It’s been quite a while since I last wrote, but it’s not for a lack of things to say. Wrapping up the Fall semester and then preparing for the Spring semester kept me very busy! As I discussed the areas of greatest need with community partners, talked to professors about the setup of their Community Based Learning courses, and helped students to choose the appropriate community projects for the semester, I couldn’t help looking back to August and September, when I first started as a VISTA at Holy Cross. I was performing the same tasks in September as I did in January, yet the process seemed entirely different the second time around. It was a great feeling to understand my responsibilities and even suggest measures for improvement, especially when I remembered feeling lost and confused during my first month as a VISTA. It’s truly remarkable how much you can learn in a mere few months.

At the end of January, our office hosted a visit from Peachy Myers, White House Liaison to the Corporation for National and Community Service and a former MACC VISTA. In an address to students, Ms. Myers shared her remarkable story, beginning with her service as a VISTA at UMass Boston, and ending with a job at the White House—and she’s only 32 years old! In ten years after graduating from Vanderbilt, Ms. Myers advocated for the homeless in San Francisco, aided Hurricane Katrina victims in Austin, played a key organizing role in Obama’s campaign, and started working toward a Master’s degree—though opportunities to serve all over the United States have delayed her from completing her degree so far. In a roundtable discussion, Ms. Myers urged students to give up on the idea of a five or ten year plan, and instead to consider life after graduation one year at a time. If she had set her mind to completing a degree or working in a specific field immediately after graduating, Ms. Myers would have missed out on the amazing opportunities she’s squeezed into a short ten year timeframe. A very recent graduate myself, I was inspired and relieved to hear about Peachy’s many successes and the roundabout path that has led her to each of them.

Yesterday, I was able to visit Kate Rafey, the VISTA at Stonehill College, whose work is very similar to my own. MACC encourages VISTAs to visit one another and trade ideas, but this was the first time I’ve taken advantage of such an opportunity. While Kate’s office has a very similar set up to my own, she’s taken different approaches to many of the same issues that I’ve come across (transportation, for instance, which seems to plague most service learning and community service offices). Chatting with Kate about the structure of her office, her process for placing students at community sites, and even the CBL courses that Stonehill offers has given me new ideas that I’d like to implement at Holy Cross. It seems that every college or university has an entirely different structure of offices, especially when it comes to community engagement, and I find it fascinating to discover where VISTAs sit at their institutions and what role they play in community engagement. It’s hard to believe that half of my VISTA term is over, but I’ll definitely take advantage of more VISTA visits over the next six months.

Recently, I sat down with Ms. Cate Kaluzny, Coordinator of Service-Learning, at North Shore Community College to write a story on NSCC service-learning. Ms. Kaluzny and I met early in my year of service and found ourselves coming to the conclusion that people often confuse service- learning with community service. We decided that a story would be a good idea to combat ignorance.

The story I wrote below will run in the NSCC student newspaper, The Pennon, in February 2010. After being approached by Ms. Dana Lyford, ex-contributor for this Blog and now my MACC *VISTA Leader about blogging for the month of December or January, I thought that this story would be relevant to the blogs purpose. It gives a good idea of what service-learning is, the importance of reciprocity and reflection; furthermore, the intrinsic and tangible benefits one attains when taking service-learning courses, which Ms. Kaluzny so elegantly and thoroughly explains. Okay, lastly the latter part of this story is relevant to most schools with a service-learning component. Enjoy!

NSCC’s service-learning program is going into its ninth year. The program started with a just handful of faculty members, has now grown quite a bit; with 50 faculty members on board and 400 students participating in service-learning activities in their communities every semester.

If student service-learning participation at NSCC were added up, the tally would be well over 20,000 hours of service. Last academic year alone students completed 5,000 hours of service.

With all that written, you may be asking: “Okay, what is service-learning?”

