When Kevin Vaughn Jr., a 15-year-old from North Philadelphia, wrote a letter to victims of police brutality, he did so from a perspective that many in his community say they share. Namely, that being young and black in America is a raw deal.
“I am sorry you were treated as something less than human,” he wrote. “No matter who or what you are, you should be respected as a human, a citizen, and an American. … Use your experience to make a difference.”
The letter wasn’t intended to be read by anyone other than him and his classmates, a group of about a dozen teens from some of Philadelphia’s poorest neighborhoods. Vaughn Jr. wrote it for a writing workshop that encourages young people like him to record their thoughts and feelings in a journal — punctuation, spelling and grammar be damned. The point wasn’t to get a good grade; it was simply recording his experience that mattered.
Vaughn Jr. is taking part in Mighty Writers, a program that teaches writing skills to students between the ages of 7 and 17. The nonprofit works with about 2,500 kids annually, exposing them to everything from playwriting to comic book creation through after-school classes, night and weekend workshops, and summer sessions. Boosting literacy skills is crucial in a city like Philadelphia, where nearly half of the population lacks even the basic reading skills to hold down a job. The idea behind Mighty Writers is that kids who master writing also make better decisions, have higher self-esteem and achieve greater success as they enter adulthood.
The first step is getting them to think creatively, says Amy Banegas, program administrator for the North Philadelphia chapter of Mighty Writers. This summer, Banegas, a 14-year teaching veteran of North Philadelphia schools, is holding weeklong summer sessions at the Mighty Writers location just north of the city’s burgeoning Center City neighborhood. It’s the fourth writing center the nonprofit has opened since its founding in 2009.
Despite downtown Philadelphia’s booming economy, the local school system is flailing. The cash-strapped district, which educates about 130,000 students, has had a hard time retaining permanent teachers, resulting in dramatically low test scores across the city. To save money, the education department will reportedly begin closing three schools a year starting in 2019.
All of this is bad news in a city where nearly a quarter of the population can’t read or write beyond an eighth-grade level, according to a report by the National Center for Education Statistics in 2003, the most recent year information is available.
“Literacy is horrible in North Philly, from kids to adults. And as parents, you can’t help your child read or write if you can’t do it yourself,” says Banegas, who sees many sophomores enter her program at a fourth-grade reading level. “It’s sad that it’s not shocking.”
Mighty Writers’ network of 400 volunteers, made up largely of filmmakers, musicians and journalists, attempts to combat that by providing structure through consistent writing exercises based on the issues that affect the kids who attend. In one recent session, for example, students learned how to channel their voices to become advocates for justice and equality.
Mighty Writers measures the impact of their program by assessing participants’ writing development using a tech platform. Additionally, the organization tracks students’ self-reporting on writing motivation and writing stamina over time. Education director Rachel Loeper says that she’s seen improvement among the students who attend.
There have been other city-based organizations that are similar to Mighty Writers. One is Writers Matter at La Salle University, which focuses on middle schools students. Professor Robert Vogel created the program in 2005 and says writing classes like it are imperative in urban areas with large populations of low-income and special-needs students.
“The writing programs in most large cities are pretty minimal and don’t really address the adolescent issues these students experience. Schools there just aren’t as well-funded as they are in suburban and rural areas,” Vogel says. “It’s a whole different social-economic dynamic in inner cities. As a result, the resources aren’t that good, and the challenges are much greater.”
At the Mighty Writers summer workshop that NationSwell attended, the topic at hand was the state of “being unapologetically black.” Students discussed police violence against African-Americans — specifically the deaths that have dominated headlines over the past five years — and then wrote in their journals. That these kids would have strong feelings about cops isn’t a surprise. In 2015, a federal study found that 81 percent of police shootings in the city targeted black residents in North Philadelphia. Just last month, a policeman in North Philadelphia’s 15th precinct shot and killed an armed black man after he was stopped for recklessly riding a dirt bike.
“It’s not just a workshop,” says Banegas. “It’s about self-growth and connecting to community.”
