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Feb.
18, 2003 |
Community Technology Lab Opens at the YWCA
of Troy-Cohoes
The ongoing community outreach collaboration between
Rensselaer and the YWCA of Troy-Cohoes culminated last Wednesday
when the YWCA unveiled its Community Technology Laboratory.
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Thomas Griffin
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| Jes Constantine '03
(standing) helped demonstrate the technology center during
the open house. |
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The lab is outfitted with nine computers, donated
by the City of Troy, that will be used to offer technological
skills classes for group and other projects. One group project
in development is an online women's resource directory created
by YWCA members to help women negotiate the world of social services
in Rensselaer, Schenectady, and Albany counties. Rensselaer student
interns and others also will use the lab to create documentary
projects that shed light on social-justice issues, such as hunger
and violence against women.
Virginia Eubanks, a science and technology studies
graduate student at Rensselaer, will be a project facilitator
for the lab. Eubanks acts as research assistant and participatory
design facilitator at the YWCA through Rensselaer's Community
Outreach Partnership Center. The center was established with a
2002 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
to improve the quality of life in the Troy community.
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"The new lab allows us to provide dedicated
space where members of the Troy community can use technology
to explore opportunities to build bridges in the community,
to express personal and collective strengths, creativity and
concerns, and to work toward lasting social change."
— Virginia Eubanks—
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"The new lab allows us to provide dedicated
space where members of the Troy community can use technology to
explore opportunities to build bridges in the community, to express
personal and collective strengths, creativity and concerns, and
to work toward lasting social change," said Eubanks.
The groundwork for collaboration between Rensselaer
and the YWCA was laid two years ago when Rensselaer's Public Service
Internship program encouraged student interns to work in groups
on more sustainable community projects. As a result, five interns
installed a computer network system for the Sally Catlin Resource
Center. The center provides computing resources, books, and classes
on leadership development. Rensselaer student Jessica Constantine
'03, who participated in this project, recently earned the Rensselaer
Alumni Association Community Service Award. Constantine, a senior
majoring in information technology, began a similar project in
the African nation of Botswana last summer.
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