Unity College professor earns service learning award

UNITY (April 15): Unity College Associate Professor Nancy Ross was one of three educators chosen to receive a premier service learning award in Maine.

Ross and the two other educators will receive the Maine Campus Compact’s Donald Harward Faculty Award for Service Learning Excellence Thursday, April 16, in the Atrium of the Maine State Museum. The award ceremony will include remarks by Maine Speaker of House, Hannah Pingree.

The other award-winners are Christina Bechstein, who teaches sculpture at the Maine College of Art, and Alexandre Dauge-Roth, Assistant Professor of French, Bates College.

Nancy Ross (Unity College)

“The Harward Award represents something really important to Unity College,” said Associate Professor John Zavodny, chairman of the Department of Advising and Instruction Services at Unity College. “Our educational philosophy is really built around experiential learning and there is nothing more effective than students working with community members on meaningful projects.”

“Unity College is incredibly proud of Dr. Ross,” Zavodny said. “Her achievement in service learning and community-based learning have been well rehearsed and well known on the Unity College campus. We are thrilled that Dr. Ross is being recognized by the Maine Campus Compact, the regional leader in service learning.”

The Maine Campus Compact recognizes as many as three faculty members who have made public service an integral part of their teaching.

The award recognizes faculty who integrate community or public service into the curriculum and who work to institutionalize service- earning.

The faculty member will have shown clear evidence of reflection, community benefit, reciprocity with community partners and a commitment to advocating for service-learning and/or community action on campus and beyond.

Ross was chosen for her role in helping undergraduate students develop high-level data analysis, interviewing and communication skills through several service-learning courses.

Her students have conducted research projects promoting policy change with local officials, raised money for community feeding programs, and helped schools improve gardens as a source of food and education for the community.

In 2006, Ross chaired Unity’s Strategic Plan development and helped create a community-based service learning coordinator position.

In 2005, the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior published an article written by Ross discussing service-learning work with students in community-based social marketing.

She is currently writing a research paper on Unity’s Environmental Citizen service learning course and the “Hunger at Home” project. Ross earned a Ph.D. in Agriculture, Food, and Environment at Tufts University, a Master of Science in Communications from Syracuse University and a Bachelor of Science at Wellesley College.