| Overall Rating | Silver - expired |
|---|---|
| Overall Score | 53.85 |
| Liaison | Ruairi O'Mahony |
| Submission Date | May 1, 2015 |
| Executive Letter | Download |
University of Massachusetts Lowell
AC-5: Immersive Experience
| Status | Score | Responsible Party |
|---|---|---|
|
2.00 / 2.00 |
Juliette
Rooney-Varga Director & Associate Professor Climate Change Initiative & Biological Sciences |
Does the institution offer at least one immersive, sustainability-focused educational study program that meets the criteria for this credit?:
A brief description of the sustainability-focused immersive program(s) offered by the institution:
Civil Engineering Senior Project – In April 2014, 6 civil engineering students designed a warehouse for medical supplies in Haiti as part of their senior project. The project included navigating the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince and surrounding country-side for a week during their spring break. Their work, done with limited resources, required making a host of engineering decisions, engaging locals to work with them for nominal sums, and navigating the bureaucracy of a foreign country. In the process, they learned firsthand what people who live in Haiti grapple with every day. Whether their design will get built is unclear. Partners in Health is juggling a number of potential projects in the area, and whether the warehouse is their greatest need has yet to be figured out. But for the students, the fate of their design is secondary to the hands-on education they got in trying to come to terms with — and solve — the problems of an impoverished area. It opened their eyes, they said, to what engineering can accomplish. The project has already had an impact among his students: 18 have signed up to raise money to fund another senior trip to Haiti in 2015. For a program committed to connecting theory and practice, that’s a welcome development.
The website URL where information about the immersive program(s) is available:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.