The goal of the ACES program is to help fifth and sixth grade students at the Boston Renaissance Charter Public School become more aware of the opportunities a college education offers, understand financial aid and scholarships, and learn about the importance of planning ahead and developing good habits for future success. The program also aims to give Lasell College student mentors leadership experience, encourage social responsibility, and facilitate exploration of possible careers working with youth.
The ACES program was originally created through a partnership between Lasell College’s Center for Community-Based Learning (CCBL) and the Boston Renaissance Charter Public School. After building a relationship between the two institutions through several years of success with the America Reads and America Counts tutoring programs, Professor Sharyn Lowenstein, Director of the CCBL, and Jessica Dugan, Director of Development and Partnerships at Boston Renaissance, decided to implement a much needed early college awareness program.
Over the past 4 years ACES has proven to be an extremely successful program and has continued to grow. During the 2010- 2011 academic year over 200 fifth and sixth grade students were able to receive an in-class college lesson and attend a field trip to the Lasell college campus. During their visits, the students had the chance to attend educational activities that included: visiting college courses, campus tours, eating in the cafeteria, speaking on the Lasell College radio station and interacting with college students in different ways. 15 BRCPS students also received additional college lessons during their afterschool program, while 15 other students returned to campus for a Shadow Day with a college student. Attending BRCPS’s College Night also afforded Lasell College students an opportunity to showcase their work.
Through the success of the partnership with BRCPS, the AmeriCorps VISTA continued to expand the program to new partnerships with the Boston Boys and Girls Club and Science Club for Girls. These groups also came to the Lasell campus for their own campus visits geared to their own specific needs. The Lasell College mentors all had very positive feedback about their experience working with the youth. Because of this, the awareness around campus about the program has also spread. In the past year the program had over 60 Lasell College students volunteer a total of almost 350 hours of service through the program. 17 Lasell courses hosted the students in their classrooms, and 6 student clubs hosted activities.
During this upcoming academic year the estimated number of BRCPS students has increased to 250 students for a total of 5 Campus Visits in the fall. The VISTA has already had multiple conversations with other partners who are interested in pursuing more campus visits for their programs. Some of the goals for the ACES program over this academic year are to increase the involvement of other offices around campus, strengthen training and reflections for a more consistent volunteer group of students, create a more standard ACES curriculum to use for planning additional visits, and model for other institutions.
Ginelle Gaulin-Mckenzie
Macc AmeriCorps VISTA at Lasell College
Friday, September 23, 2011
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Community: It's All About Relationships
Hi Everyone! I am sorry that this is my first post since October – where has the time gone? Suffice it to say, blogging went to the back burner due to the infinite things going on at MassArt. But I am back with another thought provoking entry, so grab your coffee or tea and indulge your eyes.
About two months ago I met with the manager of a local Mission Hill business who immigrated to Boston from Somalia fifteen years ago. I was there to talk about his experiences with several MassArt exhibits that hung in his coffeehouse, but the conversation quickly shifted to a much more meaningful dialogue around civic engagement and an academic institution’s role confronting public needs. In short, he recalled a neighborhood clean-up drive comprised of “hundreds” of students from a major university in the area. The manager explained the students (and even faculty) were clueless about Mission Hill and the most important aspect of change – relationship building.
There is a major trend in higher education to invest millions of dollars into civic engagement initiatives and collaborations. That is, many institutions typically coordinate programs wherein throngs of students, faculty, and staff members travel en masse to “high risk” neighborhoods and partake in a multiplicity of programs that usually aim to provide services for disadvantaged citizens. This work is noble for a myriad of reasons, but ultimately these agents of change have little knowledge on the fundamentals of community or what a community actually needs, as evidenced in my discussion with the coffeehouse manager; rather, colleges need and seek quantifiable data for funders and grant proposals so, for the most part, the term “civic engagement” translates into nothing more than a numbers game. If aggressive action is not the right ingredient to building community, than what is? There is no easy answer to that question, but based on my experiences working with the Mission Hill and lower Roxbury neighborhoods, I can say that relationships are a big part of the solution.
MassArt wrote a MACC AmeriCorps*VISTA grant so that the office I work in could build and cultivate relationships in the neighborhoods closest to the college. The Center for Art and Community Partnerships believes that MassArt can exercise better stewardship of place when strong, reciprocal relationships exist. So, I have spent the past few months doing exactly that – meeting with community organization leaders, public school principals, and community activists to talk about resources that can be reciprocally shared between neighborhood organizations and MassArt. So, for example, when I met with the executive director of the Tobin Community Center, we not only talked about the needs of the Tobin and ways the MassArt community can align their community work to help address those needs, but we also discussed how the Tobin’s patrons (mainly youth and teens) can come to MassArt and learn and share from our cohort of artists. In this fashion, MassArt students are going out into the community with an understanding they will learn just as much from the people they plan to help. In other words, a sustainable relationship defines and is at the helm of their community-based work, not just a mere timesheet showing how many hours they spent on a project.
