Feedback from community partners is essential to our work at the Harward Center. As a staff, we spend much of our time forming and sustaining relationships in the off-campus community, and while we have both formal and informal ways of getting feedback from partners, it is especially rewarding to receive unsolicited input from partners who have benefitted from their work with our students. 

Just before this year’s winter break, we were delighted to hear from Catherine Ryder, Executive Director of Tri-County Mental Health Services (TCMHS), via an email she sent to Economics professor Jonny Kurzfeld.  TCMHS is one of the leading providers of mental health and substance use disorder treatment in our area, and we have been privileged to have students work closely with Catherine and her staff as part of their learning for classes in Rhetoric, Math, and Sociology; she has also supported several excellent student theses. During the fall semester, Professor Kurzfeld taught a course on the Economics of Crime and Punishment and offered his students the option to apply what they were learning to real-life challenges in the community. One of his students, Erik Stephens, jumped at the chance to work with Tri-County Mental Health Services on data analysis projects relating to spiking mental health issues and overdoses in 2020. Catherine’s message about her positive experience working with Erik speaks for itself:

Good Morning, Jonathan,

Tri-County Mental Health Services recently had the great privilege of working with Bates student, Erik Stephens. I wanted you to know that he was exceptionally professional, articulate, thoughtful, and didn’t hesitate to make recommendations where he thought we could improve our process and analytics. His end product was exceptional, and we have used it to drive changes in our service delivery. 

I want to thank you, and of course Erik, for a most excellent product and successful working relationship. I believe he has a very bright future ahead of him. If I/we can provide any additional feedback, please let me know.

Best Regards,

Catherine

Erik was equally enthusiastic about how much the collaboration benefitted his learning and professional development. When I asked him for his reflections about the experience, he explained, “whenever a course contains a Community Engaged Learning component, I gravitate towards those opportunities.” He appreciated having the opportunity to participate in TCMHS meetings via Zoom, and highlighted the experience he gained from working closely with the organization, learning about their needs, and determining ways to help advance their work with data analysis. Based on such consultations he put together client surveys, organized data from the responses, and shared a final report with Catherine and others within the organization. Even though his collaborative effort with TCMHS took place during one of the Fall’s COVID-condensed seven-week modules, the project will have a lasting impact for everyone involved.