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Strength Training for Future Success

Dec 5, 2022 | Stories

Nolan Clack credits Mitchell College with putting him on a path to meet his future goals. A sport management major who plays on the Mitchell College Men’s Soccer team and is vice president of the Student-Athlete Advisory Council, Nolan is also interning at G’s Fitness and Nutrition in Waterford, where he is helping other athletes as a personal trainer. All those commitments make for busy days, but Nolan is up for the task.

After spending the summer as a client at G’s, he moved to a fall internship, working almost every day for a couple of hours each day.

“I built a relationship with the trainers who work at G’s over the summer, so this has been a nice transition. In my internship I began to help the athletes who work out there with strength training and conditioning,” he said.

“This internship has helped guide me in figuring out what part of the fitness industry I want to be in. It also has shown me how beneficial it can be working with younger athletes. That’s my favorite part of what I’m doing. I like to see the progress they have made from the time they started to where they are after each workout.”

Nolan said that he regularly uses skills he has learned through the Mitchell Ability Model in his work with his clients at the gym.

“I often have to create a different way to solve problems by understanding clients’ wants and needs and figuring out how to work around little problems. I also work with diverse group of people with different perspectives, so I have been able see why they think a certain way,” Nolan said.

Beyond the satisfaction of the work itself, “a great perk of doing my internship at the gym is that I can work out and train there once I am done for the day,” he said.

“Mitchell has done a great job setting me up for success and assisting me with what I need to better my future. I was drawn to the small classroom settings and better learning atmosphere, plus the private beach and the recent years of success in the athletics program.”

Funding to Help Upskill Regional Workforce

Nov 28, 2022 | News

U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney (D-CT) recently visited the Mitchell College campus to present the College with newly released Community Project funding of $550,000 for its Digital Innovation Hub for Educational Excellence (DIHEE). Mitchell College President Tracy Y. Espy, Ph.D., received the check on behalf of the College, joined by trustees Michael J. O’Connor and Nancy Dolan, New London Mayor Michael Passero, State Representative Anthony Nolan, Mitchell College students Aizhane Glenn, Nia Gethers and Thomas Simmons, as well as other College stakeholders involved in the project.

Courtney was instrumental in securing the funding for the DIHEE, which will offer industry-demand programs via certifications, badges, micro-credentials and advanced credentials in STEM and Mental Health fields. Karen Bellnier, director of digital innovation, was hired to administer the program, partnering with college officials and professional organizations to develop new programming.

Bellnier said, “The DIHEE marks a new direction for Mitchell College and allows us to meet the learning needs of the adult regional workforce. Learners will engage with micro-credential learning, dubbed ‘the Mitchell Micro,’ to prepare to earn industry certifications and strengthen business skills. Learner support is a key component of the Mitchell Micro, and the Hub will provide help with tools and technology, learning success and connecting with careers and community, digitally and on campus. Located in the Mitchell College Library, the Hub will provide technical and learning support via written and video resources and live sessions, and opportunities for peer engagement.”

Professional certification preparation includes IT, cybersecurity and project management, as well as Lean Six Sigma Yellow & Green. Courses will prepare learners to take certification exams and provide vouchers to take the exam.

The Mitchell College Library will house flexible learning and collaboration spaces and provide access to computers and support staff for the digital learning supported by the Digital Innovation Hub.

President Espy said, “Meeting the needs of the community and regional industry to prepare the workforce for in-demand careers is paramount to the well-being of our region and our state. The DIHEE provides access, connectedness and flexibility to a whole new group of learners who are seeking to upskill and expand their job opportunities. We are grateful that Congressman Courtney supports Mitchell College’s vision to support and grow Connecticut’s workforce in alignment with the state’s workforce development goals, and the needs of the region.”

 

 

 

 

 

Giving Thanks for Second Chances

Nov 22, 2022 | Stories

In this season of giving thanks, sophomore Mame Diarra (Mumjahdah) AbdurRahman reflects on her gratitude for Mitchell College.