My work will be shifting into another related direction once the new year commences. The next step is to take what I learned and help develop the foundation work for MassArt’s upcoming ArtMobile, which I will share more with you about in January’s blog post. How’s that for a tease?
As this year quickly comes to an end, I feel pleased with what I have accomplished vis-à-vis building community relations in such a short time. I’ve learned so much about the idiosyncrasies of Mission Hill’s people, places, and things, that I somehow feel like I am now part of the neighborhood. Above all, I am most happy seeing the college community rolling up their sleeves and learning about acute need in neighborhoods of vast adversity alongside those who need assistance most. This, to me, is the true meaning of being a civically engaged human being.
I want to remind everyone that MassArt's galleries are free and open to the public. Many of the exhibits in the galleries are works from world renowned artists so they are definitely worth your time. You can see the schedules, hours, etc. here: MassArt Galleries
I wish you all a safe and joyous holiday season filled with peace, love, and happiness.
Love,
Jeff
MACC AmeriCorps*VISTA serving at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design
Jeffrey.Robinson@massart.edu
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Non-Traditional Outreach
Hello from BU! I, like Aaron, must begin with an apology that I neglected my blogging duties for as obscenely long as I have, but here we are at last.
In the last two months, I have been visiting as many of Boston’s public schools as I have been able to, generally for events like back-to-school open houses and Parent Council meetings, to present the Scholarship for Parents to families who might be ready to return to school. I must express my awe and gratitude to staff and faculty at those schools, who have been so welcoming and supportive of BU’s outreach, and have provided me really positive space to have conversations with Boston families. I attended the Parent University fall kick-off over the weekend, which is a great program that BPS Office of Family & Student Engagement stages for BPS parents. The Fall Session was a series of workshops at Northeastern University designed to foster parent engagement and involvement; in addition to parents, many of the attendees were BPS staff that I have had the chance to work with this fall, and it was such a pleasure to reconnect with members of what I found to be such a warm and dedicated community. As the start-of-year push fades (September and October have been crazy-busy), Parent University was serendipitously timed to offer space to reconnect with schools that I have rapport with and can now move forward with deeper/more meaningful outreach.
I want to spend a little time discussing Parent University itself, because it is an interesting springboard to address non-traditional education. BPS’s Parent University is a series of classes taught at different district schools designed to give parents tools to take a more active roles in their children’s education, which dovetails so neatly with my goals as a *VISTA. I titled this post “Non-Traditional Outreach,” which is a joke that I use (not often to laughs, but I find it funny) to refer to my job: I do non-traditional outreach for non-traditional students. The language “non-traditional” is so revealing in that it represents that adults continuing education are so under-represented in discussions about college access and success, yet parents and parent involvement plays such a central role in college success. The reason underserved youths so often struggle with degree attainment is that they start the “college game” later, and that is often because college is not discussed at home like it will be if their parents have attended college. Programs that empower parents to talk to their children about college perform the most vital function of college success, which is augmenting the academic expectation. More immediately than pushing parents to hold their children accountable for higher education, adults who earn degrees have more confidence and earning potential, and are thus better equipped to support their families and communities. Parents are in this way the locus of change, and yet they are relegated to supporting roles in the college access discussion, and because there is no institutional expectation, the problem is creating the expectation that non-traditional students are exactly as vital to the conversation as 18-24 year olds.
Now that I have that out of the way, I can set down my pom-poms and think strategically about how to institutionalize this fairly new scholarship within the community itself. I am the third *VISTA at BU to work on Scholarship for Parents, and I am so fortunate to have followed behind two *VISTAs who worked so hard to make the Scholarship visible in the community and create institutional memory within the Metropolitan College. What I see as my challenge is to develop the content of my outreach, and to strengthen MET’s relationship to the community. In the end, this comes down to the relationships we have with community members, and how we foster mutual accountability. Legitimacy emerges as we realize the stake we have in each other, how the community fabric is dependent on that mutualism. Where the word “non-traditional” comes in is the nature of this relationship we have with Boston adults, which until two years ago did not legitimately exist. There have been no institutional avenues to compel working adults who are just trying to keep the wheels on the family wagon that college is prerequisite to family and community health. Now that I have developed a lay of the land, my job is to foster strong ties in the community and institutionalize the college standard.