Those are qualities that Vogel, who conducted a three-year study on the effectiveness of his Writers Matter program, says are necessary for future success.
“There’s an emotional and social impact, and a building of confidence among the children that is hard to measure, but we’ve been able to see [those positive results] through interviews with [participants],” he says. “These kinds of programs have an impact that goes beyond the academic.”
Vaughn Jr., the 15-year-old who penned a letter to victims of excessive police force, says he’s learned to appreciate the practice of keeping a journal since enrolling in Mighty Writers.
“I find value in it because it’s a great way to let you know what you’re thinking and feeling,” he says. “It’s just keeping note as to where you are as a person.”
Homepage photo by Joseph Darius Jaafari
Continue reading “They’re Finding Hope for Their Future in Comic Books and Journal Entries”
Tag: education
They’re Learning STEM Skills by Dancing to Destiny’s Child
At the start of the L train in the upper-class Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, there are 10 city-funded Wi-Fi hubs within two blocks. When the train hits Brooklyn, two miles east, there are another six Wi-Fi hubs being installed in the hip East Williamsburg area. But the numbers start to fall as the train dives deeper into Brooklyn, where poverty is rampant. By the time it hits the neighborhoods of East New York and Brownsville, there are none.
Out here, almost a third of homes don’t have internet access — the gateway to a community’s broader participation in STEM industries and the jobs they offer. High schools, meanwhile, are under-equipped with the basic infrastructure needed for internet access and technology education. Music, dance and the arts, in contrast, are well established in the community.
This disconnect — in the midst of a national trend to move funding from the humanities to STEM — is what led Yamilée Toussaint, a mechanical engineering graduate from MIT, to start STEM From Dance, a program for high school girls that merges the local culture of dance and music with a future in learning complex science and technology concepts.
“Students who would be a natural fit for, say, a career as a coder don’t necessarily know that until they are introduced to it,” Toussaint says. “Through dance, we’re attracting them to a different world that they wouldn’t otherwise opt-in themselves.”
Toussaint, a tiny woman with large hair and a soft voice, created the program five years ago. Normally it spans a full semester, but this year she increased the number of girls she can reach with a summer intensive curriculum focused on circuitry.
During the course of one week, participants practice a dance routine that they pair with lessons on building and coding circuits.
“It was hard at first,” says Chantel Harrison, a 17-year-old participant from Crown Heights, Brooklyn. “I didn’t know what it was about, honestly.”
Harrison and a couple dozen other girls are taught to wire battery-powered light circuits. They sew them into their dance costumes to create splashy light effects synced to a song’s beat. For many of them, this is their first introduction to computer science and coding.
And that is a stark reality check. In New York City, where technology often seems boundless — and where there have been huge strides to build up “Silicon Alley,” New York City’s own version of the Bay Area’s Silicon Valley — kids educated in the city’s outer borough’s face significant barriers to a future working in the tech industry.
“If we cannot allow our children to have first-class computer equipment in a first-class city, they’re not going to be prepared to be employed at a first-rate corporation,” Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams tells NationSwell. “We cannot have a digital divide in our borough and in our city.”
Both Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio have pushed for high-speed internet access and STEM course integration into the city’s high school curriculum by 2025. But in Brooklyn, a study published in December 2016 by the Brooklyn Borough President’s office found there is progress to be made: Internet access is subpar (the average rating is 3 out of 5) in the district’s schools; there are only enough tablets and laptops for 7 and 20 percent of the borough’s student population, respectively; and 70 percent of schools don’t have an established computer science curriculum.
“The mayor has a very strong goal, but the question is, are we set up to meet this goal based on current investments in schools?” says Stefan Ringel, a spokesperson for Adams. He adds that reaching the 2025 goal will require more investments in infrastructure upgrades as well as in the curriculum.
“There is a lot of talk around getting these students active in STEM education, but I’d say for our program, if we have 12 girls sign up, maybe one has actually been exposed to coding,” says Toussaint, as she watches a group of six teenagers practice a dance routine to Destiny’s Child’s “Survivor.”