“Mitchell College has given me the second chance to have an educational experience. It accommodates my learning style and that eases my anxiety. I love to connect with staff on campus, mostly because they remind me that you can have a pleasant experience in school, be acknowledged for things you have accomplished and be recognized for where you are as a person,” she said.

“Two things drew me to Mitchell. I loved how President Espy is African American and looks like me, and it’s a college with learning accommodations.”

Mame Diarra, 27, was recently diagnosed with autism.

“I knew there was something going on with me,” she said. “But I didn’t know what. I felt like a misunderstood person.”

She attended two other colleges before Mitchell, where she first enrolled early in the pandemic, when classes were on Zoom. After less than a semester, she decided to take a break from school.

“I wasn’t going to come back at all,” she said. “I thought, ‘I’m kind of done. I don’t want to do school anymore. I’m over it.’”

Mame Diarra went back home to Oakland, Calif., where she said she started working on herself by working out and eating right.

“I saw what the worst possibility was, and I saw what the best possibility was,” she said.

She returned to an organization – Youth Spirit Artworks (YSA) – where she has been involved since 2013, both as a volunteer and an employee. An interfaith art jobs and job training program for homeless and low-income youth in the San Francisco Bay area, the organization focuses on giving youth the skills, experience and self-confidence to empower and transform their lives.

Mame Diarra went back to work as a resident assistant in the organization’s Tiny House Empowerment Village, transitional youth housing.

“Tiny House Village changed my life. It allowed me the space and time to work on myself mentally and physically while helping low-income and at-risk youth. It was my home and community that I stay connected with,” she said.

“I’ve had the opportunity to do many things for YSA – doing art and writing poetry, learning how to run a nonprofit and speaking at rallies and council meetings on behalf of the organization. It has grown me personally and professionally over the years.”

Mame Diarra, a singer since childhood, also discovered that she has a talent for poetry when poet Charles Blackwell visited YSA in 2015.

“He said I was a talented writer and started mentoring me. It was intense, but it shaped my poetry. My past traumas and stuff I never got the chance to say inspires my poetry. My dad died when I was 16. My family would do things to honor him but wouldn’t talk about how I was in pain. Putting my feelings on paper was therapy for me.”

Mame Diarra said her poetry also comes from laughter; she can make anyone laugh and sees laughter as medicine. She likes that “grammar doesn’t count” in poetry and ideas can be expressed in any way.

“My poetry comes to me when it comes to me. Most of my deeper poetry is God-directed because it’s something outside of me. It’s within my human experience, but something outside of me – an unknown source – directs me to do it. I write it down and it’s beautiful. It’s a stream. I don’t craft it.”

Her poetry has been published in several periodicals and is now in a newly published book, “It Takes a Village: Tiny Houses, Big Voices” (Youth Spirit Artworks).

A psychology major and criminal justice minor, Mame Diarra has a goal of opening up a restorative justice organization to give kids who are looked at as rebellious a chance to reform in elementary school or even college.

“I want to be that person to advocate for an African American kid in an all-white setting who needs more guidance. When I hear about rebellious kids, I say a secret prayer and wish them the best, but I want to be the person who says to them, ‘Where does this come from, how can you help yourself?’ and help bring something positive to them.’”

For now, Mame Diarra is grateful to have returned to Mitchell after her almost two-year hiatus.

“I was at home on my balcony one night and said, ‘God, I want my education again. Should I go back to New London?’ I woke up with the sudden urge to go back,” she said.

“I think it’s very important to practice gratitude. It is what makes the forces that we can’t see balanced.”

 

To read one of Mame Diarra’s poems, click here.

Taino Chief Shares Indigenous Caribbean History

Nov 10, 2022 | News

At a recent program sponsored by Mitchell College’s Multicultural Student Union, Chief Jorge Baracutei Estevez spoke about the history, spirituality and culture of the indigenous Higuayagua Taino people of the Caribbean in celebration of Native American Heritage Month.

