| In keeping with Wentworth’s longstanding reputation for innovation, your contributions also make possible a group of pioneering programs that offer students the chance to apply principles learned in the classroom to relevant, real-world situations. These opportunities teach valuable social and academic lessons that help transform today’s students into tomorrow’s leaders.
Your gifts to the Institute help support the following exceptional programs, whose beneficial effects are often felt far beyond our own campus:
Service Learning
Service Learning is a dynamic approach to education that further distinguishes Wentworth and our students as innovation and technology leaders. Building on the conventional co-operative education model, Service Learning takes students and their professors out of the classroom to work directly on projects essential to communities both at home and abroad. This hands-on approach allows students to actively apply principles they learn in associated courses and is an integral component of the experiential education model for which Wentworth is widely recognized.
A current example of Service Learning in action is Wentworth’s partnership with the Boston and Mission Hill Main Streets foundations to deploy the first phase of a community wireless network that will provide internet and wireless service to portions of Boston’s Mission Hill neighborhoods. This initiative will feature a community portal and website designed and developed by teams of Wentworth students, with content written by and for area residents. It is expected that this will be the first step in an ongoing project to expand the Boston Wireless Internet Initiative and address the problem of the digital divide.
In addition to addressing real community needs, this and other Service Learning projects not only enhance students’ mastery of their chosen professional fields, they also encourage the citizenship and leadership that our students carry forward when they graduate.
Please make a gift to help support Service Learning.
Alternative Spring Break
Alternative Spring Break takes students near or far to contribute time, energy, and sweat towards projects of community value. In March 2006, sixteen Wentworth students and a half-dozen faculty and staff traveled to New Orleans to participate in hurricane recovery efforts.
The Wentworth contingent formed two project teams. The first team focused on gutting and selective demolition work on a structure that is expected to become a community environmental resource center. The second team concentrated on documenting the work site and providing design ideas and assistance.
In addition to the vital assistance it provided to the area’s residents, this project offered Wentworth students an outstanding education opportunity, with first-hand experience in crisis management and the social ramifications of displaced people and communities. It also afforded the students a greater understanding of the significance of community centers and the buildings they occupy as symbolic structures.
Please make a gift to help support Alternative Spring Break.
Mini Baja Contest
This annual contest is held by the Society of Automotive Engineers. It challenges teams to design, build, test, and race off-road vehicles. Entries are evaluated on aesthetics, design, and performance in such areas as speed, acceleration, power, handling, and climbing ability.
In 2006, Wentworth’s team achieved some of the highest scores in the competition for suspension, brakes, and steering, and was on pace for a top-five performance in the endurance race when its vehicle was severely damaged by another entrant. While the accident knocked the team’s scores into the middle of the pack, judges and participants alike expressed their admiration of Wentworth’s teamwork and ingenuity over the three-day competition.
Please make a gift to help support the Mini Baja Contest.
Concrete Canoe Competition
For the American Society of Civil Engineer’s National Concrete Canoe Competition, each team builds a concrete canoe, which is then tested for durability, judged on aesthetics, and raced in five different paddling events. Teams also submit a report and make an oral presentation detailing the canoe’s design.
In 2006, more than 250 teams competed for the 21 spots in the national competition. Finishing with 90.9 out of 100 points, the Wentworth team captured the first-place design on paper; placed first in both aesthetics and the women’s endurance event; and placed second in co-ed sprints, men’s sprints, and the men’s endurance event.
Please make a gift to help support the Concrete Canoe Competition.
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