“We’re not trying to make engineers or professional dancers within a week,” says Arielle Snagg, an instructor with STEM From Dance who also has a degree in neuroscience. “But we are hoping to give them an idea on how they can use technology within this art.”
Snagg, originally from Bushwick — another impoverished Brooklyn neighborhood — says she understands the plight of students who live in these parts of New York. Of those who work (and only about half the population does), just 5 percent do so within the tech and science fields. And getting more women into technology can help a labor force that is desperate for diversity, especially when it comes to women of color.
After a week in the camp, Harrison, who will be a senior at Achievement First Brooklyn High School in the fall, says she gained a new appreciation for the integration of dance and science. “And I’ve gotten better in math — I’ve even learned to love it.”
Next spring, Toussaint will see her first group of students graduate from high school. And though she hopes that many of them pursue technology in college, more than anything she wants them to enter any career with confidence.
“The point is to let [these girls] know that they can do anything, and they don’t have to do one thing,” she says. “They just have to open up their minds a bit.”
Profile: Hadi Partovi
As the son of a college professor who helped establish Iran’s Sharif University of Technology, Hadi Partovi has always had a deep-seated appreciation for teachers.
“Passionate teachers have been my biggest inspirations,” he says, noting that while he was always trying to pave his own path, he’s now doing something very similar to his father.
Partovi’s nonprofit, Code.org, provides computer science curriculum to tens of thousands of educators, empowering them to teach coding in their classrooms. The organization reports that more than half of all students participating in high school Code.org courses are African American or Hispanic and 37 percent are female.
Through the years, Partovi’s appreciation of the impact teachers can have on their students — and the world — has only grown. He illustrates this point with a story he recently heard about a junior high school teacher in Auburn, Wash., that he doesn’t even know.
According to Partovi, this teacher noticed that one of his students regularly missed school two or three days each week. Concerned, the teacher reached out to the child’s family to inquire about having him attend computer science classes (which were introduced into the school’s curriculum with the help of Code.org, Partovi’s organization).
The student started having regular attendance, and his father called the teacher to report that his son liked school, thanking him for recognizing the need for his son to be exposed to new subjects, like computer science.
“The student went from almost dropping out to learning code,” Partovi says. “That, to me, is the strongest example of a change in somebody’s future — because of the teacher.”
Hadi Partovi is a NationSwell Council member. In addition to co-founding Code.org, he is also a tech entrepreneur and investor.
Profile: Sean Vereen
As speaker of the senate — the second most powerful person in student government at the University of Rochester in New York — Sean Vereen had already been working hard on behalf of his fellow classmates during the 1998-1999 school year.
But after a number of racial incidents, including issues with campus security and a perceived lack of support for minority student life, Vereen, now a NationSwell Council member, decided that he needed to assume a more vocal role. “Eight of us got together and said that what was happening on campus was wrong,” he says. “We spent most of the fall and into the winter organizing a protest.”
Their goal? To gain more support for minority students.
Eventually, the planning meetings grew to 60 to 70 attendees. Their opinions led to the creation of a formal list of concerns among the University’s students of color.
As tension remained high on campus, Vereen recalls the president pulled him aside and said, “Look, if there’s something really bad happening, you can call my secretary to set up a meeting and I will clear my schedule within a day.”
So Vereen took advantage of the invitation, he recounted recently with a small chuckle. “I called a meeting with the president, but I didn’t tell him I was going to come with other people.”
Inspired by a scene in the movie, “Malcolm X,” the students dressed up in their finest clothes and peacefully marched in a single file line to the university president’s office. Remaining silent, they filled the hallways and did homework as local media documented the sit-in.
Meanwhile, Vereen and some of his fellow protesters negotiated with the president for an increase in the number of minority students recruited, the hiring of a more diverse faculty and staff and the creation of a diversity mission statement.
Once an agreement was reached, cheerful minority students then led a campus-wide march and rally in the student center that included celebratory singing of “We Shall Overcome.”
Vereen remembers those college days as a time when he learned the power of organizing and the necessity of collaborative work.
