The Upstate Institute provides Colgate University students with the opportunity to bring their studies and their passions away from the classroom while immersing themselves in one of Upstate New York’s diverse regional communities. Over the course of 10 weeks, participants engage in a variety of projects to not only further their own academic experience but also to foster outreach and engagement with regional partners.
Junior Mary Thomas Powell used her background in ecology and environmental science to help local farms in and around Central New York address matters ranging from insect and disease levels to outreach and education. In collaboration with Cornell’s Cooperative Extension (CCE), which informs agricultural practices throughout New York State, Powell made regular commutes beyond Hamilton, N.Y., to collect data.
“I was tagging along with [CCE’s] Regional Field Crop Specialist, checking insect traps, sweeping alfalfa fields and counting the number of potato leafhoppers present to see if it was above or below the threshold,” Powell said.
Powell added that she enjoyed learning more about ecology from her coworkers.
“It was really cool to get to know my supervisor, Eric Smith, because we spent a lot of time in the car together,” Powell said. “He has a total wealth of information about all the different insects and crops we have in Upstate New York.”
Although Colgate courses in in tropical ecology and biology prepared Powell for much of her day-to-day work, including running a variety of trials and statistical analyses of her fieldwork, the immersive nature of her job required some further learning.
“I had never really worked on farms before, so that was definitely a new experience. I had thought about where my food comes from, but I hadn’t really thought about all the meticulous decisions [that] have to be made to get food on the table,” Powell said. “It made me a lot more thoughtful about what I’m eating and what I’m throwing away based on how much work was going into the field.”
Senior and environmental geography major Ayden Simpson also spent 10 weeks of his summer outdoors in New York State with the Upstate Institute. Based out of Norwich, N.Y., Simpson’s work with the Chenango Greenway Conservancy had a similar emphasis on conservation and community to Powell’s but differed in its concentration on mapmaking instead of studying regional flora and fauna. Simpson was placed in charge of an overgrown and out-of-use stretch of old railway.
“It was nearly abandoned for the past few years, and so part of the project that I worked on was converting it into a sixty-mile-long walking trail,” Simpson said. “It crosses through Norwich and it goes all the way up to Poolville, and then very far down south, to around Binghamton.”
Simpson’s familiarity with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and the related Colgate courses he has taken helped to prepare him for the bulk of his work.
“I helped [the Greenway Conservancy] by creating maps — it was a very geographical project — and creating a story map, a sort of introduction to the whole project, and digitizing what they already had to make it more accessible online,” Simpson said. “Spreading awareness was a big part of it.”
In addition to his technological ventures, Simpson got to experience firsthand the manual side of constructing a ‘rail-trail.’
“We organized these cleanup days, which I had a very strong hand in helping with, and that was all along the railway. [Logistically] it was a mix of getting permission from the railway and gathering volunteers — doing things like general event organization,” Simpson said. “We did a bunch of days in different parts of the railroad, and that [let us] see real change happen, which was great.”
Although her work didn’t often require extensive knowledge of New York State’s natural landmarks, junior Natalie Woodson found herself equally immersed in community outreach of her own during her work with the Upstate Institute and Pathfinder Village.
Measuring approximately 300 acres and featuring local institutions like bakeries, schools and cafes, the Kennedy Willis Center (KWC) at Pathfinder Village in Edmeston, N.Y., strives to be a resource for both individuals and families affected by developmental disabilities.
“KWC is a self-advocacy group with Council Rock which promotes independence for people with Down Syndrome. […] They’re nationally recognized, and one of the only facilities in the country who does what they do,” Woodson said. “I was an intern with the self-advocacy group, helping build bonds between that group and the wider community, because this place [that] no one knows about is so awesome.”
As a psychology major, Woodson was keen to explore possible career opportunities unique to her interests and academic experience.
“[The Upstate Institute] is an awesome way to see how I can use my degree in a bit more of an unconventional way, other than typical research or therapy,” Woodson said. “I feel like something I didn’t expect was how much I enjoyed being in the office environment. It’s so fun to build connections with people in the office and have that daily structure, but also have some independence and conversation. That [structure] was an adjustment.”
Despite such a diverse array of interests and experiences, Powell, Simpson and Woodson maintain unanimously that the Upstate Institute provided a unique combination of experience, resources and community that set their summers apart.
“Overall it was such a fun experience and a good summer; I’d recommend it to anyone, both work with the Upstate Institute and the CCE,” Powell said.
Simpson credited his experience at the Upstate Institute with inspiring his future research.
“[The project] started as something I had very little interest in, but as the summer went on I became super invested. All the complexities with permission and legality, everything that goes into making a ‘rail-trail,’ is actually the subject of my honors thesis,” Simpson said.
Woodson emphasized her newfound appreciation for organizations like KWC.
“It’s an awesome place and I totally wouldn’t have known about it had I not done this program,” Woodson said. “That’s the point of the program: […] to build our ties between Colgate and the broader community.”
