The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
INSTITUTION CLOSING
Wesleyan University’s Green Street Arts Center won’t renew lease; will close next July
MIDDLETOWN » The city’s teaching and learning center run by Wesleyan University, a North End fixture of culture and family programming for more than a decade, will shut its doors next July.
“When Wesleyan opened the Green Street Arts Center in January 2005, it signed a lease with the city of Middletown to improve an old school building so as to operate after-school educational and art programs in the North End of the city,” Wesleyan spokesperson Lauren Rubenstein said in a statement. “The plan was that over time the programs would become self-sustaining through private and foundation support.”
The university has leased the building from the city for $1 a year.
In December 2014, the center was renamed the Green Street Teaching and Learning Center
and moved to programs in the arts, math and sciences for children, teachers and the greater community.
“Sustainability has proven elusive,” Rubenstein said. “Wesleyan has spent more than $4 million on these programs, a significant percentage of which has gone to overhead expenses. While Green Street contributes to the community in many important ways, we believe we need a new model for supporting the community engagement of our students.”
Among the nonprofit’s offerings are the Discovery After School Program, which serves 80 Middletown students in grades one to eight each year, private lessons and the Green Street-to-Go Residency Program, which brings teaching artists into community organizations to engage their clients and residents.
Green Street also works with the university’s Project to Increase Mastery of Mathematics and Science and CT Higher Order Thinking Schools. Science safety workshops and the Intel Math Institute prepare kindergarten through eighth-grade teachers for Common Core implementation.
In March, Director Sara MacSorley, who came aboard in January 2013, published a coloring book, “Super Cool Scientists,” which celebrates little-known women making strides in the field of science. It features stories and black-and-white drawings of 22 living women who work in science and technology careers.
Over the years, Green Street’s programs have included an after-school program, private lessons and professional development, along with various classes including things such as yoga, videography, digital photography, hip-hop and dance.
“The students and staff who work at Green Street have done a wonderful job in engaging members of the community in high-quality arts, math and science programs,” the university wrote in an email to community stakeholders earlier this week. “We plan to continue aspects of these programs in on-campus settings and also to develop other community-based resources so as to continue our involvement in local, diversified education projects.”
The college will still offer volunteer and employment opportunities for students to work with children in the North End and throughout Middletown.
“At Green Street, and at local schools, Oddfellows Playhouse, Traverse Square and other organizations, Wesleyan students have learned invaluable lessons about making a positive difference in the lives of children.
Over the next year, as part of our civic action plan, we will be working to provide our students with a variety of community engagement opportunities,” the statement continued.
Wesleyan Professor Rob Rosenthal, director of the Allbritton Center; and Cathy Lechowicz, director of the Jewett Center for Community Partnerships, are at work on a civic action plan to determine how the university can fill the void.
“We plan to continue aspects of these programs in on-campus settings and also to develop other community-based resources so as to continue our involvement in local, diversified education projects.” — Wesleyan University statement
For more information about the center, visit wesleyan.edu/greenstreet or Green Street Teaching and Learning Center, Wesleyan University on Facebook.