“We spent all this time putting the protest together and all of us brought something to the table. Some people were able to get a ton of friends to show up, others were good speakers. Someone like me had the connection with student government and knew the administration really well,” says Vereen.
Dr. Sean Vereen is the president of Steppingstone Scholars, an organization that works with families and schools to provide support for talented underserved students in the Philadelphia area. He is the former associate dean of opportunity and access at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Teen Caregivers
A 62-year-old recovering from a broken neck and a 17-year-old who wore the reddest dress in the world to prom are an unlikely pair. But they’re mentor and mentee, and now friends, as part of a program that aims to solve two troubling challenges: the “silver tsunami” of millions living longer and needing care, and the challenges of at-risk urban youth trying to find meaningful careers that offer the chance for advancement into the middle class.
Olga Cruz lives in The New Jewish Home, a nursing home in New York City’s Upper West Side. She fights feelings of isolation and depression with the help of Wenetta Celestine, who shares stories about life during weekly visits. Celestine, like 225 other high school students from the Bronx and Manhattan, spends six to eight hours a week training to work in geriatric care.
Cruz helps her understand what it is like to grow old and what elders in a long-term care facility need.
“She’s wonderful and loving; I want to hug and squeeze her like a grandma,” Celestine says of Cruz. “If I can’t tell my mom something, I can tell her.”
With 10,000 Baby Boomers turning 65 every day, and the population of elderly people expected to more than double by 2050, well-trained caregivers are already scarce. And they’re becoming even harder to find, with growth slowing in the primary pool of such workers: women ages 25 to 64.
Back in 2006, The New Jewish Home had trouble hiring certified nursing assistants (CNAs) for residents in its facilities in Manhattan and Westchester County, N.Y. Meanwhile, the graduation rates of many high schools in the Bronx and Manhattan was 40 to 60 percent; few students went on to college.
With the help of private, city and federal grants and a curriculum from nearby Columbia University Teachers College, the Geriatric Career Development (GCD) program introduced 20 students to eldercare.
GCD isn’t just about finding people to take vital signs, empty bedpans and bathe the elderly. Its larger aim is to provide struggling teens with the skills and jobs that make it possible for them to earn money, pursue higher education and escape from poverty (almost three quarters live below the poverty line; many reside in violent neighborhoods).
Without this program, Celestine says, “I wouldn’t be working to be a CNA, and I’d probably not know CPR. I learned that there’s always an open door, no matter where you go.”
Eleven years in, it’s found success. Ninety-nine percent of GCD’s 517 graduates have finished high school and 28 currently work at The New Jewish Home. Of this year’s 62 graduates, all are going on to attend college.
In return, the Home gets more than simply a larger hiring pool. Students spend 8,000 hours a year with its elders.
“It makes the residents feel less lonely, and they feel a sense of satisfaction, especially those who do not have family around,” says John Cruz, director of the program. “It makes them feel young again, alive again.”
Research shows that both young people and the elderly gain when participating in programs like GCD. A recent Stanford University report called for “intergenerational engagement,” citing particular benefits for underprivileged youth.
Today, similar programs exist in Maryland, through the High School Health Education Foundation, and via the Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-TECH) model, where students can enroll in a six-year-long program that includes job training, a no-cost associate degree and employment that’s all but guaranteed.
Demand for the GCD program is high — each year about 200 students (mostly African American or Latino) apply for 100 spots. Most start as sophomores and spend the next three years learning how to care for elderly patients. Students can earn $11 an hour during a nine-week-long internship at the Home when they are seniors.
Participants receive tutoring help and assistance on how to study for the SAT and how to write resumes and cover letters, among other topics. They also receive counseling on college selection and are taken on campus visits.
About 80 percent continue their medical education by receiving nursing assistant certification via Lehman College (The New Jewish Home covers the cost for each student’s certification course), and some become certified phlebotomists, EKG technicians, medical coders or patient care technicians.
Kayla Rivas, 17, and Joanne Langer, 91, chose each other because they both like to sing.
“It was like love at first sight,” Rivas says. Langer explains that they enjoy “anything except rock and roll,” before she croons her rendition of Irving Berlin’s “What’ll I Do?”
