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College News
uuu Alan Bigelow, Ph.D. Professor of Humanities
“One of the major purposes of the learning communities is to offer students an opportunity to interact with the Western New York community,” says Alan Bigelow, Ph.D. “In my classes, students wrote a series of research papers on topics including Attica prison, Love Canal, Wegmans, the Zebra mussel problem in Lake Erie, the Buffalo Zoo, the Mayoral race, and the Science Museum. They are venturing out into the community, a community which some of them were born in, and others are seeing for the first time.”
Students explore path of the underground railroad
SUMMER 2010 l 5
PROJECT EQUIP The program extends over the entire curriculum for four years.
u Explore your community
A first-semester learning community for all freshmen combines introductory courses in writing and critical thinking, helping students build a foundation for connecting their academic learning to real-world problem solving through Community 101 projects.
u Question your role
A second-semester learning community for all freshmen combines an analytical writing course (ENG 200) and a course in cross-cultural communication (GEN 220), preparing students to have a positive impact on their communities by understanding self and others.
u Understand your academic discipline
A sophomore course in the student’s major considers the potential of the discipline and its methodology to contribute to a civic and sustainable future.
u Involve yourself
An internship, preceptorship, student teaching placement, or service learning project demonstrates prior learning about one’s role in the community and makes a worthwhile contribution.
u Produce new knowledge
Several years ago, Dr. Ted Pelton, professor of humanities, wrote an article for Buffalo Spree magazine on the underground railroad in Buffalo and Western New York. He met Kevin Cottrell, who runs Motherland Connextions, which conducts underground railroad tours. Ever since, Dr. Pelton had wanted to take the tour. He connected it with his “Freedom & Enslavement” themed learning community and took a group of students on the tour as well.
A senior capstone course in the student’s major assesses disciplinary understanding and contributes to a civic and sustainable future by producing new knowledge or solving a real world problem.
“As students connect to the story and the institutions of Buffalo, their creative energies and talents, as well as those of their teachers, are brought to bear on important local issues,” explains Dr. Brad Hollingshead.