Until next time,
Aaron Villere
MACC AmeriCorps*VISTA
Boston University Metropolitan College
In the last two months, I have been visiting as many of Boston’s public schools as I have been able to, generally for events like back-to-school open houses and Parent Council meetings, to present the Scholarship for Parents to families who might be ready to return to school. I must express my awe and gratitude to staff and faculty at those schools, who have been so welcoming and supportive of BU’s outreach, and have provided me really positive space to have conversations with Boston families. I attended the Parent University fall kick-off over the weekend, which is a great program that BPS Office of Family & Student Engagement stages for BPS parents. The Fall Session was a series of workshops at Northeastern University designed to foster parent engagement and involvement; in addition to parents, many of the attendees were BPS staff that I have had the chance to work with this fall, and it was such a pleasure to reconnect with members of what I found to be such a warm and dedicated community. As the start-of-year push fades (September and October have been crazy-busy), Parent University was serendipitously timed to offer space to reconnect with schools that I have rapport with and can now move forward with deeper/more meaningful outreach.
I want to spend a little time discussing Parent University itself, because it is an interesting springboard to address non-traditional education. BPS’s Parent University is a series of classes taught at different district schools designed to give parents tools to take a more active roles in their children’s education, which dovetails so neatly with my goals as a *VISTA. I titled this post “Non-Traditional Outreach,” which is a joke that I use (not often to laughs, but I find it funny) to refer to my job: I do non-traditional outreach for non-traditional students. The language “non-traditional” is so revealing in that it represents that adults continuing education are so under-represented in discussions about college access and success, yet parents and parent involvement plays such a central role in college success. The reason underserved youths so often struggle with degree attainment is that they start the “college game” later, and that is often because college is not discussed at home like it will be if their parents have attended college. Programs that empower parents to talk to their children about college perform the most vital function of college success, which is augmenting the academic expectation. More immediately than pushing parents to hold their children accountable for higher education, adults who earn degrees have more confidence and earning potential, and are thus better equipped to support their families and communities. Parents are in this way the locus of change, and yet they are relegated to supporting roles in the college access discussion, and because there is no institutional expectation, the problem is creating the expectation that non-traditional students are exactly as vital to the conversation as 18-24 year olds.
Now that I have that out of the way, I can set down my pom-poms and think strategically about how to institutionalize this fairly new scholarship within the community itself. I am the third *VISTA at BU to work on Scholarship for Parents, and I am so fortunate to have followed behind two *VISTAs who worked so hard to make the Scholarship visible in the community and create institutional memory within the Metropolitan College. What I see as my challenge is to develop the content of my outreach, and to strengthen MET’s relationship to the community. In the end, this comes down to the relationships we have with community members, and how we foster mutual accountability. Legitimacy emerges as we realize the stake we have in each other, how the community fabric is dependent on that mutualism. Where the word “non-traditional” comes in is the nature of this relationship we have with Boston adults, which until two years ago did not legitimately exist. There have been no institutional avenues to compel working adults who are just trying to keep the wheels on the family wagon that college is prerequisite to family and community health. Now that I have developed a lay of the land, my job is to foster strong ties in the community and institutionalize the college standard.
Until next time,
Aaron Villere
MACC AmeriCorps*VISTA
Boston University Metropolitan College
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
More than my imagination
I suppose I’ll start this blog out with an apology, I kind of got busy, uninterested and decided that blogging in September would not happen. September was pretty wild. I spent a number of days loathing over tasks and repetitively reconsidering the realities of my program, Serving Our Communities. In all of my mental searching, I still found no real explanation that provided me with the key to unlocking my basic question, “how is this building capacity, and how will it manage without me?”
During our *VISTA/Supervisor gathering at Amherst College, my supervisor Meghan, and I were able to finally make a long overdue connection. At the beginning of my post, she had several obligations, so I went two and a half weeks without her. Within that time, I had already created a few connections and had formed my own opinion of BHCC and of some of the people within it. Meghan is the face of the Community Engagement Office, it is here from her creation and she birthed it three years ago. What I have concluded in regards to this office is a lack of structure, a lack of connections/partnerships, and a true misunderstanding of what this office is and does. So during the *VISTA/supervisor meeting, Meghan revealed a number of her barriers and ideas, and how these items have affected the progress of the office. Although I see the potential in Serving Our Communities, I would much rather focus on planning, foundation building and organizing the office, so that it is able to productively provide its services and resources as naturally as possible for students, faculty, staff and community partners.
