2020 A NNUA L R EP O RT
MONMOUTH COLLEGE
RURAL EDUCATION INITIATIVES department of educational studies
MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR
W
ell, 2020 will be remembered for quite a few things, but for most
people, it will not be thought of as a year of opportunity. Even though 2020 was a difficult year on many fronts, we continued to make progress across an array of initiatives. Our Rural Education Initiatives program initiated or developed working relationships with several area organizations, including:
The YMCA YAcademy Program: Students visited the Monmouth Educational Farm & Garden to engage with agriculture-related activities connected to science, math and social studies. The Warren-Henderson Farm Bureau: Met with representatives to discuss a partnered education program. FFA: Met with representatives to discuss opportunities to use the Monmouth Educational Farm & Garden as a learning site for FFA students. Compeer Financial: Received $25,000 MORE for Agriculture grant to build an education infrastructure for a food-based curriculum, farm classroom and place-based learning activities.
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Monmouth Chamber of Commerce: Worked with representatives to plan school-community entrepreneurial opportunities within the local farmers market, planting edible trails through town, and establishing rooftop garden and pollinator sites downtown. Each of these recent connections has strengthened our community ties; helped us pursue our commitment to rural revitalization; and celebrated the people, institutions and natural resources associated with the local economy, education, environment and agrarian culture. We had an exciting and productive 2020 because people understand that we are better when we come together to improve our educational opportunities, our environment, our local economy, and invest in our shared resources and communal aspirations.
Craig Vivian Chair, Monmouth College Educational Studies Department
REDI AT A GLANCE REDI, which stands for rural education initiatives, is a program of the Monmouth College Educational Studies Department. Since its inception in 2019, REDI has brought together College faculty and staff, local educators, community partners, and national organizations who share a commitment to community and a vision for changing the face of rural education to improve equity and quality of life in rural areas. REDI Initiatives: TARTANS Rural Teacher Corps, which prepares teachers committed to rural education to be visionaries in their communities. PLACE Teaching Sites, which provide learning spaces where students focus on local place through project-based inquiry learning. Monmouth Educational Farm & Garden, a place of living resources that enrich hands-on education about agriculture, sustainability and nutrition for learners. REDI’s robust rural network strengthens local relationships, fosters collaboration and accelerates community-driven action as it relates to rural revitalization through education. We thank the following individuals from the Educational Studies Department who have served as acting REDI steering committee members. They have helped secure funding, conducted outreach, and built key infrastructure for the program: Craig Vivian, professor; Tammy La Prad, assistant professor; Jenni Dickens, director of partnerships and initiatives; John Glasgow, community engagement fellow; and Cammy Davis, Peace Corps fellow. The department has also coalesced around this effort. The support of these department members has been invaluable: Michelle Holschuh-Simmons, associate professor; Brad Rowe, associate professor; Sherry Bair, associate professor; Tom Sargent, professor; and Amjad Karkout, academic administrative assistant.
ADVISORY BOARD In response to the promising growth and building momentum of REDI, we created the REDI Advisory Board. Members lend their rural and agricultural insight and expertise; help REDI build connections; and help raise awareness of REDI’s mission and efforts in rural revitalization through education. The inaugural members of the REDI Advisory Board are:
LUCY THOMPSON
STEPHANIE BERNOTEIT
Future Farmers of America regional director and Monmouth College alumna
Executive Deputy Director of Academic Affairs at the Illinois Board of Higher Education
SHANE KAISER Compeer Financial insurance officer, Monmouth branch
DANIELLE NIERENBERG
DENISE MANN
WENDELL SHAUMAN
TARTANS Advisory Board member and retired Monmouth teacher
Area farmer, past U.S. Grains Council chairman and Monmouth College alumnus
Food activist, President of Food Tank (a non-profit think tank), Monmouth College alumna, and winner of the prestigious Julia Child Award
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MILESTONES
GROWTH. As our program grows, so does our impact. A sensational fundraising effort through Monmouth’s Scots Day of Giving demonstrated the College’s and community’s overwhelming support for our mission. Support has grown along with REDI to produce a new infrastructure, a growing rural teacher corps, generous grants, and an expanding network of partners and stakeholders.
Volunteers construct geodesic classroom An open-air classroom in the form of a 30-foot-wide geodesic dome became part of REDI’s place-based education infrastructure in 2020.
30 25 Feet in Diameter
Monmouth students, faculty, staff and their families helped with assembly
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The open-air classroom was funded by a 2019 grant from Compeer Financial with support from the Rural Schools Collaborative. Its purpose is to support efforts to promote place-based learning, which encourages teachers to incorporate students’ community and environment into their lessons. Its assembly echoed a barn-raising event, with 25 volunteers from across the College community and disciplines assisting. Mathematics professor Mike Sostarezc delivered a mini-presentation to the group, outlining fascinating connections to geometry and structural design. The structure helped REDI maintain momentum in its place-based education outreach efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing students and teachers to learn and interact safely and socially distanced outdoors.
