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Spread over two inner city locations, one a former maintenance garage and the other one rented, the Paul Cuffee School in Providence is a far cry from the bucolic URI campus and yet a bond is being fashioned between the charter school and the university that has teachers beaming, students fascinated and professors excited.
The collaboration began about four years ago when Dr. J. Stanley Cobb, a professor emeritus in biological sciences, looked around his late mother’s house and saw scores of books and other documents relating to someone called Paul Cuffee, an 18th Century sea captain.
Cobb’s mother, Rosalind C. Wiggins, was an advocate for social and racial justice who spent much of her life studying and teaching about African-Americans and was editor of Paul Cuffee’s Logs and Letters.
A friend suggested to Cobb that he donate the printed materials, about 20-boxes worth, to the Paul Cuffee School which was started in 2001 by a physician who believed there were abundant learning opportunities involving Narragansett Bay for inner-city kids. The concept was to the have a maritime thread throughout the curriculum.
The idea made sense, Paul Cuffee was an interesting figure who himself started what today could be termed a charter school.
Born on Cuttyhunk in 1759, Cuffee was one of 10 children. His father, born in Ghana, was a former slave and his mother was a Wampanoag Indian.
Cuffee became a wealthy sea captain and had his own ship with a crew of black sailors. He owned property in Westport, Massachusetts. In 1797, when his children were barred from attending a local school because of their mixed race, Cuffee decided to start a school for children of all ethnicities, one of several actions he took during his life to improve civil rights in this country.
Library started
Cobb contacted the Cuffee school and he was surprised to see that the head of the school and the development director themselves came to pick up the materials--obviously the school staff was slim in number. He then visited the school and found it had no library.
One thing led to another. The donation of a collection of books by and about African-Americans (named the
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Wiggins Collection after Cobb’s mother) was the catalyst for a full-blown library fundraising campaign that brought book shelves, furnishings, book donations, an endowment for the collection and most importantly an energetic librarian to the school, says a school official.
The maritime theme of the school fit Cobb to a T. He was chair of the URI Biological Sciences department for eight years and started the marine biology program. One day he mentioned to a Cuffee teacher that he had visited the Galapagos a couple of times and the teacher suggested he give a talk to the students.
He delivered his first presentation to a group of fourth graders in the school’s lunchroom.
“They pay me enormously by satisfaction,” says Cobb.
The more Cobb volunteered the more he realized that there could be a budding collaboration between the school and the university. He talked to other CELS faculty members and soon was given a business card from the Cuffee school which reads “Stan Cobb, University Relations Navigator.”
One of the faculty members he enlisted was Dr. Cheryl Wilga, an associate professor of biology whose specialty is shark research. She has given three talks at the school already and had some of her grad students visit the school to do such things as guiding the students in the dissection of a fish.
“Their first reaction was “Yuck—it is smelly,’” says Cobb. “But after that they get right into it. They love it.”
Wilga also had a pleasant experience with the students. “They are really into it. They are like sponges. I loved it—had a great time,” she says.
Grad students take part
In addition, graduate students in Wilga’s lab and in the lab of Dr. Jacqueline Webb, professor of biological sciences, are introducing 6th graders to fish anatomy and the biology of the Atlantic cod.
Webb, who is also coordinator of the URI Marine Biology program, says “Our work with the students and the faculty at the Paul Cuffee School provides important opportunities for everyone involved. Marine science is something that captures the imagination of so many young students and we look forward to seeing Cuffee students entering URI to continue their studies down the road.”
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