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Lane College

Designee

Dr. Aminah Gooch

Positions

Associate Professor of Chemistry

Region

South

Lane plans to leverage existing work with its “Ten (10) Block Project” alongside other interdisciplinary work such as the Luminosity Lab model to develop an educational and experiential learning project that will address the work of Public Interest Technology (PIT) by acknowledging and educating on the existence and relevance of technological disparities within Black and low-income communities. Then, through practical application and action, target disparities experienced in communities that are predominately Black and/or low income (such as that which surrounds the college and others that mirror it). Lane’s “Ten (10) Block Project” (TBP) is a campus-wide initiative that is centered in academic affairs and calls on the academic divisions and departments to leverage their respective field expertise, knowledge, and skill set to affect change specifically in the ten blocks surrounding the Lane College Campus. This initiative has thus far resulted in a myriad of projects spanning the college’s three academic divisions, including but not limited to the development of a community garden, public speaking engagements, public documentary viewings, legal record expungement clinics, tax preparation clinics, community astronomy night, and science education/demonstrations at local elementary schools. It is the institution’s desire to link the TBP initiative to the institution’s commitment to academic excellence to focus on developing PIT-centered programming. This would allow Lane to leverage both institutional expertise as well as that provided by network membership to intentionally and creatively solve problems faced not only in the Lane College community but more broadly the ten (10) block community surrounding the college.