Record number of students apply to TARTANS rural teacher corps The number of applicants in 2020 exceeded the stipended positions available, but many students committed informally to benefit from the program irrespective of the financial award. The corps has nearly tripled in membership from its first year, boasts a robust advisory board of retired area teachers and includes an active alumni network.
Monmouth College’s Educational Farm is set to be the location for REDI’s PLACE Site, with support from Compeer.
Compeer awards $25,000 for expanded programming A $25,000 grant awarded in December 2020 will fund agricultural-based educational partnerships and curriculum, and extends the impact of 2019’s $10,000 Compeer grant award. Through presentations, digital and on-site workshops, and social media outreach, the Farm as a PLACE Site aims to develop: agricultural curriculum for the community and K-12 students; spaces for the public to interact with agriculture; an interdisciplinary network of experts; and a platform to highlight the community’s agricultural experiences. The program will serve as a hub and model, offering a replicable framework for agricultural education and engagement to other regional rural communities.
“I was so worried that I wasn’t going to be able to do this," said 2020 graduate McKenzie Campbell. “I don’t want to say this is easy, because it’s not, but I do really think Monmouth College prepared me. My time with TARTANS made me conscious of a lot of things, about the words that I’m saying, and how I’m teaching. It made me more conscious of living situations, of everything that goes on in students’ daily lives, and more conscious of trying to make connections in the community.”
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Current TARTANS rural teacher corps members.
Professor Tammy La Prad (right) and TARTANS member Mariah Garzee meet for a class at the Monmouth Educational Farm.
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Peace Corps Fellow Cammy Davis examines vegetables growing in the Monmouth Educational Farm’s hoop house.
REDI welcomes Peace Corps Fellow
Interdisciplinary brain trust
Monmouth’s first Peace Corps Fellow placement is Western Illinois University graduate student Cammy Davis. Cammy, who joined the REDI team in 2020, is spending the 2020-21 school year helping develop new initiatives, including: developing the TARTANS alumni contact base; writing curriculum for gardening video modules; and meeting with partners to discuss collaboration opportunities. We are grateful to Western Illinois University Peace Corps Fellows Executive Director Karen Mauldin-Curtis for help establishing this partnership.
Nine faculty across seven departments work with REDI on its place-based education and rural revitalization efforts.
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Round-trip miles driven by Peace Corps Fellow Cammy Davis on each commute from Macomb to Monmouth College.
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Vanessa Campagna (theatre) and Marlo Belscher (English) are creating a puppet play to be performed at the Educational Farm & Garden; Mike Sostarezc (mathematics) presented mathematical connections to the geodesic dome’s construction; Carolyn Liesen (psychology) serves as a consultant on family engagement strategies; Eric Engstrom (biology) helps coordinate community learning opportunities at the Educational Farm & Garden. Stephanie Baugh and Janis Wunderlich (art), Mike Solontai (engineering), and Adrienne Hagen (classics) will work with REDI and area teachers on community projects connected with the Compeer grant award.
REDI wing REDI gained a permanent space in Wallace Hall in 2020 by converting a classroom into three offices and a central meeting space. This common space has been critical for facilitating the REDI team’s project collaboration.
Monmouth Community Engagement Fellow John Glasgow, (left) and educational studies professors Tammy La Prad (center) and Craig Vivian, (right) lead Warren County YMCA YAcademy students in investigating insects in the Educational Farm & Garden hoop house.
MOMENTUM. REDI has built extraordinary momentum during an extraordinary year. In the face of a pandemic that disrupted schools and communities worldwide, REDI chose to listen and respond to stakeholders’ needs. Our mission to revitalize rural areas through schools is more important than ever as teachers, students and community members experience the challenges of remote learning, quarantines and closures. Rather than pause, we pushed. We offered workshops on remote teaching technologies, in-person and virtual field trips to the Educational Farm & Garden, and place-based video agriculture lessons; reaffirmed our commitments with our school and organizational partners through continued conversations and revisited shared goals; and connected with new partners who share our mission.
YMCA Week at the Farm REDI partnered with the Warren County YMCA YAcademy program to offer a hands-on (and masks-on!) field trip to the Educational Farm & Garden. Children hunted for insects, collected leaves and drew like a naturalist. Many children tasted new foods, fresh off the plants. TARTANS and other educational studies students volunteered as guides and interacted with children throughout the event. “It was a great opportunity for the kids to get outside and learn about the Educational Farm & Garden. A lot of these kids had no idea our community had that so it was a great learning experience for them.”
– Emily Brooks YMCA membership and youth development director
“The Educational Farm & Garden provided the YMCA students with an amazing learning opportunity, especially during a time when these experiences are hard to take place in schools due to the pandemic and all the restrictions that it brings into classrooms and schools.” – Alex Johnson ’21 Educational Studies Major
Educational studies major Ashley Gibbs ‘24 helps YAcademy student Akirah Wallace practice observational drawing in front of the Educational Farm’s apple orchard.
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Virtual garden videos inform curriculum
Going virtual early in 2020 did not stop the effort to get local students into the Educational Farm & Garden to learn from nature. REDI created three virtual units to go in-depth into the life cycle of a garden, from bees pollinating, to seeds developing, and finally to plants and trees growing to begin the cycle again. With video modules created and a prototype for a full-fledged garden curriculum ready to be implemented, area teachers will review the videos and help guide the next series of virtual modules to be filmed through the MORE for Agriculture grant.
