Each summer, Colgate students remain in the region to work as field school fellows with the Upstate Institute. The fellows work with a community, government, or non-profit partner to create and complete projects that will have a positive social, economic, cultural, or environmental impact on the upstate region.
Below are a few of the community partners and projects from the summer of 2006.
Colgate University Athletics
Sam Levy ’08 worked with economics professor Jill Tiefenthaler during the summer of 2006 to assess the economic impact of the creation of a second sheet of ice for the Colgate athletics program on the local community.
The Exhibition Alliance
Tim Hogarth ’06 worked with The Exhibition Alliance to create a comprehensive training guide in DVD format for preparators, those responsible for physically handling works of art in any way for a museum, from packing art for shipment to hanging shows. To produce the second training DVD, Tim traveled around the Upstate region to film a variety of museum professionals demonstrating and speaking about different skills that are important for preparators.
“The finished product is a 6-hour, 4-disc DVD set that I can proudly say I produced, edited, and directed. There is nothing else like it available to the museum field, and the hope is that these DVDs will help institutions to better train their preparators while also enhancing the knowledge of existing staff. The Exhibition Alliance received orders for the DVDs before they were even finished and they will soon be distributed on a national level through the American Association of Museums,” Tim said.
John Demier ’08 worked with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
John Demler ’08 worked with Greg Owens at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation in the summer of 2006. He created an inventory and evaluation of cultural resources at the Muller Hill State Forest, which comprises over 5400 acres of land near Georgetown, New York. The project focused on documentation and evaluation of 19th and 20th century home, farm and mill site located on 7,000 acres of state land. This inventory will be used in a unit management plan, which outlines longterm procedures for ensuring biodiversity, sustainable timber production, watershed protection, opportunities for public recreation, and cultural resource preservation.
Matt Mills ’07 worked with the villages of Canastota and Chittenango.
Villages of Canastota and Chittenango
Matt Mills ’07 worked with the villages of Canastota and Chittenango to upgrade their wastewater treatment plants so that they can address issues raised by the EPA Clean Water Act and NYS Environmental Law requirements. Mills physically located sanitary and storm drains, laterals, manholes, and catch basins, identified their condition and scanned any existing plans or drawings into viewable graphic images to geo-referencing this data into a suitable GIS database information system.