Nursing students in Instructor Michele Mengert’s Mental Health and Community Concepts course recently completed their community advocacy projects as part of our fall, 2018 service learning opportunities. Michele said, “students are purposefully working to learn community oriented nursing. We want to target prevention as a priority. Nurses need to understand how to advocate for specific populations of people and have knowledge of the resource programs in your community that you can partner with to help your patients.”

This semester 20 students spent over 100 hours researching and collaborating with community partners on projects such as drug free communities, family resource centers, Alzheimer’s, poverty, mental health, breast cancer, obesity, domestic violence, sexual assault, and more. Students formulated detailed advocacy plans to address how a nurse could help a community identify and address these issues, providing education, awareness, advocacy and resources. Students gathered data to help determine strength and weaknesses in their own communities. Project presentations were held on December 21. Congratulations on all of this great work on important community issues!

For more information on Moraine Park, visit morainepark.edu.

At the end of 2018 fall semester, 17 Medical Assistant and/or Medical Office students earned service learning awards. Twelve students earned Bronze Awards for completing at least 25 hours of service and five students earned Bronze and Silver Awards for completing at least 50 hours of service. Congratulations!

Anne Lemke, Experiential Learning Coordinator, was excited to present awards to some of the students present at the Medical Assistant/Medical Office Careers event at Fond du Lac Campus on December 4, 2018. Program Director Sarah Chojnacki and Practicum Instructor Eric Ziebell said, “We are so proud of our students! Seeing the community impact they make together is just tremendous! The reflection and learning that comes from these service experiences is so valuable! Students can take their learning experience and awards to showcase on their resume, in interviews, and out into the workplace!”

Together these 17 students helped over 25 community partners and served over 770 hours! Great work!!

Nancy Osorio’s service learning experience was shared in an earlier blog, click here to read about her journey.

Pictured above, left to right. Front row, Jackie Glynn , Kelly Duley, and Brooke Wentland. Back row, Nancy Osorio, Rachel Rongstad, Lyn Vogt, Tonja Bates, Andrea Wilcox, and Megan Andrews.

On Wednesday, December 5, MPTC Welding Instructor Aide Dan Eldridge, Welding Bootcamp Student Amy Mann, and EWD Business Rep Beau Gellings, visited teens in grades 5-12 and staff from the Boys and Girls Club of the Tri-County Area for a fun two hour interactive Dream Big event.

“MPTC visited our Club to talk about different educational options and career opportunities  in welding and allowed us to get hands on experience with the virtual welding equipment! 15 teen Club members tried it out and asked lots of questions.  Members earned scores for their welding performance based on 5 different measurements that make a good weld. There was some serious competition!  It was a fun and educational evening that may have lit some sparks for our kids!  Thank you MPTC!” – Carrie Govek, Tri-County BGC Teen Futures Coordinator 

“I was wondering if the kids would understand what a great opportunity it would be to get introduced to a welding career by having fun on the virtual welder, just like a computer game!  It’s very exciting for me to give back after all I have received through MPTC and the boot camp!” – Amy Mann, Moraine Park welding intern

 “It was really great tonight for me to see our student become the teacher.  I saw her giving the kids the exact same instructions we gave her when she was a beginning welder just 3 months ago. We are so proud of her!” – Dan Eldridge, welding instructor aide

Dan also told us that Amy just got offered at job at MEC, where she was serving her internship. 

The Dream Big project started last year with Boys and Girls Club of Fond du Lac teens learning more about the over 100 careers available through MPTC.  This year, Dream Big is expanding throughout the MPTC district to include Boys and Girls Club of the Tri-County Area (Berlin, Green Lake County) and Boys and Girls Club of Washington County (West Bend).  This is a great community partnership opportunity for Moraine Park students to showcase their careers and practice service learning  and for Boys and Girls Club members to get excited about career choices!

For more information on Moraine Park, visit morainepark.edu.

The students in Moraine Park’s marketing and social media management online class, led by instructor Sarah Ninmer, recently developed a plan geared towards bringing life back to downtown West Bend. On December 3, students Tony Lechner, Heidi Mahoney, Jeremiah Kastner, and Chevy Holub presented this service learning project to Adam Gitter, West Bend economic development manager.

