Frostburg State University
EN-9: Community Partnerships

The CoB, via its Associate Dean and Director of the Trident Initiative (a Coleman Foundation-funded entrepreneurship program housed in the CoB), Dr. Sudhir Singh, and one faculty member, Dr. Marty Mattare, has established partnerships with the Western Maryland SCORE Chapter. SCORE is a resource partner with the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), and has been mentoring small business owners for more than forty years. The CoB also contributes faculty expertise and research assistance to the Western Region Small Business Development Center. Each of the five past Conferences held by the Trident Initiative have included significant discussions on the issue of sustainability with presenters including noted educationists, policy makers, government and thought leaders. (Details on each Conference are available at http://www.frostburg.edu/trident/). An FSU partnership with Western Maryland RC&D, Frostburg Grows, started with a $300,000 award from the EPA to construct high tunnel greenhouses and a shade tree nursery to serve as a site for grower training and local food sustainability education while demonstrating innovative re-use of strip mined lands. FSU is also collaborating with Evergreen Heritage Center to provide K-12 modules for testing in their environmental wellness programming. Outreach efforts in collaboration with Mountain City Traditional Arts, University of Maryland Extension, and West Virginia University extension have included workshops for landowners that educate participants about non-timber forest product income opportunities while providing resources for cultural tradition appreciation and sustainable cultivation of high demand medicinal plants.

Frostburg State University's professors engage with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources on a variety of sustainability projects. In October of 2002 FSU and UMBI enter into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources regarding ecological research and education to be conducted in the South Savage Wildlands. This is a tract of land which is part of the Savage River State Forest in eastern Garrett County encompassing 1934 acres. The South Savage Wildlands are used as an ecological research station for students throughout campus. FSU professor Sunshine Brosi is part of the Savage River State Forest Citizen's Advisory Board. She participates in the annual auditing process of certification of Savage River State Forest as sustainable through the outside accrediting organizations of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

Frostburg State University's Ethnobotany Program has a collaborative partnership with the Maryland Native Plant Society which includes participation in the annual Western Maryland Native Plant Fest in May and in the April Battling Botanical Bullies program. Since 2008 students in the Plant Taxonomy course have assisted in pulling the exotic invasive garlic mustard from a sensitive natural area in order to protect the West Virginia White butterfly (Pieris virginiensis) which has a global conservation status of G3 - Vulnerable and a Maryland status and rank as S1 Critically Imperiled (state endangered). Battling Botanical Bullies at Bear Pen Invasive removal event cosponsored by Western Mountains Chapter of Maryland Native Plant Society and Savage River Watershed Association occurs each April to continue control efforts of Japanese spiraea and garlic mustard in the Bear Pen Run area of Savage River State Forest. Bear Pen is designated as a Type 1 Wildland and like other natural areas around the State is threatened by a variety of exotic invasive species.

Frostburg State University's Biology department has funding from the Wildlife Management Institute for research on the sustainability of the Alleghany woodrat in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Frostburg State University's Ethnobotany Program has a collaborative sustainability partnership with the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation in North Carolina. Though collaborations with the Revitalization of Traditional Cherokee Artisan Resources (RTCAR) program within the Cherokee Preservation Foundation. Students complete a community service project with the Cherokee on aiding to increase the sustainability of materials for basket making during January Term courses in 2014 and 2016. This projects works to establish and maintain cultural resource plantings of white oak and butternut for basketry construction and dye. FSU's Ethnobotany Program has a collaborative agreement with the University of Alaska Fairbanks's Kuskokwim Campus in Bethel, Alaska. Through support from grants students from FSU travel to rural Alaska to research sustainability of native Yup'ik and Inupiat traditions of natural plant medicine, native foods, and local crafts. Students have participated in this program during the summer sessions of 2015 and 2016. FSU's Ethnobotany Program has a collaborative agreement with Pine Mountain Settlement School in Pine Mountain, Kentucky. Students travel to rural Harlan County Kentucky during the January term (and in the summer of 2016) to complete projects related to sustainability of materials for Appalachian crafts including hickory chairs and dulcimers. All of these programs are externally evaluated for there impacts on students through Grinell's RISC (Research Experiences in the Integrated Science Curriculum) assessment.