Holt Scholarship Information- Proposals Due 3/29

Please note the Holt Challenge Scholarship has been re-opened for a second round of proposals.


Call for Proposals: Nicholas Holt Challenge Scholarship Fund

In 2010, Unity College became home to the Nicholas Holt Challenge Scholarship Fund, a gift made possible by the Holt family in collaboration with the Maine Community Foundation.Unity College was a major interest in Nick Holt’s life since 1973; he spent more than twenty years working toward accreditation of its strong environmental teaching program. Nick was an architect, family man, befriender of strangers, Army veteran and marcher on Washington, gunkholer and sailor, and a lover of color, trees and light. His family is pleased to honor his passion and commitment to Unity with this scholarship fund. The purpose of Nick’s Fund is to support juniors and seniors in challenging, experiential learning projects that are self-initiated, curriculum-based and approved by an academic advisor.

Challenge is paramount to the Fund’s goal because Nick delighted in challenging himself and others to attempt the impossible, to say “I think I can.” Recipients of this scholarship in Nick’s memory will share the thrill of pushing their personal and educational boundaries and their projects must reflect this spirit.
Approximately $10,000 will be distributed annually through this fund. There is no minimum or maximum award amount and no pre-determined number of awards to be made annually. However, the fund is typically divided among 2-3 scholarship recipients per year. This intent is to make otherwise impossible projects possible and to cover the full expenses of selected projects.

The Unity College Environmental Stewardship (general education) curriculum, required for all students irrespective of major, includes a culminating experience at the 3000or 4000 level to be worth at least three credits.

Students have five options for completing this requirement:
1. Seminar
2. Internship
3. Independent study
4. Thesis
5. Academic field experience

The latter four, all directly-driven by student initiative, are the endeavors eligible for support from this program.
Therefore, each semester, eligible students will have the opportunity to apply for funding to support their internship, independent study, thesis, or academic field experience, in accordance with the application process below.

Applying for the Holt Challenge Scholarship
Eligible students
Only full-time Unity College students who:
1. are in good academic standing
2. receive need-based financial aid
3. will be juniors or seniors at the time of their proposed project are eligible.

Eligible projects
Only projects eligible for consideration are ones that will:
1. Serve as an internship
2. Independent study
3. Thesis
4. Academic field experience in fulfillment of the Unity College Environmental Stewardship curriculum

Timeline
The application and decision process are timed in relation to preregistration each semester because these are credit-bearing projects for which students must register. Award specifications from the donors and a later preregistration period during spring 2012 make it possible for the Review Team to accept an extra round of proposals for this semester only. Please, see the timeline below for deadlines. Also note that an informational session for interested students will be held on Tuesday, March 27 at 11 a.m. with a location to be announced.
For projects during

Proposal Must Include:
1. Forms necessary for:
a. an internship (Internship Agreement Form and job description)
b. independent study (Independent Study Proposal Form)
Modified 1/25/12
c. thesis (Thesis Proposal Form)
d. academic field experience (program description).
2. A completed Holt Challenge Scholarship Proposal Essays (see attachment).
3. A detailed budget developed in the Holt Challenge Scholarship budget form (see attachment). Common expenses will be for travel, materials, access to necessary resources, etc. Tuition for credits in excess of three (i.e. the fourth credit and beyond) may be included.
4. A current resume.
5. A letter of support from an appropriate academic advisor, for instance, a thesis advisor or internship faculty sponsors.
Evaluation Criteria (ranked in order of importance, with most influential criteria at the top)

The strongest proposals will:
1. Demonstrate a commitment to academic excellence by describing a well-planned learning experience clearly intended to challenge the student to master new knowledge and skills.
2. Present a project that is distinctive and that bears a meaningful relationship to the student’s post-graduation career and service aspirations.
3. Describe a growth and learning experience unlikely to be available to the applicant without the support of this fellowship.
4. Demonstrate a commitment to service by identifying the benefit to others, besides the student, that will result from the project.
5. Be from students with a strong record of productive involvement in Unity College.

