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On a mild afternoon last month, dozens of Rhode Island high school students shuffled aboard a two-level ferry, eager to see offshore wind turbines up close for the first time.

A new education program called Wind Win RI hopes to build a workforce pipeline for New England’s fast-emerging offshore wind industry by offering experiences like this field trip to the Block Island Wind Farm, a five-turbine wind farm about three miles off Rhode Island’s coast.

The offshore wind industry is expected to create 16,700 jobs in the Northeast by 2028. Rhode Island is already a leader in the nascent sector. The state’s second offshore wind farm, from Revolution Wind, is expected to start producing electricity by 2023…

Organizers also want to further develop and formalize relationships with post-secondary institutions like the New England Institute of Technology, the Community College of Rhode Island and the University of Rhode Island. Urbach will work with colleges to accept the high school certification and apply the credits to a degree program, while also building off or integrating some of their existing coursework.

The New England Institute of Technology, for example, is developing a career-mapping matrix for high school students. Henry Young, who oversees the school’s renewable energy program, said it will help students understand how their interests align with careers in wind energy projects. “We have to reach back to high school and middle schools to develop a pipeline of students,” he said…Click to read more 

Earlier this month, the commercial real estate media group Bisnow and architectural firm SMMA came together to publish a piece about Providence College’s new home for its business school, the Arthur F. and Patricia Ryan Center for Business Studies. The building unites the east and west campuses and has become a destination for students of all majors when studying, grabbing a coffee, meeting up with friends, or going to class. It has become “the centerpiece of campus,” according to Bisnow.

 

 

 

 

 

After a design competition in which architectural firms submitted their ideas for the building, SMMA and principal John Scott were chosen to bring the College’s vision to life.

Scott’s ideas for the center called upon the concepts of crossroads and intersections and revolved heavily around wanting to unify new and old spaces. The back half of the Ryan Center is the old Dore Hall – a dorm building on campus that has not been in use in recent years. SMMA repurposed the building within a larger structure that now houses offices, classrooms, study spaces, a café, a finance lab, multiple computer labs, and large open spaces for students to gather. The firm wanted to bring “new life” to Dore Hall, according to Scott. And they did exactly that…Click to read more

Filmmaker Natalia Almada MFA 01 PH has earned valuable new support from Sundance to continue “working at the vanguard of inventive artistic practice in story, craft and form.” In October the Utah-based nonprofit announced that she is one of four filmmakers to be named 2018 Art of Nonfiction Fellows. The program provides “artists with a distinct voice and vision” unrestricted grants and year-long fellowship tracks tailored to their individual creative goals.

Almada, a native of Mexico and recipient of a 2012 MacArthur “genius” award, is known for making expressive films that combine deep personal reflection with critical social commentary. Her 2011 documentary El Velador (The Night Watchman) addresses the heartbreak of ongoing drug wars by focusing on a single worker at one of the rapidly growing cemeteries where Mexico’s most powerful drug lords are buried. Todo lo demás (Everything Else), her most recent film—and first narrative feature—presents a portrait of extreme isolation, “a low-key character study whose gently repetitive rhythms mask an unusually keen sense of nuance and subtlety,” as New York Timescritic Jeannette Catsoulis puts it.

Made while Almada was a MacArthur Fellow, the film follows the monotonous daily routine—ripe with rituals—of a 63-year-old government clerk in Mexico City named Doña Flor (played by Adriana Barraza), who exists largely removed from meaningful human contact…Click to read more

BRISTOL, R.I. – Moving to a new country has many inherent challenges; new customs, an unfamiliar language and a different community of people. What can often make these challenges even more difficult are the misconceptions and prejudices that dominate the media’s narrative and influence our perceptions.

A group of International Ambassadors at Roger Williams University are challenging those stereotypes with their short film “Not Defined By The Narrative,” which premiered on Monday as the first event of International Education Week.

“This video aims to reveal a different side of the story by interviewing insiders of nations around the world and capturing their reactions and perspectives to various stereotypes about their countries,” said Anne Sinclair Imondo, a junior Architecture major from Rwanda….Click to read more