The Moraine Park student marketing team began this project in early September with gathering demographics, city background, and researching downtown West Bend to determine objectives and create a media plan with a timeline and budget.  They worked with Adam to develop a market analysis, behavior profile and SWOT analysis. 

The team decided on a beautiful and colorful branding slogan of THRIVE! This new theme is an active, full of promise word that will help bring the future of downtown West Bend to life, focusing on restaurants, the arts, the riverwalk, family friendly, dog-friendly, and all of the exciting downtown events! They also worked hard to make sure their marketing plan would be inclusive and open to all no matter age, gender, class, and ethnicity. Adam was pleased and excited to learn about the new plan with all the great ideas and research from the Moraine Park team! Great work!

For more information on Moraine Park, visit morainepark.edu.

In November, Campus Compact brought together over 150 students from across the United States, including our own MPTC Newman Civic Fellow Queenie Weesen!  The Newman Civic Fellowship recognizes and supports the next generation of public problem solvers.  MPTC is SO proud to have our student earning this national recognition and participating in this important work!  Read Queenie’s award story here.

Campus Compact advances the public purpose of over 1,000 colleges and universities across the U.S., deepening their ability to improve community life and educate students for civic and social responsibility.  At the national conference, students gathered at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate.  Students participated in small group world cafe activities, changemaker conversations, Senate immersion modules, and Organizing for Positive Change workshops.  Queenie returned excited and empowered to continue all her good work her at MPTC and in her home community.

“It was very inspiring to meet so many students motivated to change the world!”

For more information on Moraine Park, visit morainepark.edu.

Click here to vies more conference photos.

On Tuesday, November 27 Eileen Bouchard, Cosmetology Instructor and students from the MPTC Cosmetology Program,  hosted teens in grades 5-12 and staff from the Boys and Girls Club of Fond du Lac a for a fun two hour interactive Dream Big event.

On Thursday, November 8, instructors and students from the MPTC Automotive Technology Programs, hosted teens in grades 5-12 and staff from the Boys and Girls Club of Fond du Lac and the Boys and Girls Club of the Tri-County Area for a fun two hour interactive Dream Big event.

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Moraine Park Technical College is committed to community engagement and student success.  The College supports these commitments through the opportunity for students to participate in service learning and apply their classroom knowledge to an applicable, real world environment.  Service learning is defined as a method of teaching characterized by student participation in an organized service project that meets an identified community need and is connected to course content/learning outcomes with structured reflection related to the service activity.

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On May 1, 2018, Fond du Lac Boys and Girls Club kids in grades 5-11 were excited to meet and learn with Moraine Park IT Network Specialist student Phil Conley!

Phil was excited to showcase desktop computer building for Club kids.  He said, “it’s really fun to see the kids excited about building computers and how all the wires and cables work.  Hopefully I helped them learn and explore what a great career field IT can be!”

Fond du Lac Boys and Girls Club Director of Teen Services Dillon Wiese said, “Our teens had the fun opportunity to take apart and rebuild 2 computers with Mr. Phil from Moraine Park. What a fun, interactive learning experience for all those who participated!  Thank you Moraine Park for this great stretch of Dream Big presentations! They were enjoyed by all and I can’t say thank you enough for the opportunities you’ve provided our teens with. I’m hoping this is something we can attempt every school year! Your clubs were all tremendous and thank you again to the students and instructors for taking time out of their schedules to help educate our youth.”

The idea for “Dream Big and Have Fun” began with the Moraine Park Technical College District Student Government President/IT Club Vice President, Phil Conley.  Phil was passionate about helping kids after volunteering with the IT Club internet safety project at Boys and Girls Club last year.  He had an awesome brainstorm to reach out to all the Moraine Park Clubs through Student Senate and make a plan for each one to visit the Boys & Girls Club to share some learning and fun from their programs/careers.  Clubs will be featured all throughout the months of March and April.  This is a great opportunity for Moraine Park students to earn service learning hours and for Fond du Lac Boys and Girls Club members to get excited about future career choices!

For more information on Moraine Park, visit morainepark.edu.