CMU summer trips teach the value of reflection

A highlight of Mia Bommarito’s summer was being told during a creative writing course on Beaver Island that watching waves crash was exactly what she was supposed to do.

Bommarito, who plans to teach English, said that the CMU Biological Station on Beaver Island was the perfect place to learn that lesson and that Robert Fanning, the faculty member who taught it, was an ideal teacher.

“He has such a unique perspective on the writing process,” she said.

Beaver Island was one of two Central Michigan University-affiliated trips that Bommarito took over the summer that helped deepen her connection to nature.

If her major in English education and her minor in outdoor/environmental education are the main focus of her time at CMU, her summer trips to Beaver Island and an Alternative Breaks trip to Maine were side quests.

CMU’s biological station is typically associated with science education, but courses in the arts and humanities are now offered there, as well.

Fanning’s creative writing course had six students. It also gave Bommarito plenty of time to reflect on nature.

The course itself required a lot of reading, especially poetry, plus a daily meditation. Each day, students were separated and told to spend time in the woods listening or on the beach watching waves crash. They also discussed what they learned.

Students also participated in the Beaver Island ritual of looking for snakes under boards intentionally placed in the grass to capture heat that helps the reptiles thrive.

If there was a lot of time for reflection on Beaver Island, the Alternative Breaks trip to Maine was about physical labor.

At one point during the summer, Bommarito said she found herself standing next to a rural road with two garbage bags full of garlic mustard, a fast-growing non-native plant.

Unlike most Alternative Breaks trips, which pair CMU students with one community partner throughout the trip, her trip to Maine had multiple community partners.

In addition to pulling non-native plants, CMU students also rehabilitated a park visitor center, hauled lumber to build boardwalks to make trails more accessible and worked with a wildlife rehabilitation organization that focused on small mammals.

Part of the adventure was the drive to and from Maine. Students took different driving shifts. Bommarito opted for one in the middle of the night through New York state, which provided her with time to reflect.

Bommarito said she wishes she‘d learned about Alternative Breaks earlier in her student career because she missed out on experiences that could have shaped her personal growth.