The Trip

The August-September 2010 Harrington student trip is an opportunity to provide service to others while learning the not-for-profit model for delivering design benefits to those who would otherwise be unable to afford them. Students will have an opportunity for hands-on experience as well as classroom understanding of the processes of advocacy design.
The advocacy and service settings will be two southern United States locales: the area around Auburn, Alabama served by Samuel Mockbee's Rural Studio, and the Katrina-ravaged (and now, oil spill-impacted) community of New Orleans, Louisiana.
To keep costs low and encourage maximum participation, the trip will be largely do-it-yourself: you will arrange for and pay for your own accommodations and travel. To participate with the Harrington team, pay an additional $215 to share the cost of the instructor's expenses. Shared cost is based on a minimum of eight student participants.
Credit: students are not required to register for a class in conjunction with this trip; however, those wishing to take Peter Klick's section of DSN426 Experimental Design, Fall 2010, may complete a project in that class based on the travel experience, under Peter's supervision.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Some key dates

Thursday, July 8th, 12-1 pm in Room 106, Peter and Crandon will conduct a short meeting for students interested in the NOLA/Rural Studio trip. If you have a schedule conflict and can't attend, email Crandon, cgustafson@harringtoncollege.com.
Please note this meeting date has changed from July 7, but in case people are only available on the 7th, Crandon will be in Room 106 at noon to outline the plans.
Friday, July 23rd, 4 pm Payment is due. This can be check or credit card. Talk to Crandon for details.
We've received additional inquiries from the email that went out today, thank you! If you're thinking about going, let us know, so we can get a sense of the group size.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Welcome to NOLA Sustain!

We'll use this blog to update plans for the August trip as they develop. As you can see, we're keeping it low-key to make this experience as accessible to as many people as we can. The good news is that it looks like we have enough people interested to make the trip a "go," which means a minimum of eight. Everybody will be asked to contribute the amount needed to pay the instructor expenses, and we'll ask everyone to communicate their individual travel and lodging plans so we can coordinate group activities.
And just in case you didn't look closely at the schedule on the right, we're calling your attention to at least a few early mornings. This is not a vacation! We'll have a chance to do some actual work on behalf of others.
Start thinking about planning your own arrangements: check out the travel website of your choice Orbitz, Kayak, Expedia or whatever, and just remember some carriers like Southwest don't always show up on those sites. Booking a hotel with a roommate can save you some money, too. And we'll ask everyone to book their own Amtrak ticket NOLA to Birmingham (a pretty good deal at $35 one way).
By now you get the flavor of this trip. It's not for everybody, but we hope it sounds like a worthwhile commitment. A future post will schedule a planning meeting, in the meantime just leave a comment or email cgustafson@harringtoncollege.com.