Upcoming Events
Corporate Sponsors
Welcome to the Scientific Village
A few years ago, it was evident that there was a need for a more communal approach to learning in the School of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). We need an approach that would bring us closer together; one of shared responsibility and shared accountability for our success. I thought back to my grade school years where I attended a school called the Experimental School System of Massachusetts which had a very interesting structure. Our classed had mixed age levels and grades, and we began and ended each day in “family groups”. We shared breakfast together in the morning, and at the end of the day we reconvened as a family, with the older children assuring that the younger “siblings” understood their home assignments. What I remember most about this period in my education was the feeling of belonging to a unit where the members were uniquely bund and each were committed to the success of the unit. I shared this experience and desire to create a similar environment in the School with a colleague, Dr. Samuel Darko. He not only embraced it, but he too had a similar experience during his rearing in Ghana. With his assistance in defining the roles, the Scientific Village was created based on a respectful model of the Akan Villages of West Africa. The more the concept was discussed and shared through interaction with colleagues, the more evident it was that many of us enjoyed and have grown from experiences in our journeys that placed value on community ties. The result is our Scientific Village at Benedict College.
The idea of Scientific Village is the STEM student and undecided majors as well, will have a place, a family, a unit in which they can learn and explore areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics; outside of, but yet complementing, the traditional lecture/laboratory setting. Students grow to be mentors, mentors transition to colleagues, colleagues become partners, and we are forever bound in innovation and scientific discovery – by choice. The Scientific Village is our strategy to form scientific teams naturally, based on scholarly interest in addressing our society’s challenges. It’s about sharing the very essence of who we are as individuals and together as contributors to the greater scientific community.
Dr. Stacey Franklin Jones
Dean
