"Can Indiana communities lead the green revolution?"

That question is the focus of a summer project conducted by students from Ball State University.  The project is titled "Coffee, Community and Climate Change" and is made possible by funding from The Virginia B. Ball Center for Creative Inquiry.  The Center enables a faculty member to teach an interdisciplinary seminar that explores a topic that enables collaborative research and interdisciplinary study for the student team.

Added to this mix is a "community" - which partners with the Ball State team providing a community-based project that immerses the students into the daily lives of residents, business executives and community leaders!  This project driven - community based approach promises to deliver an exciting semester filled with many unpredicted adventures and challenges.  

Scott Truex, Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Director of the Community Based Projects (CBP) program from the College of Architecture and Planning developed the project and was awarded one of the five 2009-10 fellowships.  He will directed the 10-week summer semester seminar and community partnership.

Critical to this project is the community!  Thanks to the leadership of Larry Andrews, the City of Nappanee, Indiana has agreed to embrace this project and partner with the Ball State team. Nappanee is a community with a great heart, endless compassion and steadfast endurance.   This community has faced recent setbacks - first from a tornado that ripped through the community in October of 2007.  And currently they are impacted daily by the economic storm that has generated some of the highest unemployment rates in the country.

Nappanee's perseverance and determination to move forward makes it the prefect community partner  - a proven Indiana leader!