“I feel like she’s like a grandma for me. I always come to her for advice and comfort. When I told her about wanting to go to college she always motivates me, and gives me hugs and kisses,” Rivas says.
Other pairs share similar sentiments. Jaileen Morales, 18, says that without Mizue Fujimoto, 67, she’d likely be struggling more and planning to stay local after high school, instead of going to the State University of New York in Old Westbury, where she plans to study biology.
Just as important, Fujimoto helps Morales, who was raised by her grandmother, have a better relationship with the elderly.
The New Jewish Home has extended its program to people ages 18 to 24, who have dropped out of school or are not currently working. After three months’ of training, participants become certified home health aides, a position that does not require a high school diploma and pays a median hourly wage of $10.87.
Half of all home aides live in households that receive welfare or food stamps and other public benefits. Because of this, the program encourages graduates to earn more credentials.
Certified nursing assistants fare slightly better, earning a national median of $11.68 per hour, compared to $12.81 for patient care technicians and $16.92 for medical coders. While some of these jobs may not boost a worker into the middle class, they can further his or her healthcare career path or provide useful income during college.
Some GCD students are aiming higher. In all, 40 percent of GCD graduates became or are studying to become doctors, nurses, physical or occupational therapists, administrators or other healthcare professionals.
Rivas wants to be a physician’s assistant, a position that has a median salary of more than $90,000. And Morales hopes to become a plastic surgeon.
What started out as a desire to fill entry-level jobs has turned into a program that’s creating a chance to fulfill big dreams. Celestine, Cruz’s mentee, says that without GCD, she wouldn’t be heading off to SUNY Cobleskill in the fall.
“I like to keep to myself, so I’d stay home and get a job,” Celestine says. “I learned that there’s always an open door, no matter where you go. When I see kids on the street, I feel like saying, ‘If you all just knew what GCD could do for you, even if you’ve not finished high school. This is like a change.’”
Correction: A previous version of this article stated that 530 GCD students have finished high school and 75 of this year’s class is going to college. NationSwell apologizes for these errors.
Fighting Poverty with Data
For nearly 10 years, New York City’s Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity has been an incubator of ideas designed to solve the challenges of poverty. Using research, data integration and program evaluation, the office’s staff tests these concepts to see whether they will truly work and scales them when they do.
“Evidence matters because people matter,” says New York City Deputy Mayor Richard Buery. “Most government policies aren’t driven primarily by evidence of impact; they’re driven by everything from what is politically popular to what’s been around the longest.”
Buery continues, “Being able to demonstrate to the world a real commitment to results, a commitment to changing course when a certain course of action isn’t working, becomes critical to gaining the kind of public support and credibility that are important to make sure that people are willing to invest their tax dollars to drive quality government services.”
The office is continually expanding its expertise in research, service design, evaluation and data integration to support key mayoral initiatives including Pre-K for All, IDNYC and Community Schools. It has also launched over 70 of its own programs. One of its first initiatives is also one of its most successful: ASAP, an associate’s degree program offered to students at the City University of New York.
Watch the video above to learn how ASAP is doubling community college graduation rates.
Family Day in Lieu of Mother’s and Father’s Day
When I dropped my four-year-old son off at school a couple of weeks ago, I found a memo of “Dates to Remember” taped to his cubby. It announced Picture Day, an upcoming visit by a dentist and the graduation ceremony for the kids going on to kindergarten. But another event caught my attention: a “Parents’ Day” breakfast. Its short explanation made an important statement about diversity and inclusion. “We will not be celebrating Mother’s Day and Father’s Day separately. We work in a very diverse field and not all children have a mother, father or either.”
… Or either. Consider that.
The school, known as Park Slope North, is among the most demographically diverse in New York City. It’s also socioeconomically diverse. Some students are raised by two moms, others have two dads. Some children live in foster care, and others reside with older siblings or extended family. Many families pay thousands of dollars in tuition, while others’ attendance is subsidized by NYC’s Administration for Children’s Services.