Review Team and Process
The review team is appointed by the Vice President for Academic Affairs. It is comprised of:
1. Two members of the faculty
2. One past Holt Challenge Scholarship recipient
3. Internship Coordinator/Career Consultant or designee
4. Dean for Students Affairs or designee
5. Community-Based Learning Coordinator or designee
The team receives the materials and reviews them according to the criteria. If it wishes, it may request a meeting with a finalist(s) to discuss and clarify his/her proposal, budget, etc. The team makes a recommendation to the Vice Presidents for Academic Affairs and Advancement, who together will determine the final recipient(s). Award recipients will be asked to complete a presentation on campus after completing the experience.
Spring 2012 PROPOSALS DUE: 12:00 Noon Thursday 29 March 2012
Submit proposals electronically to Stacey Hachey at shachey@unity.edu. Upon verification of eligibility and a completed proposal, the proposal will be forwarded to the review team

The Time is Now

Many students wonder when the best time to line up an internship for the summer. Well, the time is now. By the end of this week we will be unveiling our 2012 Internship Handbook which does a great job of covering the process of arranging an internship for college credit. We've been busy posting our job announcements to our career services website. What is doesn't quite do well is letting you know how to prepare for the process of applying for an internship. At the bare minimum future interns should have a resume, cover letter,and a list of three strong references. Many positions will also require letter of recommendations, copies of college transcripts, background checks, physical exams and/ or fitness tests. That's a lot to pull together for each position so it's best to start early with these processes.

Keep posted for upcoming Internship Information Sessions scheduled for the second week of school.

Nicole

Last Week

This was my final week of my internship here at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo. This week I worked Saturday through Tuesday because I could not work Wednesday as I was flying back to college then. This week was again mostly routine, more of the afternoons were routine as well. In the morning I cleaned either ruffed or ringtail exhibit and holding area, cleaned another holding area or two, fed the rats and the aye-aye, and sometimes did herps or prepare diets. In the afternoon I fed the islands ringtail and ruffed lemurs, fed rats, bats, and aye-aye. Did lemur enrichment and helped medicate the ruffed lemurs.

On Saturday the whole day was pretty much routine, so there wasn’t anything different that I did.

On Sunday in the afternoon I helped pull vines off the front fence of the fossa exhibit.

Monday was a very fun day as in the afternoon I got to do target training with the red ruffed lemurs. I also went to pick up mulch to add to the tortoise area of the ringtail exhibit.

Tuesday was my very last day. In the morning I went to go get the new crickets, then cleaned the cricket tanks and unpacked the new crickets, I watched collared lemur training, fed the collared lemurs their fruit, and then fell in the lagoon because I had to say goodbye to Howie, one of the red ruffed lemurs.

Sadly that is the end of my internship. I really enjoyed it and learned a lot. I will greatly miss everyone here especially the lemurs.

Massive Storm

The mornings this week were mostly routine again, cleaning either ruffed or ringtail exhibit or cleaning windows, as well as cleaning a couple back holding areas. Then preparing rat and aye-aye enrichment and sometimes doing herps or preparing diets. In the afternoons the bats, rats, and aye-aye are fed, lemur enrichment is done, and sometimes I get to feed the collared lemurs their fruit. On Tuesday and Wednesday the ruffed lemurs outside were starting their new medication so I got to watch the keepers giving the meds to the lemurs. This is done either just squirting it into their mouth or putting it in a piece of banana.

Collared Lemur

Diabetic Ringtail Lemur Rhea

On Sunday the only different things that I did were feeding the islands, both ringtail and ruffed, and watching fossa training.

Monday was a bit of an interesting day as there was a very massive storm the night before. There was a sinkhole washed out in the corner of the black and white ruffed exhibit which caused the exhibit to be unsafe for them so they had to stay in the holding for a few days. The road in front of our building had a lot of mulch washed out onto it so I spend post of the afternoon sweeping that up and putting it back where it belonged. Also today was the first day the new mongoose lemur pair was put back on the exhibit after the switch of pairs.

Damage to black and white ruffed lemur exhibit from storm

Mongoose Lemurs, Edwardo and Selena

Tuesday was a very interesting day. After cleaning the windows and the downstairs mongoose lemur and vasa parrot holding area, the vet came down to get blood from Rhea, our diabetic ringtail lemur. Rhea was in the back holding area by herself and the keepers went in and netted her then held her on top of the barrel for the vet to come in and take blood. After that, Ted, a black and white ruffed lemur had to go up to the vets office and get checked due to problems with his hip. I went too, so that I could watch the procedure. He was put under and then examined. He had a normal check up and the vet was moving around both his hips, and the rest of his rear legs to see if there was something wrong, then several x-rays were taken, blood was also taken. Nothing was found to be wrong with him, though they would have to wait for the blood work results to see if that showed anything, but he was put on some medication for pain. In the afternoon there was an attempt to train the fossa, but they would not come back into their holding area. I then went to rake some on ringtail island, because the island had been flooded and most of it had been underwater from the storm and was now covered in the duckweed that covers the lagoon. Today when I was watching the keepers med the ruffed lemurs, one of the black and whites escaped from its holding area and was loose in the lagoon holding building. After a few minutes of it running back and forth from one end of the building to the other it was caught and put back in its holding area.

