This post was written by Cat Quirion ’17

Cat and Josh at the Otsego Academy at Pathfinder Village

Pathfinder Village is a world-renowned community for individuals with Down Syndrome. Their programs allow for support for people of all ages, from a high school for students ages 7 to 20, to a residential program. I worked closely with staff developing the village’s newest program, Otsego Academy. Otsego Academy (OA) is a post-secondary education program that began this past year for individuals with intellectuals disabilities especially but not limited to Down Syndrome. I created a report about the first year of the Academy and looked at assessments that were done at the student’s first arrival in the village as well as during their last week of class. I also wrote about different highlights that happened during the year and different opportunities the students had in order to show the students’ overall experience in this first year. This report was also used to look at what could be done better in the assessment period as well as what was done very well.

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This post written by Henry Marshall ’17

The area of Madison County is incredibly rich in history, and this summer’s work with the Upstate Institute delved into the local research on two major historical occurrences. John Vincent Atanasoff, recognized as the inventor of the first digital computer, was in fact born in Hamilton, behind the campus on Purdy Hill road. His birth in Hamilton, and eventual graduation from Colgate, place the area as a major location in the development of early computers. Much earlier in local history, Madison County, is rich in Native American and French interaction. Much so that the site of Nichols Pond, located in the town of Fenner just half an hour from Colgate, is the alleged site of Samuel de Champlain’s famous siege with the Algonquin against the Iroquois. The significance of this battle lies heavily in colonial French and Native American local history of this area.

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The Upstate Institute Field School Fellows will present the results of their research projects completed in conjunction with community organizations and municipalities throughout the region on Friday, July 31 at 10:00 am in the Atrium of the Ho Science Center.  Students will be on hand to discuss their projects and to ask questions, and many of the community organizations with which they are working will be in attendance as well. Coffee and refreshments will be available!

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The Fiver Children’s Foundation is a comprehensive youth development organization that makes a 10-year commitment to children from underserved communities throughout New York City and central New York. Through character-building summer and year-round out-of-school time programs, Fiver empowers children to make ethical and healthy decisions, to become engaged citizens, and to succeed in school, careers, and life.

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The workforce in agricultural and farming occupations are on a downward trend. In order to tackle this issue, internships can be given to students and young people to promote and encourage entrance into the agricultural industry. To facilitate this in Madison County, Michelle Cao ’16, researched workforce trends in agriculture and farming, compared similar internship positions, and developed guidelines for an internship program to be implemented between local Madison County farms and Madison County institutions of higher education.

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Chi Nguyen ’18 of Hanoi, Vietnam, is working with the Chenango United Way, which is a funding organization in nearby Norwich, New York. Chi is working with members of their staff and board to conduct site visits for the organizations that receive funding through the United Way. She is developing a new rubric that the organization can use during two site visits each year to evaluate programs, and she is attending the mid year site visits with review panel volunteers to score and give feedback to program organizers to acknowledge their programs’ strengths and weaknesses, along with their achievements and challenges.

Chi Nguyen ’18 is working with the Chenango United Way this summer.

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This post was written by Mallory Hart ’16

This summer I primarily worked on creating short videos used to market Friends of Rogers (FOR) in an attempt to increase participation. FOR is a non-profit organization that has been managing and maintaining the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) Rogers Environmental Education Center, located in Sherburne, NY, since 2011. The mission of FOR is to provide outstanding educational opportunities that excite, inspire, and motivate people of all ages to enjoy, understand, appreciate and protect our natural environment.

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Kris Pfister ’17 is a Studio Art major from Galion, Ohio, and is working with two different arts organizations this summer as a Field School Fellow. She is helping the Horned Dorset Colony (HDC) in Leonardsville, New York to connect with artist residents, locate funding for programming, and organize their library of 15,000 books. She is working with the Sam and Adele Golden Foundation for the Arts (Golden) in New Berlin, New York to compile a master spreadsheet with data about artwork donated to the Foundation and create an updated Foundation mailing list.

Kris Pfister ’17 in the library at the Horned Dorset Colony in Leonardsville, New York

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This post was written by Sydney Thompson ’17

The main motto of The Impact Project is to “save a soul one house at a time.” The Impact Project is in its eleventh year of helping homeowners, having just completed their 73^rd project and hitting the two thousand mile-marker for volunteers. For eleven years The Impact Project has grown into an organization that no one thought possible and it only continues to develop as it extends into more counties, partners with new organizations and gets the word out to the increased number of homeowners in upstate New York that have been struggling due to the lack of economy, increased flooding and harsh winters. The Impact Project relies heavily on grant funding and private donors to ensure that they can help as many homeowners as possible. The organization aims at creating sustainable environments for each homeowner, particularly the low-income and elderly, in order to establish a better quality of life for them at the present time and for years to come. Whether it is putting on an entire new roof, building a handicap ramp, or installing a furnace, when The Impact Project is done with a particular project there is an increased sense of hope and establishment within each homeowner.

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Kayleigh Bhangdia, ’16 of Poughquag, New York, and Olivia Gamble, ’15 of Westfield, Massachusetts, are working with the Madison County Department of Health this summer. Kayleigh is using GIS (geographic information systems) to map private well water and potential water contaminants in Madison County, while Olivia is reviewing data on expecting and new mothers and their babies to learn more about breastfeeding rates and lead in the home.

Olivia Gamble ’15 (on left) and Kayleigh Bhangdia ’16 (on right) are collecting and analyzing data for the Madison County Department of Health this summer.

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