The University of Montana at Missoula is an active partner in a community-wide initiative focused on coordination, communication, assessment, networking, and education in order to ensure that resources are identified and effectively utilized to improve conditions for youth thus making a complex investment in Missoula s future. The Missoula Flagship program operates in nine of seventeen K-12 schools in the community. The Flagship program provides after-school enrichment activities, both curricular and extra-curricular, for youth to participate in. The program goals include decreasing youth violence, increasing academic success/retention, and developing skills that enhance self-esteem for youth in order to develop protective factors to help children and youth contend more effectively with risk factors and stressful life events.

For the past three years, The University of Montana has served as an important collaborative partner in the Flagship program by engaging faculty and University students as teachers, mentors, and tutors in the program. The University provides funding for faculty to work with participating schools to identify program needs and develop curricular-based community engagement opportunities for college students. Past projects in which faculty and students from the University have worked with hundreds of youth in the Flagship program include watershed education, artistic dance, mentoring, tutoring, poetry, painting and drawing, and environmental education. In each of these projects, faculty members worked closely with school-based program personnel to develop sound projects that met identified needs for youth. In addition, college students engaged in active reflection as a means to connect classroom curriculum with their service activities, and identify their role and responsibility as an active member of the Missoula community.

Flagship Program coordinators: Mary Cannon (me_cannon {at} juno(.)com) and Shannon Wheeler (shwheeler2 {at} hotmail(.)com)

Flagship Program web site: http://www.dhc.umt.edu/vas/Flagship.htm