“It’s all about inclusion,” says Jewel Vaughn, the school’s educational director who came up with the idea. She adds that the goal is to embrace differences among children, “while they’re not noticing what society has normalized.”
According to the Pew Research Center data, family is complicated. Marriage rates are falling, and more than a quarter of children are raised in homes without fathers. Record numbers of Americans are living in multigenerational households and more than 3 million kids are being raised by grandparents — two demographics that experienced sharp upticks during the Great Recession.
Park Slope North’s staff see their new Parents’ Day as a small change that’s emblematic of a larger school culture aiming to level socio-economic divides in the next generation. “It is important to teach children at a young age about diversity, amongst themselves and their peers. The sooner we are able to embrace and accept it, the faster and easier it will be to close the opportunity gap,” Vaughn says.
The school’s liberal-leaning parents (myself included) welcome the idea. Some even suggested that to be even more inclusive, the celebration should be scheduled outside of normal business hours. That way, more parents would be able to attend.
“I think it’s a wonderful idea to celebrate the more neutral concept of Family Day,” says Khin Mai Aung, a mother in the school. “Not only is the concept more inclusive, but it is a good reminder to to be mindful of how families in our community are different.”
It’s important to note, however, that many people consider such actions overly sensitive. When a Canadian school took a similar action, media outlets picked up on the story and commentary spilled onto social media, with critics posting, “It’s called, reality. We must remember that these kids must learn to cope with these types of things,” and “Political correctness strikes again.”
Whether it’s providing free breakfast, adding a religious holiday to the school calendar or creating additional childcare services, schools stand at the frontlines of meeting the ever-evolving needs of children and their families. Is celebrating Parents’ or Family Day instead of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day any different? No, it’s not. Mothering and fathering can come from anyone and children should have an opportunity to celebrate whomever they have.
The Jobs Robots Won’t Take
In April 2017, the U.S. unemployment rate dropped to the lowest level in a decade. And while there are many factors to consider, there’s evidence that automation and the rise of robots may not eliminate as many jobs as projected. Here are some of the sectors offering long-term job security for decades to come.
CLEAN ENERGY
The fastest growing profession in the country: wind turbine technicians.
Solar energy is also a bright spot for the unemployed and underemployed, “growing at a rate 12 times faster than the rest of the U.S. economy,” according a 2017 report published by Environmental Defense Fund. The majority of this growth consists of installation jobs. Robots can’t climb onto rooftops to mount photovoltaic panels (or repair them), which means there’s an ever-growing number of positions for living, breathing workers.
EDUCATION, HEALTHCARE AND CUSTOMER RELATIONS
“Where humanity matters there will be humans,” says business advisor and technology consultant Shelly Palmer.
Schools, hospitals and businesses continue to need workers to do “people things” since robots can only react to predictive behaviors or conduct menial tasks. “Robots do not yet have the ability to perform complex tasks like negotiation or persuading, and they are not as proficient in generating new ideas as they are at solving problems,” says Mynul Khan, chief executive officer of Field Nation in an op-ed for Tech Crunch.
To learn how education could adapt in an automated world, check out this additional reading:
How to Prepare for an Automated Future
ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURE
The number of architectural and engineering jobs has more than tripled from last year’s average of 2,000 each month to 7,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But the industry isn’t just having a moment. It’s estimated by 2022, biomedical engineering will experience 23 percent growth, environmental engineering 12 percent and civil engineering (the field with the most positions) 8.4 percent.
Fueling the demand for this non-automated workforce? An aging population and crumbling infrastructure.
MAINTENANCE
Call it “Rise of the Maintenance Workforce.” While robots are clearly putting pressure on the American labor force, when they break, humans are needed to fix them. The demand for people who can repair hardware and software, as well as code new programs, is expected to steadily increase. By 2022, there may be more than half a million new jobs in robotic and machine learning maintenance, installation and repair. Some labor experts project that modern technologies will ultimately create more jobs than they destroy.