Service-Learning, for many, has been an experimental form of teaching and learning, because these classes are not taught entirely in the traditional sense. There are parts of the course where students are learning in their communities. Not within the walls of the classroom

The service being performed always has relevance to the course. Students are assessed or graded, through reflection, with a follow up paper on their experiences with service, but not always.

According to Cate Kaluzny, NSCC service-learning coordinator, “Students can reflect by creating artwork, participating in discussion groups, and using online methods.” Reflection is absolutely essential to service-learning. These courses give students a deeper understanding of the course their taking and its subject matter.

Take for instance, Professor Linda Bassett’s American Cuisine course provides, an excellent example of service-learning, nine of her culinary students volunteered at Inn Between/Inn Transition to prepare frozen meals for the community based organization’s 40 residents.

The staff at Between/Inn Transition were grateful for students’ help; likewise students were able to expand their knowledge of cooking American Cuisine.

Another example, Professor Kathy Yanchus’ Reading Two course travelled to Stewart School in Topsfield, Mass., last semester to read stories in front of 2^nd graders.

NSCC students engaged children in discussion and lead activities related to topics on the books they’d read. Students performed a great community service, while at the same time enhancing their reading skills.

Service-Learning not only compliments the classroom, but transcends it, offering students benefits outside of their academics. At the beginning of each semester Kaluzny visits classes to communicate potential benefits.

Such benefits from service include: building social capital, becoming civically engaged citizens, active-real life experience. Maybe even help a student find their passion in life.

“It doesn’t happen all the time, but sometimes students find their passion in working with a specific population or a specific setting,” said Kaluzny.

One thing is certain, volunteer work can definitely give direction to those uncertain as to what career path they want to take; moreover, service-learning helps narrow down choices.

It’s not a guarantee students will always find their passion when doing service, but it will definitely give them life experience and direction.

During Kaluzny’s classroom visits she encourages students to place volunteer and service-learning on resumes/transfer applications.

“This tells potential employers or admission people at a four year school that you have work experience, but it all tells them something about your character, that you are willing to give of your time, your skills, and your heart to help others,” says Kaluzny, further noting, volunteering gives job experience, such experience as: people, time management, and organizational skills.

With as many faculty members placing a service-learning component in their course these days, there’s a good chance most students will end up in one of those classes during their time on campus.

“When you do, I encourage you to embrace the opportunity and learn from it,” said Kaluzny.

Happy Holidays!

The past two weeks have finally got me into the holiday spirit.

Last week I sifted through holiday cards at Barnes & Noble for half an hour. I didn’t want to be picky, but I’m not someone who just grabs the first box of cards in sight. Plus it was hard to find a card with a pretty design and thoughtful message. After finally deciding on a set of cards, I dedicated a day and a half to writing personal cards to community supporters.

These supporters have been championing BU’s Scholarship for Parents anywhere from a few months to more than a year, and I owe them a huge THANK YOU. Although recruitment events can make life hectic, they have been rewarding. With these cards, I wanted to acknowledge people who’ve made the first half of my service year eventful. That’s why I didn’t mind writing messages to every supporter till my hand felt like it would fall off.

This is my last week of work for 2010, and there has been no shortage of bonding time with coworkers. The holiday party for my college was Tuesday, the holiday party for my office was Wednesday, and the holiday party for my university was Thursday. It reminded me of what I like about this work environment.

People at my university work hard but make time for relaxation. Many employees balance school with work, and that is no easy feat. I couldn’t complain about balancing one class with work because some employees balance two to three classes with work … and they manage their responsibilities well.

Our Parent Scholar JoAn Blake (pronounced “Joanne,” not “Joan”) does an excellent job at managing her time. This semester, she worked, took a few classes, spoke at outreach events for the Scholarship for Parents, AND of course manages parental responsibilities. She continually amazes people that meet her, and I also owe her a big THANK YOU for taking time to share her BU experience with the community.

I hope you all have a safe and happy holiday season!