Javier Reyes, a bilingual teacher at Monmouth’s Central Intermediate School, discusses his approach to place-based education in his classroom.
Partnerships mature locally, regionally and nationally Monmouth is in its third year of formal partnership with the Monmouth-Roseville school district. Central Intermediate School serves as REDI’s first PLACE (Partnerships Linking Agriculture, Community and Education) Site, where teachers and administrators have committed to implementing and modeling place-based education for students and for pre-service teachers working and observing in classrooms. One such classroom is that of Javier Reyes, whose PBE instruction is entirely in Spanish. Regional and national partners (Rural Schools Collaborative, Teton Science Schools, Galesburg Community Foundation) have continued to fund scholarships for TARTANS and host place-based training seminars for Monmouth students and local teachers. Area schools have benefited from joining a growing national conversation on rural education, becoming members of the Place Network, and finding opportunities to fund innovative, place-based projects for students. Local teachers have amplified their voices with these partners to share stories of teaching and community building. 8 rural education initiatives program
COVID Pivot: Virtual workshops focus on remote PBE Teachers at PLACE Sites tried technology tools—such as Flipgrid and Jamboard—that support remote place-based education during Zoom professional development sessions with Teton Science Schools and Monmouth. These tools were adopted schoolwide as PLACE teachers shared them with their colleagues. Sessions also focused on the socialemotional sphere, offering strategies—such as breathing breaks and rapport-building icebreaker questions—to help mitigate the isolating effects of remote teaching and learning.
TSS hosts a Zoom workshop on teaching place-based education remotely with Central Intermediate teachers and Monmouth Educational Studies staff member Jenni Dickens (top center).
TARTANS alumna Kylee Payne tutors a student in her classroom, where she teaches using place-based principles.
REACH. In 2020, REDI’s reach expanded—geographically and demographically. We connected with more partners and were contacted by more constituencies in our local area and throughout western Illinois. Through our advisory board of members from Illinois and around the country and the generous grant award from Compeer Financial, we are strengthening our network and learning about more opportunities, needs, and challenges of rural communities and schools..
teachers’ place-based action research projects with students. Teachers present their work to other educators during a year-end conference. Teresa Nelson of Central Intermediate School in Monmouth-Roseville School District and Ann Hulsizer of United West School in United School District are the latest GIP Fellows from our hub area. TARTANS alumna Courtney Gillen ’20 joins the United West project team, which will focus on sustainable farming through soil, nutrient, and water-quality management. TARTANS alumna Courtney Gillen leads her students in an outdoor inquiry lesson.
Place-based project grants awarded Our partner, the Rural Schools Collaborative, has awarded $5,000 in grants to two teachers in Monmouth’s hub. The awards are part of the Celia B. Godsil Grants in Place Fellows program, which supports
$5,000 in grant funds awarded in 2020 to teachers in Monmouth’s rural education hub, including one TARTAN alumna.
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A class of Kindergarten English learners from Monmouth take a field trip to a local working farm, accompanied by REDI staff and faculty.
TARTANS jump into virtual professional development with practicing teachers
TARTANS alumna Kylee Payne ’19 is featured in a Gates Foundationfunded I Am a Rural Teacher profile. Stories of our TARTANS’ extraordinary work are reaching national audiences through our partnership with the Rural Schools Collaborative and their IAART project, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Kylee’s story can be read at: iamaruralteacher.org/stories/ first-year-teacher-during-a-year-ofchanges
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Six TARTANS joined practicing teachers around the country in a month-long place-based education virtual course with Teton Science Schools in 2020. Tuition-free registration in the course is a benefit of Monmouth’s membership in TSS’s Place Network.
Educational Studies Department classes integrating PBE framework The Educational Studies Department is moving towards greater integration of a place-based education framework and place-based principles throughout departmental coursework.
Students from Lincoln Early Childhood School in Monmouth taste spaghetti squash during a healthy foods carnival designed and presented by Monmouth students.
Two kindergartners sit in the grass and make observations with a Monmouth student (right) during a field trip to the Monmouth Educational Farm & Garden.
Monmouth-Roseville kindergartners join a student garden worker to discuss plant life cycles during a field trip to the Monmouth Educational Farm & Garden.
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OUR THANKS Many folks have contributed to our efforts in securing funding and growing our program. Our Compeer MORE for Agriculture grant award will benefit our shared programming with these supporters. We are thankful for support from, and look forward to continued work with, the following groups: The Rural Schools Collaborative Teton Science Schools Galesburg Community Foundation Monmouth College Hub school districts: Monmouth-Roseville, United, West Central, ROWVA, Farmington, Knoxville, La Harpe, Dallas City Compeer Financial Grand Victoria Foundation TARTANS Advisory Board Warren County YMCA Jamieson Community Center FFA Warren-Henderson Farm Bureau Monmouth Chamber of Commerce Monmouth City Council Western Illinois University Peace Corps Fellows Graduate Program