UGA and Athens, working well together

Finding good internship opportunities is a focus for many UGA students, but the Clarke Central High School Odyssey news magazine features a story (and video) about the student-led Small Satellite Research Lab providing work-based interships for high school students.

The new issue of Odyssey also features a story on philosophy professor (and 2018 Democratic Congressional Candidate) Richard Winfield:

Although Winfield sees social mobility as unattainable for a lot of Americans, it is something he has experience with. Born in Queens, New York, Winfield’s parents were children of impoverished immigrants, who managed to find financial stability.

“My father ended up going into business. He had worked himself up from being kind of a stock boy in a shoe store and became executive in some companies,” Winfield said. “My mother went back to school and became a high school science teacher. They were the only ones in their families who were able to buy a house in the suburbs.”

From a young age, Winfield understood the need for activism. Growing up in the ‘60s, an era dominated by social movements, Winfield saw the beginnings of revolution, and even joined in. While attending Roslin High School, he wrote controversial editorials for the school newspaper. He worked in Franklin, Louisiana with the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union.

At Yale University, he supported the efforts of striking campus workers.

“I was a part of the first class that had a majority of public school kids in it. Yale was undergoing a lot of transformations,” Winfield said. “The students militated for coeducation and that actually took place while I was there. A lot was happening.”

At the same time, his love for philosophy started to bud, leading to some indecision about a career.

Great examples of engagement on several levels at once from our students and faculty. And terrific job by the student journalists at Odyssey magazine. The symbiotic relationship between UGA and the immediate community is rich with the churning of so many involved, committed citizens at every level. Whether these efforts are in the classrooms or the laboratories, the athletic feilds, the voting booth or any of the many planes of scholarship that touch us all, they are truly borderless in their impacts and push our community ever forward.

Image: Clarke Central High School student Dylan Gavron at his internship through the University of Georgia department of physics, Odyssey news magazine