On Wednesday the only thing I did that was different was in the afternoon I stripped the rats burrow.

Summer 2011 is over!

Hey all!

I can't believe that the summer is over for Incarnation Camp. We spent the last week getting in as much fun as possible with a few special activities. We brought in a group to take everyone scuba diving in the lake, went out to play paint ball, and traveled over to Hammonasset for beach day.

At the end of the week it was time to take camp apart. After taking down tents and moving beds all Friday morning, the kids got to take the afternoon off and get fancy for the last dinner at camp, banquet. After eating a delicious meal (which they didn't have to cook, no cooksite!), we all gathered in the rec hall to watch a slide show of all the pictures we took this session. Once we all had a good laugh at the photos, the real trouble started: the all night dance! The staff took turns supervising and sleeping so as long as the kids wanted to dance, the party would never end. We ended up watching the sun rise on the docks, and getting a couple hours of sleep before the parents came on Sunday to pick everyone up.

I was so sad to see my campers go, we had such an incredible group this summer, and I can't wait to see them again next summer!

Goodbye Upper Delaware!

Well, the summer has finally come to an end and my internship is over! My last week on the river consisted of canoe patrols, power boating with law enforcement, and my goodbye party!


On my last day, two of the law enforcement rangers took me out on the power boat to patrol the river. We didn't really catch anyone doing anything illegal, but we did find a whole watermellon floating along the shore! That evening the interpretive unit had a bbq/goodbye party for me. This summer has been a blast, and I am so grateful to have had this opportunity. I've gained so much experience from this internship, and it will definitely benefit me in my future career. I couldn't have asked for a better internship or better people to work with!



It's been a great summer!
-Lara

USDA

This was a bit of an interesting week because the USDA inspection wound up happening this week. Sunday through Tuesday the mornings were normal and routine, I cleaned the ruffed exhibit and holding area all three days, cleaned windows, then cleaned another holding area or two. Also in the morning, the aye-aye and giant jumping rat enrichment is given, I do not think I ever explained why these two animals get fed/enriched so many times a day. The rats, it is very easy for them to over groom themselves and each other so we feed them three times a day to try to prevent that. The aye-aye, in the early morning they are given their gruel, then with their second feeding they are given their vegetables, and the third one they are given their fruit. This is done this way because they like the fruit the most and if they were given that with or before the other food they would only eat the fruit and not the other food. Sometimes in the morning I will help with herps, and give the crickets new food. Then tomorrows diets are prepared and that’s the end of the morning. In the afternoon most things are different from day to day, but feeding the bats, and the aye-aye and rats again, as well as preparing lemur enrichment is done every day, most days I also get to hand feed the collared lemurs their fruit.

In the afternoon on Sunday, I went with a keep to the jungle to start laundry and try to find balloons for paper mache, then spent most of the afternoon making paper mache.

Monday was interesting too. In the morning I cleaned the downstairs mongoose lemur holding area with them in it. They were not going on exhibit because they were being moved upstairs and separated. The two mongoose lemurs upstairs were separated as well. They are switching mates in hopes that they will breed. All lemurs were put in separate cages with one empty cage in between them and their new mate. In the afternoon another intern and I stripped one of the herps exhibits.

Tuesday in the morning I cleaned the tenrec’s tank. In the afternoon I helped a keeper to fix fallen shelves and other various tidying up jobs. Then while I was feeding the collared lemurs we learned that USDA was at the gorilla area next to us. Everyone quickly ran around trying to straighten everything up and make sure things were where they were supposed to be. After we did all that we discovered that they were not actually getting to our area until the next day.

Wednesday started off a little bit crazy because we knew that the USDA was going to be there sometime that day and so had to make sure to clean everything very well, including all drains, and make sure all chemicals were put back where they belong after we used them. I started out helping one keeper get down cobwebs from the bird exhibit, but then went to help another keeper clean the giant aye-aye and bat exhibit. After that I neatened up the enrichment hallway a little, and then cleaned two of the upstairs mongoose lemur holdings. Today after the holdings were cleaned, the mongoose lemurs were put into cages right next to each other. In the afternoon I fed the ring tails on the island, watched collared lemur training and fed the red ruffed lemurs outside.