Peace,

Lindsay

Stonehill College Comes to Boston University

I’m not going to talk about my program today. Part of what makes MACC enriching is the potential to collaborate with other AmeriCorps*VISTAs. If I cannot directly meet the needs of campus or community members through my program, I can tap into other resources in the MACC and/or BU networks.

Recently, I connected graduate students from BU’s School of Education (SED) to Kate Rafey, MACC AmeriCorps*VISTA at Stonehill College. It happened a few weeks ago when I received an email from an SED graduate student. She read my blog and asked me to speak about service learning as part of her group’s class presentation. Since my service is to coordinate a scholarship program rather than service learning, I asked other VISTAs who work with service learning if they could present for SED. Luckily, Kate volunteered for this opportunity.

Today I sat in on the class and listened to the hour-long class presentation. The students presented theories and research related to service learning. They touched on concepts by Eyler and Giles, which is a coincidence because Giles actually led a service-learning workshop at Campus Compact’s pre-service orientation back in July.

Kate spoke about her personal experience as Coordinator of Stonehill’s Office of Community-Based Learning (CBL). Not only did she illustrate the college’s commitment to social justice, she also explained how her work relates to MACC, AmeriCorps, and CNCS (Corporation for National and Community Service).

If you want to learn more about the work Kate is getting done, check out these resources!

CBL Site: http://www.stonehill.edu/x18172.xml

CBL Blog: http://communitybasedlearning.wordpress.com/

CBL on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stonehillCBL

I’m following Stonehill CBL on Twitter and you should too! If you don’t have an account, get one!

Happy Holidays!

Lindsay

Happy Thanksgiving from North Shore Community College

It’s the day after Thanksgiving – I was thinking, which is always good, about how Thanksgiving Dinner shouldn’t be called Thanksgiving Dinner. I’ve got a problem with the word “Dinner.” Thanksgiving only comes around once a year and we call it a dinner? Dinner just doesn’t do justice to the hallowed day of eating – a day to stuff your face and eat mashed potato’s with your fingers (as my niece probably did) celebration, she loves the SO BIG GAME; we use this to manipulate her into letting us wash her hands!

Thanksgiving’s like a small festival, especially if you’ve got a huge family as I do, but this year wasn’t as large as we’ve had in past years - we had anywhere between 8 and upwards of 20-25 people at our house. Over the past year family members have moved to Italy, spent it with boyfriends or girlfriends, or simply just wanted to keep it quiet. I hope that you had a wonderful holiday.

The times at North Shore Community College are changing. We only have two weeks left for this half of the academic year. I’ve definitely been hearing whispers of finals week. Today, as a matter of fact, the schedules for the fall final dates have been made available. This year is flying.

Putting the holiday aside and getting back in to the groove of things wasn’t too hard, the vacation was delightful and refreshing. I’ve been quite the busy bee, as we approach the next semester, my interface with students will go up.

I have two big projects underway: community service fair and a leadership series. The fair will occur at the Lynn Gym in February. The leadership series will be a variety of panel discussions, workshops, and finally guest speakers.

Student Leaders will follow a track for the series. We will offer three concentrations for student to follow, the concentration will be decided by the student, where they feel improvement is need :

Communication Skills Track

Programming Skills Track

Personal Track

Each track will require students to follow guidelines, depending on what track they take will determine which workshops they will attend. After they meet all the requirements of their track they will be rewarded with a certificate.

The planning aspect of this series will be “daunting Will” as my co-worker Victoria, Assistant Director of Student Life , says, but I say why not do something of this nature. Victoria thought of the having it set up as a track program. I thought the idea was brilliant, next thing you know it, Diana Kerry, Director of the Public Policy Institute, is now on board for helping in the efforts.

It’s a great time to be at North Shore Community College! I can’t wait to give students the chance to improve their leadership as well as connecting them with the community. Early Service Training is coming up next week. A time for us to reflect on this past semester’s progress and receive more training. It’s going to be a fun time.

