The Colby Echo

Issue date: 3/2/07 Section: News & Features

Media Credit: James Cryan

The Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement began funding independent research projects and honors theses this January. Students can still apply for funding for independent work as well as for projects related to a course for which there is no other funding source.

"This is what the Goldfarb Center is all about," said William R. Kenan. Professor of Government and Director of the Goldfarb Center L. Sandy Maisel. "Through the grant and working with faculty members we give students the opportunity to do things they otherwise wouldn't be able to do." Four student projects received grants over January that engaged communities all over the world. The Goldfarb Center sent out a request for new proposals last week for funding over the summer and next fall due Mar. 12. Grants can be up to $2,500.

Thanks to the funding, James Cryan '07 went to Paraguay last month and studied the development of local capital and its dependence on artisans to produce handicrafts. Cryan surveyed these artisans and interviewed political leaders to put together a report to a nongovernmental organization examining modes of production and marketing for these crafts. The report will recommend programs to facilitate development in the rural community south of Asunción.

"It was awesome," Cryan said about the support from the Goldfarb Center. Along with help from the World Bank and the NGO, Cryan and Daniela Adreevska '09 (who did a similar project focusing on Paraguayan agriculture) were able to conduct research for the proposals they are writing this semester as part of an independent study. "There was no way we could have gone without it. Just the tickets down there were thirteen or fourteen hundred bucks." Cryan and Adreevska will present their work at the opening of the Goldfarb Center on Apr. 13 and at the undergraduate research symposium May 2 through 4.

Cornelia Sage '07 used her grant to travel to Buenos Aires to research testimonies for her senior thesis on the Argentine dictatorship from 1976 to 1983.

Goldfarb Center support is also available through the Mealtime Seminar Program, in which students come together to explore interdisciplinary areas of interest that deal with public affairs or civic engagement. The seminars can meet however frequently during a semester so long as they include faculty from at least two disciplines and students from a variety of different fields. "We will be as flexible as students want us to be," Maisel said.

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