Restoration Field School in Italy – My time spent as a Faculty member attending the 2015 Italy Field School in Domodossola, Italy has been an amazing learning experience! Our group has been able to learn so much about the deep and rich history of this region, and in particular of the medieval village of Ghesc where we worked on the installation of a stone floor.  We have put in 2 weeks of very hard physical labor amidst a heat wave here with daily temps in the 30s, but it has all been worth it to have added yet another element to the historical continuation taking place at Ghesc.

It has been wonderful to colloborate on this project with the students from Willowbank College as well. They brought a whole new dimension to our learning being a program focused on restoration, and it was great to see our NSCC students and those from Willowbank working and learning together.

My role here has been to assist the students in documenting their learning as well as to find ways to transfer this experience to their portfolios, future studies and/or employment. I had a chance to teach the Willowbank crew about the NSCC Portfolio Learning process and many of them plan to create their own form of portfolio. I was also so fortunate to have such strong learning of my own including:

Some of my most valuable learning was around acting as a host for our students and working alongside them on  this amazing project – I will miss each one of them when we leave here, and hope that I will have another chance to attend an international project with NSCC in the future.

Cheryl Veinotte-Mackey

Faculty, School of Trades & Technology

NSCC Cumberland Campus