By Bonnie Washuk,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Pictures of student helpers hang in the Harward Center at Bates College.

Students are reading to Head Start children, tending plants in a community garden and taking environmental samples on the coast.

David Scobey, the new director of the Harward Center for Community Partnerships, predicted Wednesday that in a few years there will be more diverse pictures as community involvement at Bates expands.

New photos will show students researching textile mill history for a Lewiston museum, studying Androscoggin River cleanup, helping and researching Somalis and other immigrants who settle in Lewiston.

On Wednesday Scobey, 51, was officially welcomed during a reception that featured a community service exhibit. It was the beginning of three days of events to introduce the center to the community.

When it comes to teaching college students beyond the classroom, Bates College is a national leader, Scobey said.

He came from the University of Michigan because he was impressed by the level of community involvement at Bates College. “Bates was already doing this so mindfully and so well, and wanted to take it to the next level,” he said.

Scobey got involved in what he described as a national trend in higher education in the 1990s in Ann Arbor, Mich., when the mayor challenged the university to help the city design a bridge.

It was a turning point, Scobey said. He wrote books and led programs about college-community partnerships, in which students earn credit for working in the community.

In Michigan, students helped design a riverfront park, taught reading and writing to children in a homeless shelter, delivered arts to an after-school program and worked with a Detroit theater to create a play on the city’s history.

“It completely changed my sense of what I wanted to be,” Scobey said. “It was the most gratifying and exhilarating thing I have done. I felt I was doing important work as a scholar and teacher, and getting to collaborate with really interesting partners.”

Because of earlier efforts by Bates College leaders Peggy Rotundo and James Carignan, the college has long had service learning, Scobey said.

Now Bates is gearing up for a more ambitious program that will involve more students and faculty and projects that last years instead of months.

History students will help research and create exhibits to tell the story of the mill community for Museum L-A. Environmental students will study wildlife and invasive species at Thorncrag Bird Sanctuary. Psychology and education students will teach and research immigrants learning at Lewiston Adult Education.

The community will benefit – and so will the students, Scobey said.

After working in the community, students better learn how to be part of a democracy, how to talk and work with different people. They learn how to connect academics “with making things happen in the world,” he said.

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