This gradual shift can best be witnessed in U.S. manufacturing, which has shed almost 5 million jobs since 2000. The auto industry has introduced around 52,000 robots during the past seven years, helping to spur the creation of nearly 260,000 jobs. A 2013 study done by the International Federation of Robots (which despite its name is not made up of robots; rather it’s a group of tech industry leaders) estimated that 10 to 15 percent of jobs in the auto sector were created because robots and machines were introduced to assembly lines.
To learn more about how robotics is affecting manufacturing, check out this additional reading:
The New Hire: How a New Generation of Robots Is Transforming Manufacturing
How Artificial Intelligence and Robots Will Radically Transform the Economy
5 Schools Moving the Needle on Sustainability
As many environmental regulations in the United States are reconsidered and loosened, these colleges and universities are committed to cultivating sustainable campuses and future environmental leaders.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS; DAVIS, CALIF.
U.C. Davis is among the schools leading the way in emissions reduction and waste diversion. The university boasts the largest solar power plant on any campus and diverts 73 percent of its waste from landfills.
“We teach at least 180 courses a year with sustainability content,” says Camille Kirk, the school’s director of sustainability. “Our students are future leaders and active citizens, and they take their U.C. Davis training and go out and do great work in private, public and nonprofit settings.”
COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC, BAR HARBOR, MAINE
College of the Atlantic is a small school off the coast of Maine that has touted itself as a place “for idealists with elbow grease.”
It was the first school to achieve carbon neutrality, and nearly a decade ago, the school created one of the first sustainable enterprise incubators. Students have developed solar car charging stations, renewable power sources for local businesses and some of the early concepts of urban farms. About three-quarters of students continue to pursue these ventures after graduating, but according to sustainable development professor Jay Friedlander, that’s not the point. “It’s not about cranking out ventures,” he says. “It’s about students experiencing what it’s like to be a sustainable entrepreneur and to do that with a safety net.”
STANFORD UNIVERSITY, STANFORD, CALIF.
Stanford is a leader in two of California’s most critical measures of sustainability: transportation and water usage. In a state where transit is the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, 40 percent of campus cars are electric. Meanwhile, the university has reduced potable water use by 49 percent since 2000, helping to offset the effects of a three-year drought.
Stanford is not only building a sustainable community, but providing an open-source model for other institutions as well. “We very meticulously measure our performance,” says Fahmida Ahmed, director of sustainability. “So if there are any questions whenever others are inspired by Stanford and want to replicate that process for themselves, we can actually share that formula with them.”
COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY, FORT COLLINS, COLO.
Colorado State University was the world’s first university to achieve a platinum ranking under the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education’s STARS rating system. But the school’s commitment to the environment extends beyond its four walls — research from C.S.U. has been used in massive infrastructure projects and E.P.A. emissions reports, and the university is developing a test site to help companies control their methane emissions. In 2011, the school launched the Center for the New Energy Economy, which works with legislators and regulators to promote clean energy policy.
GREEN MOUNTAIN COLLEGE, POULTNEY, VT.
This small liberal arts school in the mountains of Vermont was the second institution of higher learning in the country to become carbon neutral. It reportedly generates 85 percent of its heat from a biomass facility on campus that runs on local wood chips. G.M.C. also provides a compelling model in its spending and sourcing. “Where we spend our money matters for the environment and for social justice,” says the school’s sustainability page. The school was among the first American colleges to divest from fossil fuels, and purchases from suppliers that are local, transparent in their supply chain and ecologically responsible.
Internet for All
Between 1979 and 2013, wages of middle-income workers rose just 6 percent. The wallets of low-income workers have been hit even harder: Their incomes fell 5 percent during the same time period.
As stagnant wages and flat mobility continue to deepen inequality in America, politicians, social entrepreneurs and other leaders are looking to technology for a solution. The number of jobs in computers and information technology is projected to increase 12 percent by 2024 — faster than any other sector. According to industry experts, nearly 60 million of Americans can’t even access the internet in their own homes because of cost.
To spur much-needed job growth, the digital divide must be eliminated. Watch the video above to see how EveryoneOn‘s pioneering model is leading the way by making high-speed, low-cost internet plans, refurbished computers and digital literacy courses available to low-income communities nationwide.