The Center for Service and Learning, in partnership with Middlelayers, will host a Social Mobility and Service Forum. Students, staff, and the Morgantown community are invited to attend the event April 25 at 6:30 pm in Mountainlair Student Union Greenbrier Room on the WVU Morgantown campus.
The event will begin with the screening of a documentary film, “Replicating a J.D. Vance Anomaly.” Produced by Middlelayers, the film is an exploration of the socio-economic factors that prevent impoverished children from becoming upwardly mobile.
The panel discussion following the film will take a more focused look at West Virginia and will discuss barriers to social mobility, beginning in early childhood, in greater detail. Panel participants will then explore strategies to promote opportunity in the state and best prepare citizens to take advantage of it through education, youth development, and other programs. Sitting on the panel will be student body president Blake Humphrey; Kristin Moilanen (associate professor) and Sara Anderson (assistant professor) of the WVU College of Education and Human Services; Executive Director of the Shack Neighborhood House, Tia Lasporgara; and Executive Director of the Mountaineer Boys and Girls Club, Dennis Poluga.
The forum will serve as an opportunity for students and Morgantown residents to learn from experts in the fields of child development, service learning and community development about the barriers to social mobility and consider their role in in building solutions to the community’s most pressing social problems.
For more information, email Tess Goldhagen at tgold@middlelayers.org or 904.718.3172
For more information visit the Middlelayers website.