BENNINGTON – The Bennington Rising program kicked off on Tuesday, bringing first-year students at the college together with local high school students to work on science-related educational projects.
James Trimarchi, director of Planning at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center (SVMC), and Audrey Kim, a graduate of Smith College and intern with SVMC through the VISTA program, conducted the event on Tuesday.
Bennington College faculty and staff and educators from Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union (SVSU) and its Mount Anthony Union High School (MAU) provided support as well. SVSU Superintendent Tim Payne was among those attending.
Before the students began coordinating and planning their projects among themselves, each participant needed to sign a Team Member Safety Acknowledgement, “Bennington Rising wants to provide the best conditions for team work,” the document stated. It provided guidelines on such things as the role of team members, interactions, transportation and confidentiality.
Each team also completed a contract, which included the recommendation that the team meet for at least 30 minutes per week.
In total, there are 12 teams, and each team will be partnered with a “team fellow” (MAU high school student). The Bennington College students are “team coordinators.” MAU has also been championing this program, supporting logistics and recruitment on the MAU side, Kim said.
Blake Jones, a biology instructor at the college, and Fortune Ononiwu, a chemistry faculty member, huddled with the students to discuss their plans.
After a month, half of the students will be teaching classes at Bennington Elementary. Class subjects will include one on artificial intelligence, one on environmental science, and one on physics and mechanics, among other topics.
Other groups of students will be doing a project on the topic, “What’s in my food?” They will be doing artwork and posters providing public service information about that. It will be on display at the Bennington Museum for two weeks.
Bennington Rising
Trimarchi answered the question: Why Bennington Rising?
“So first off, there’ve been a lot of surveys of younger adults saying that the challenge is getting peer groups, having friends,” he said. There is other data, too, showing that young people need positive interaction with others, Trimarchi added.
“The solution that was come up with was to try to combine Mount Anthony Union high school students together with college students to do something interesting to benefit the community,” he said. “So, then you all can put it on your resume.”
Recent Bennington College graduate Yasmine Fundi came up with the idea, after doing a six-week internship at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center in Bennington. She is from the Central African Republic and graduated in May. Her studies focused on biology and dance. She now attends Tufts University, pursuing a degree in physical therapy.
Fundi suggested the idea to Barbara Alfano, associate dean for advising and First-Year Forum.
A gala event at the Bennington Museum will be held on Nov. 20 to celebrate the program. The museum is giving the program organizers free use of the facility.
“I think the Bennington Rising program is giving our MAU students an opportunity to collaborate and be exposed to college students here locally in the community,” said Kelsey Mizell, Director of Instruction and Assessment at MAU.
It also helps the students to engage with the local community, both at the elementary level and the public level, on the science topics they will be working on with their college partners, she said.
“I think the resume building is a great aspect as well, just giving our high school students another experience, right?” Mizell said. “It’s some service work, some academic work, but ultimately, they’re contributing back to our community, which I think is what’s really cool about this.”
While the groups of students were busy with their planning, Trimarchi spoke on why SVMC is involved.
“We’re very, very interested in the young people in this community, both here at Bennington College, but at the but at the high school, middle school and the elementary school,” he said. “And it’s going to be awesome, because half of these teams are going to deliver a class, coursework for the elementary school.”
