportation revolution of the 19th century in the US.

2. A College Management Group of selected faculty and administrators has continued to initiate exploration and encourage appropriation of the Center’s theme in academic offerings with the following results:

The Independent Study of the History of Transportation offered by the Undergraduate Department of History has become a regular offering with a focus on the environmental impacts associated with that history. Undergraduates concentrating in education have the opportunity to meet both major requirements in the discipline and the certification requirement for history using the Center’s theme.

GEO 106, Historical Geography of the U.S. and Canada, a regular offering in the Department of Economics and Global Studies, has been modified to include an examination of transportation’s relation to land use, population, settlement, economic and urban growth patterns. Undergraduates concentrating in education are encouraged to take this course in order to meet certification requirements for social studies.

ART 350, Mill Architecture, a course designed to explore the relationship between changes in the modes of transportation and their impact on early industrial and community architecture of New England, has become a regular offering of the Department of Fine Arts.

In July, the Education Department and the UTC conducted a workshop, Railroad Ties in the Blackstone Valley to develop materials for the Heritage Harbor Museum mentioned above. The focus was on the Impact of the Providence & Worcester Railroad on Transportation, Communities, Immigration, Industry, Inventions and the Environment of the Blackstone Valley. Six middle school teachers explored resources and developed curriculum packets of lesson plans, unit plans, and/or teaching resources. The outcome of their work will benefit not only the Heritage Harbor Museum but also the teachers and their students.

SRS 119, Introduction to Social and Rehabilitation Services included a unit on the Americans with Disabilities Act, part of which requires accessibility for all public forms of transportation. Students discussed information about accessible automobiles and vans for people who cannot manage traditional vehicles because of their disabilities.

3. The acquisition of theme-based materials for the Department of Education’s
Resource Room was initiated during our first two years. As our holdings increased, the Education Resource Room became too small and unable to have any more materials placed there. Presently there are 186 resources available to student teachers and preservice students in the Education Resource Room on topics such as Transportation, Technology and the Environment.

4. The relative difficulty faced by off-campus teachers using the educational resources of the Education Resource Room has given rise to the creation of a UTC educational resource collection available for off-campus borrowing. Titles added to this collection over the past year include the following:

Westward Ho
Transcontinental Railroad (copy 3)
Immigration (copy 2)
Fender Bender Physics (2 copies)
Stop Faking It! Force and Motion
Stop Faking It! Energy
Force and Motion
Maps, Charts, Graphs, and Diagrams
Beginning Map Skills
U.S. Map Adventures
Move with Science
Boston Environment: Land and People
Eight Hours for What We Will

This collection of materials housed in the UTC office number 122.

5. In order to support and encourage the incorporation of the Center’s theme in the undergraduate and continuing education programs at the college, a book fund was established in the College library to be used to acquire theme-related publications for use in the regular academic offerings of departments throughout the campus. The library’s director has designed a bookplate for each such volume, using the Center’s logo and identifying its acquisition with Center funds. Although these volumes will be cataloged according to academic disciplines, the library’s search engine will include the key words “transportation” and “environmental studies.” Faculty requests for book purchases are submitted to the Center’s director for approval. Acquisitions during this year include:

Transportation planning handbook;
Travel by Design: the influence of urban form on travel;
Street reclaiming: creating livable streets and vibrant communities;
Asphalt Nation: how the automobile took over American and how we can take it back;
722 Miles: the building of the subways and how they transformed New York;
City routes, city rights: building livable neighborhoods and environmental justice by fixing transportation;
Breaking the Environmental Policy Gridlock
Case Studies of Multimodal/Intermodal Transportation: Planning Methods, Funding Programs and Projects;
Swaziland: Contemporary Social and Economic Issues;
This is Nowhere (video-recording);
Railways in Britain and the United States, 1830-1940.

The collection now numbers 53.

6. Modification of offerings to incorporate issues relating to the Center’s theme were either initiated or expanded with the following results:

ART 350, Mill Architecture, designed as a seminar in which students explored the relationship between the changes in transportation and the emerging patterns of architecture for both the work place and community life during the industrial revolution in New England.

ANT 232, Historical Archaeology, included an examination of how lives and communities change and evolve with changes in modes of surface transportation, e.g. foot travel, horse, wagon, railroad, and automobiles.

CHE 318, Environmental Chemistry and CHE 105, Chemistry and Modern Society: Students discussed global warming, touching on CAFE standards and CO₂ emissions from cars and the topic of air pollution from cars (NO_x, HCs, CO). CHE 105 also learned about the process of oil refining to get to gasoline.

ECO 260, Government and the American Economy, looked at the impact of transportation and transportation policy on the national economy.

EDU 323, History and the Social Sciences in Elementary Curriculum, used the Center’s theme to illustrate teaching methods in history and social science for elementary students.

EDU 324, Math, Science and Technology in the Elementary Curriculum, utilized the Center’s theme as the basis for teaching methods for studying the environment and transportation for elementary students.

EDU 333, Teaching and Learning in the Middle School, used the Center's theme to discuss the development of transportation during the 1820's on the lives of the early settlers in the Blackstone Valley.

EDU 344, Secondary Curriculum and Methods in History and the Social Sciences, utilized the Center’s theme as resource for teaching history and social science to high school students. Students were also encouraged to use the Center’s theme in developing their term projects.

Eng 308, Writing and Editing/Nature Writing, used their field trips to Walden Pond and other sites to reflect on what Henry David Thoreau would think of the fact that they were using the automobile to travel to these sites.

GEO106, Historical Geography of the U.S. and Canada, examined the period from colonial times to 1920 by looking at the relationship between transportation and land use, population, settlement, economic and urban growth patterns. (Note: this course is extremely important for the Center’s work since students in education are encouraged to use it to fulfill their social science certification requirement.)

HIS 289, The City in European History, utilized surface transportation as a sub-text in examining the development of urban centers and culture in Europe.

MGT 307, International Management, in which transportation logistics within and between countries was a critical unit in the course.

PHY 491, Seminar: Environmental Science, explored the issue of Global Warming as a result of green house gases such as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and perfluorocarbons (PFCs).

SOC 206, Sociology of Urban Life, examined the critical role of rail transportation in the development of urban centers in the United States and the impact of the Interstate Highway Act of 1956 on the urban/suburban dichotomy in American life.

SRS 119, Introduction to Social Rehabilitation Services, examined the relationship between transportation and disabilities as a major component of the semester’s work.