Peace Out!

Will

AmeriCorps Opening Day

I attended Massachusetts AmeriCorps Opening Day this weekend! Since MACC VISTAs are mostly at different schools, we rarely see all of each other in one setting. Opening day was this past Friday at the Reggie Lewis Track & Athletic Center at Roxbury Community College. MACC was among more than 100 other AmeriCorps programs in the state.

The highlight of the day for me was listening to a spoken word piece from the Youth Empowerment Corps at Untied Teen Equality Center (UTEC). A group of people from this organization read a piece written by a teenager in the program. I believe they said she was 16. I would paraphrase a few lines from it, but that could not do her writing justice. In a nutshell, it was a thought-provoking view of our society, the state of our economy, and the nature of our culture … and how she wants it to be transformed.

Also I enjoyed the performance by Essencia Dancing from Youth Start AmeriCorps Program Roca Inc. I liked how they incorporated dance routines from different genres like bachata and hip hop. I have eclectic taste in music so the performance definitely had my stamp of approval.

I liked how this opening day allowed members from some AmeriCorps programs to showcase their work.

Overall it was just a nice break to catch up with other VISTAs. I did not realize how much I had done in three months till I spoke to other VISTAs in MACC and other programs.

For the Scholarship for Parents, I have conducted information sessions at the Allston-Brighton Resource Center, the Williams School in Chelsea, and ABCD Hyde Park Head Start among other organizations. I have attended community events such as New Bostonians Community Day near Government Center, BPS Showcase for Schools, and BPS Parent University’s Kickoff. I have also gone to individual school events such as Trotter Elementary School’s coffee hour, Lee Elementary School’s parent council meeting, and Guild Elementary School’s open house.

This sounds like a dizzying list of schools and organizations, but that goes to show you how extensive this outreach has been. Whether I have traveled to Chelsea, Dorchester, Roxbury, East Boston, Hyde Park, or Brighton, there are parents with a strong desire to attain a college degree.

Whether they plan to apply for school this spring, next fall, or in a few years from now, it has been amazing to hear their stories and determination to fit college into their schedule either part-time or full-time. Some of them need or want to take more ESL courses or college-level courses before committing to a bachelor’s degree program, but at least they are starting to develop plans for themselves. For some, that is a huge step in itself.

- Lindsay

Greetings from Salem!

As I write this, I realize that it’s November and almost three months into my VISTA term, which is scary because in many ways the time has flown, at the same time there’s been a lot packed in to those three months! In October, my focus was split between outreach meetings with about a dozen community-based organizations to hear about their needs on behalf of the College and look at ways they might be able to build a mutually beneficial partnership with the college. It’s really interesting to hear about the challenges of non-profits during these difficult economic times. The meetings have also reinforced the challenge of our work: that often the type of short-term service or engagement that a college or university is most able to do is not helpful and sometimes even detrimental to those community organizations. My challenge at Salem State has been to try infuse service into the culture of a busy commuter student-dominated institution.

One of my major projects this past month has been to coordinate a large-scale food drive to benefit the six the largest food banks on the North Shore. I met with one of them a week before starting the drive and they mentioned how the organization had received a 25 percent increase in demand for food in the past year. With that dire need in mind, I tried to promote the drive using the “under-a-rock” method—that is unless you have been living under a rock then you should know about the food drive. Despite these efforts, and additional incentives offered to student organizations by the Student Government Association we had only received a moderate number of donations leading up to the deadline, and then on the final day…the flood gates opened. One student organization brought in six large boxes of food and several others made significant contributions. The drive ended very successfully and proved that the old maxim proves true on a college campus, if it weren’t for the last minute nothing would get done.

The craziness that is October in Salem culminated on Halloween when 100,000 visitors descended on the city (population 40,000.) A few VISTAs from Boston came out to experience the revelry with me, in what was easily the best Halloween I’ve had since undergrad.

Later,

Jay H