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 UTC’s third year began with an on-campus luncheon meeting of the Boston and Central/West chapters of the WTS. Attended by over one hundred members, the event provided the opportunity to showcase our program and to expand contacts within the two chapters. Ed Augustus, Congressman McGovern’s chief of staff, was the keynote speaker.

B. International Brotherhood of Teamsters
The UTC has been invited to join 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. The director attended the network’s meeting on 22, 23 July 2001 at the Teamsters’ headquarters in Washington, D.C. On February 12, 13 2002 the director attended PTAN’s meeting at Local 170’s Union Hall in Worcester and the UTC hosted a luncheon for the group on campus.

C. Interdisciplinary Environmental Association
The Associate Director and Mr. Drew Cummings, a sixth grade history teacher at the Bancroft School and recipient of a research program award for 1999-2000, attended the annual conference of the IEA meeting in San Francisco in early July 2001. Mr. Cummings presented a paper on the results of his curricular project and its implications for teaching American History with the Center’s theme.

D. Heritage Harbor Museum
The director of Providence, Rhode Island’s Heritage Harbor Museum, Dr. Al Klyberg, has invited Assumption’s UTC to participate in the development of a interactive museum display on transportation in the Blackstone River Valley Corridor. With a focus on the development of rail, the display is being designed for teachers and their students as a curricular strategy for appreciating the interaction between the valley environment and transportation development. The UTC’s associate director hosted two planning workshops with Dr. Klyberg and area teachers on 19 September and 29 November. A meeting with Drs. Klyberg, Anita Danker, and the associate director took place in May to discuss the possibility of a workshop for middle school teachers. The workshop is planned for July 2002 and will target middle school social studies teachers.

E. Blackstone Valley Education Network
The Center, organizational members of the Education Network and representatives of the John H. Chaffee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor Commission
organized two resource workshops for teachers in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. These day-long events were planned to feature the educational potentials of teacher partnerships with network members. The Center organized both an exhibit and a presentation by one of the principal investigations from its curricular research program. Unfortunately the number of registrants for both workshops did not warrant presenting these events.

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. One result of the Education Department’s encouragement

three undergraduate students developed a curriculum unit for 7th grade classes titled Here to There to Everywhere, a transportation unit.

2. Presentation of appropriate research and independent study projects were made to student organizations on campus with the result that

eight undergraduate students were accepted as residents of the Living/Learning Center.

Projects conducted by the students included recycling issues, transportation and pollution issues, water conservation, energy & electricity conservation and littering effects on environment and the future.

3. 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.

In June, Faculty members from the Departments of Education and Natural Science offered a summer institute, EDU 600A, Roads, Runoff, and Water Quality Calculator Based Assessment, to fifteen elementary teachers.

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.

Under the direction of Prof. Kevin Hickey, faculty members from the Departments of History, Sociology & Anthropology, Political Science, and Education have undertaken a summer’s program of research in order to prepare an interdisciplinary undergraduate course using the Center’s theme. The working title being used is “The Environmental Impact of Transportation Planning.” It is hoped that this course will be the core offering for a minor program in Environmental Studies.

The Education Department and the UTC will conduct a workshop in July to develop materials for the Heritage Harbor Museum mentioned above. It is entitled: Railroad Ties in the Blackstone Valley. The focus is on the Impact of the Providence & Worcester Railroad on Transportation, Communities, Immigration, Industry, Inventions and the Environment of the Blackstone Valley. Teachers will explore resources and develop 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.

4. 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.

5. 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:

When the Railroad Leaves Town
Never the Same Again: A Young Woman’s Story of Life in the Blackstone Valley in the 1820’s
Reshaping the Built Environment
Transcontinental Railroad
Getting Around Without Gasoline
Create-a-Town Simulation
Ecology and Design
Industrial Revolution, Reshaping the Built Environment
Trails for the Twenty-First Century

This collection of materials housed in the UTC office number 90.

6. 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:

Principles of Transportation Economics;
Building Livable Communities: A policymaker’s Guide to Transit-oriented Development;
A Practical Guide to Transportation and Logistics;
Alternative Fuels: Fuel Cells and Natural Gas, Society of Automotive Engineers; Oxygenated and Alternative Fuels;
Understanding Traffic Systems: Data Analysis and Presentation;
Designing Field Studies for Biodiversity Conservation;
Modeling in Natural Resources Management;
Urban Transportation and the Environment for the 21st Century IV.
Electric Vehicles: Socio-economic Prospects and Technological Challenges
Elephant in the Bedroom: Automobile Dependence and Denial: Impacts on the Economy and Environment

The collection now numbers 53.

7. 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.

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 form elementary students.

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.

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.