2019 LYCOMING COLLEGE LC MAGAZINE SPRING

Warrior Coffee was born high in the mountains of the Dominican Republic in the mind of a political science professor at Lycoming who knew nothing about agriculture. But she knew she wanted to instill her value of service to others in the young scholars she teaches, and journeying to the village of El Naranjito was the first step. Caroline Payne, Ph.D., associate professor and chair of political science and director of the Warrior Coffee Project, founded a connection between Lycoming and the coffee farming community of El Naranjito in the Dominican Republic in 2013. Since then, the ventures on the Caribbean island continue to provide real- world opportunities for political science students to apply what they’ve learned about socially responsible, sustainable development to help a community in need. Her work emphasizes true service and experiential learning, as well as social entrepreneurship. She is setting up students for careers of social impact and lives of meaning, while addressing issues of social injustice and promoting economic development in the Dominican Republic. Payne and her team have helped the people in the El Naranjito region improve their farming practices by working together to combat the effects of the Roya fungus that devastates coffee trees, to diversify the shade canopy over the trees, and to employ other growing, harvesting, and processing methods needed to produce specialty grade coffee. By improving the coffee quality and providing farmers with an American market to ensure a fair price, coffee that previously sold for as little as $.08 per pound now commands $2.47 per pound. C U R R I C U L A R 12 LYCOMING COLLEGE 2019 SPRING MAGAZINE