A lifelong researcher and investigator of Caribbean indigenity, Chief Estevez worked for 25 years for the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. He continues his research through Higuayagua: Taino of the Caribbean, a non-profit organization established in 2011 to provide educational, cultural and linguistic resources to anyone wanting to connect with their Indigenous Caribbean ancestry.

“Today we are reliving and reviving our culture,” he said. The Higuayagua Taino tribe currently has more than 2,000 members.

Chief Estevez told the audience that Taino were the tribe encountered by Christopher Columbus in 1492.

“We discovered Columbus,” he said, noting that Columbus and his crew were lost and wound up on the island — “our home” — populated by Taino.

He said that after 1565, the Spanish proclaimed the Taino people extinct, a notion that is untrue. Although the Taino people disappeared from paper, Chief Estevez said family histories kept Taino alive. As he was growing up in the Dominican Republic, he said that his mother and others in his community identified as “Indian.”

“The Taino language left a deep imprint” on the Spanish language and the English language, with many words deriving from the Taino language, such as canoe, hammock, maize and tobacco.

Through his work with the Smithsonian, Chief Estevez spent eight years visiting several countries in the Caribbean to research indigenity, studying eight markers — identity, oral tradition, material culture, customs/traditions, agricultural practices, language, spirituality and DNA/Genetics — and countering the myth of extinction.

Retelling the history of the Taino indigenous people helps dispel that myth.

“Instead of creating a narrative, let people decide it for themselves,” he said.

 

AmeriCorps VISTA Helps Build Service-Learning Program

Oct 26, 2022 | News

Megan Griffin, Mitchell College’s AmeriCorps VISTA, has a wealth of organizing and community development experience from across the United States and beyond. When she had the opportunity to bring her skills to Mitchell – which she describes as a “hidden gem” – she took it. During her one-year term of service (through August 2023), she is charged with building the architecture of a service-learning program for Mitchell.

“This particular project really piqued my interest,” she said. “As someone with experiences in community organizing, as well as academic research, the notion of helping students to feel more embedded in the local community and helping them discover and develop their potential as agents of change really resonated with me,” she said.

Megan cites several reasons for why it is important for students to connect to the larger community.

“As one of my professors used to say: Mentis vita pro vita mundi—the life of the mind for the life of the world. Mitchell is all about developing the power of unique minds, and I think each student here has particular experiences, skills and understandings of the world that are important to share with the community,” she said.

“I also think this experiential learning opportunity will complement students’ education, and help them to think creatively, systemically and independently about social, environmental and economic challenges and help them explore how to apply their education to meet any challenge, be it professional, personal or social.”

“Lastly,” she said, “I think it’s a wonderful way for students to learn more about themselves, and to develop their interests, values and commitments.”

To better understand the current interests of students in service-learning, Megan created a brief online survey for them to complete and has been doing other outreach.

“So far, a little over 100 respondents have taken the survey. That gives us some helpful insight into what issues, organizations and service-based activities interest them. I’ve also been tabling, visiting classrooms and speaking one-on-one with students about this new opportunity,” she said.

She said that she has begun to develop a rapport with some students and feels inspired by their interest in a diversity of issues and how they conceive of community work and their role in the community.

Although it can be challenging to appeal to busy students, Megan said, “the novelty of this project also provides more opportunity for students to give meaningful input in shaping what service-learning at Mitchell will become.”

After completing her time in the AmeriCorps VISTA program, Megan, who will receive her master’s degree in rural sociology from Penn State in December, said that she would like to pursue a career in higher education, “ideally in a position that engages with the public good. Colleges and universities are such a hub for self-discovery, self-exploration and the creation of new knowledge. These are things that could be applied to address the ‘wicked problems,’ inequities and injustices facing our world.”