Across the Bridge

It was an exciting and rare opportunity this semester to team teach a course  with Rebecca Bourgault and Dawn Paul. We presented an interdisciplinary course that was focused on the closing of the Salem Harbor Station power plant, and the stories the workers had to tell about their experiences there. We were ambitious and inventive in developing the course. We  accomplished a lot and it is hard to believe that it has all come together in a show at the plant.
It was all made possible with the generous support of the Footprint Power company led by Peter Furniss. It was also possible because the plant workers were generous and trusting with the students. they gave their time and effort to making the project work right up until the show. Even now, the workers are serving an tour guides for visitors to the show.
The students also built trust and trusted the workers in exchanging their ideas and responding creatively to what they heard from the workers.
In the end we all moved across our own thresholds and stepped out of our comfort zone and . The institutions, the students, the workers all moved into uncharted territory in working on this project. Nothing like this has ever been done by any of us.
It has been a rare opportunity to have worked on this project.