Name:	Barbara Rich
Title:	Associate Professor
Department:	School of Social Work
Organization:	University of Southern Maine
Phone:	(207) 773-6197
Fax:	(207) 780-4902
Email:	rich [a] usm.maine.edu
Address:	Box 9300 Portland, ME 04102

Brief Biography:
A frequent presenter at national conferences, Barbara Rich was a recipient of the Maine Campus Compact Faculty Fellowship in Problem-Based Service Learning in 2000. Recently she received the Donald Harward Faculty Award for Service-Learning Excellence. In 2002, she was selected for the Northern New England Campus Compact Consulting Corps and offers training in service-learning for faculty from USM and other colleges and universities. She was awarded a grant from the Simmons Foundation for the creation of the Lifebook Project, a collaboration with the Department of Human Services' Children's Services program. In this project, social work students were matched with foster children to construct lifebooks. In addition, she received a grant from the Anne Shroth Dietz Foundation to fund the Photovoice Project which funded social work students who were working with refugee children and adolescents. This project resulted in three public exhibitions of the photographs that were taken by the children as they considered the questions—who am I and what do I value?—and answered in pictures. Most recently, she co-taught an international service-learning course, "Child Welfare in Belize," during the January Winter Session, 2007 and 2008. In this course, fifteen students from social work, therapeutic recreation, media studies, psychology, sociology, criminology, and business studied Belizean history and culture with particular reference to the many diverse cultural groups who live in Belize. They also performed service in an orphanage in Belize City while studying the child welfare system, did a service project in a retirement home for elderly, collaborated with a women's empowerment group in the town of Orange Walk and a school in southern Belize, and snorkeled in the off-shore cayes. Professor Rich is currently engaged in a research project on the use of international service-learning in schools of social work across the U.S.

Areas of Expertise