Champlain Valley Hub

Partnering with perennial thinkers and doers

In the Perennial Turn course taught at Middlebury College, students engage in Community-Connected Learning to have the opportunity to partner with local organizations and individuals for the purposes of expanding their perennial learning beyond the classroom. The students' inquiry is focused on what it means to live and work perennially both from study inside the classroom and in relationship to their partners. Our partners are engaged and passionate about embedding perennial ideals and practices into their personal lives and career choices, whether they currently use that language or learn it from conversing with students about their studies. We encourage our students to use this common passion as grounds for connection. And we encourage this connection as a means of putting down roots for the New Perennials, breaking the boundaries of higher education to embody the practice. Through meetings between students and partners, both parties are able to deepen their understanding of New Perennial work and suggest future connections and areas of growth as this network emerges and we make space for culture change.

Our community partners are most easily identifiable within one of five Spheres: Food Systems, Education, Healing Arts, Creative Arts, and Sacred Practices. Of course these spheres are not siloed, but allow for overlap and connection as we strengthen as a community. Below are the partners that that have been part of the Community-Connected Learning in the classroom. Some, as indicated by a *, have become involved in our All-Sphere work bringing the New Perennials out to their communities.