College of Western Idaho’s (CWI) Connections Project provides a positive space for students to share what they have been passionately working on throughout the year with fellow students, family, friends, faculty, and the community. Club tables and panel discussions are a fantastic opportunity for student groups to share their work.
Members of CWI’s Anthropology Club, along with their club advisors, Nikki Gorrell and Annette Grove, are busy preparing for this year’s Connection Project. Gorrell feels that the Connections Project is a chance for students to showcase their best selves and to share what they have been working so hard on during the year.
The club will be setting up a table at the event to advertise an exhibit they are currently working on in collaboration with CWI’s Career and Technical Education students. The exhibit, The Tools in Our Hands: The Evolution of Career and Technical Education, will illustrate how technology has advanced from the tools and techniques used by primitive humans to the complex methods and materials used in the present day through artifacts, interviews, and images. Club members will focus on areas of welding, drafting, and horticulture for the first installment of this exhibit. Each will have the opportunity to observe students working in each discipline and conduct interviews in order to gain insight into the education necessary to obtain careers in these fields. They will be asking students why they chose their specific craft and the challenges associated with pursuing their career choice. This qualitative data will then be linked back to what the club members have learned regarding the history of these fields through the lens of Anthropology. The exhibition, on display at the Nampa Campus Micron Education Center through December, will feature an incredible visual timeline of tech innovation, as well as several interesting artifacts.
“Anytime you have an opportunity for a student to take information that they’ve learned or are learning, and then explain it to someone else, it reengages them in the material on a much deeper level,” Grove said. “Every time they do that, it cements it in their brain. When they have the opportunity to teach it or present it someone else, I think that’s invaluable.”
Another aspect of the Connections Project will be a panel discussion hosted by Martha Timberlake, for Social Sciences, to discuss various aspects of service learning. Students will be serving on the panel with members of the community who have invited CWI students into their programs, such as the West Ada School district and the Girls Scout’s Vision Program. Students will talk about their experiences and the value that service learning has added to their education at CWI. The community partners will share what they find beneficial regarding the relationship they have curated with CWI and how student participation contributes to the mission of their programs. Faculty members will discuss the challenges of integrating service learning programs into their classes and the reasons why these programs are beneficial for students. This panel will be helpful for anyone interested in gaining insight regarding the benefits and challenges involved with service learning.
“Getting in there and being a part of something outside of what you do in your normal student life is a window into other opportunities,” said Timberlake. “The networking that happens as a result of that kind of participation really makes a qualitative difference in student’s experiences at CWI”.
Do you have student work you would like to showcase at Connections Project? Faculty can submit work on behalf of their students, or students may submit work on their own. All submissions are due by Friday, March 23. For details regarding the submission process visit cwi.edu/current-students/connections-project-submissions. Please email connections@cwi.edu with any questions or if you want to talk through ideas.
Join us for this year’s Connections Project held at the Nampa Campus Academic Building on April 26 from 3-8 p.m.!