Michael B. Smith teaches history and environmental studies at Ithaca College. Over the past ten years there he has coordinated the Humanities and Sciences Community Service Program, served on the Office of Civic Engagement steering committee, and co-developed a service-learning curriculum for the Honors program. Building on a local environmental history project developed in Tompkins County, NY, he is going to Nicaragua in the fall semester of 2017 to collaborate with the women’s cooperative Las Mujeres Solares on a community environmental history project as part of a Fulbright grant. Since 2016, he has been involved with the outreach team for Ithaca Welcomes Refugees, a refugee resettlement and advocacy organization. The desire to foster more compassionate, more resilient communities animates everything he does as a teacher, scholar, and citizen.
Professors Jeffrey Bernstein, Michael Smith, and Rebecca Nowacek make the case that being a good citizen requires understanding the lives other people experience–their joy and suffering–and working to ease the troubles others face.