I imagined that this conversation would move us to the next stage of planning, but it simply cracked the door, as I don’t feel that a significant move towards sharing responsibility was made. As a result, I have decided that I must begin to self initiate, make changes when I see that they are necessary, do a little cleaning up around the edges, noticed or not. As for Serving Our Communities, I have a jolly group of students, all of them spread pretty far across the Boston and North of Boston area… we’ll see how it works out. For now, I plan to develop two stylistic forms of the program. One will be for a curriculum based course, the other for a student run organization. In these fashions, SOC will likely work best. I have a lot more that I must update the world on, but for now, I’ll organize my thoughts and share them another time. To all the world there is a responsibility and that is to leave this place better than you encountered it. Thanks for tuning in.
A@ron C
During our *VISTA/Supervisor gathering at Amherst College, my supervisor Meghan, and I were able to finally make a long overdue connection. At the beginning of my post, she had several obligations, so I went two and a half weeks without her. Within that time, I had already created a few connections and had formed my own opinion of BHCC and of some of the people within it. Meghan is the face of the Community Engagement Office, it is here from her creation and she birthed it three years ago. What I have concluded in regards to this office is a lack of structure, a lack of connections/partnerships, and a true misunderstanding of what this office is and does. So during the *VISTA/supervisor meeting, Meghan revealed a number of her barriers and ideas, and how these items have affected the progress of the office. Although I see the potential in Serving Our Communities, I would much rather focus on planning, foundation building and organizing the office, so that it is able to productively provide its services and resources as naturally as possible for students, faculty, staff and community partners.
I imagined that this conversation would move us to the next stage of planning, but it simply cracked the door, as I don’t feel that a significant move towards sharing responsibility was made. As a result, I have decided that I must begin to self initiate, make changes when I see that they are necessary, do a little cleaning up around the edges, noticed or not. As for Serving Our Communities, I have a jolly group of students, all of them spread pretty far across the Boston and North of Boston area… we’ll see how it works out. For now, I plan to develop two stylistic forms of the program. One will be for a curriculum based course, the other for a student run organization. In these fashions, SOC will likely work best. I have a lot more that I must update the world on, but for now, I’ll organize my thoughts and share them another time. To all the world there is a responsibility and that is to leave this place better than you encountered it. Thanks for tuning in.
A@ron C
Monday, September 6, 2010
THE TOUGH STUFF ON COMMUNITY RESEARCH: Exploring MassArt's Relationship to Mission Hill
I recently ventured out into Mission Hill to clinch a better lay of the land in preparation for the asset-based community research I will conduct to explore how MassArt students, faculty, and staff make a difference in their closest neighborhoods. I was walking down Tremont Street near the Mission Church, sporting my MassArt t-shirt, when a local resident stopped me clear in my tracks and made a vivid comment that will change the entire course of my research for the entire year.
Colleges and universities across America work tirelessly to assess the neighborhoods they live/work within, and, more than ever, spearhead civic engagement and service-based learning initiatives to help university and community live in accord. But a grandiose paradox cannot be overlooked; while providing educational opportunities and public services for a community, institutions often times forget that massive expansion of its urban campuses gravely upsets its closest neighbors. Another, what seems to be a non-heeded concern, is the vast growth of student populations void of adequate dorm space to house them. This debauchery forces students to seek off-campus housing in Section 8 dominated neighborhoods, which yields escalated rents for everyone, even the locals. And let us not even mention the trash and disrespect produced by America’s best and brightest students. I am not speaking of these issues to be negative, but this realm is the tough stuff on community research that we all succumb to, and more specifically, I will need to cull as part of my neighborhood analysis efforts.
My experience with that local gentleman oriented a host of new questions that MassArt wants answered. In addition to providing meaning for the college’s role in Mission Hill, now campus leaders want to know how does the community perceive the college, and how can the campus community make strides for better relationships and partnerships. The task seems daunting, albeit imperative to understanding how MassArt’s public art programs, civic engagement, and service-based curricula cut against the grain of civic and social responsibility.
MassArt, while naturally flawed at times, truly takes its role in Mission Hill seriously; that’s why I am here – to research and analyze the level of HOW serious the nation’s first art school collaborates. New Student Orientation begins tomorrow and 400-plus students will pile into various parts of Mission Hill and lower Roxbury to explore the neighborhoods that MassArt hopes will provide a collaborative and healthy synergy between locals and artists. Moreover, the Center for Art and Community Partnerships has an impressive amount of public art programs and partnerships ready to go for the fall semester.
In addition to New Student Orientation duties, I began meeting with MassArt leaders to lay the groundwork for my research efforts. By the end of September I will be on the streets interviewing community leaders, distributing asset surveys, and engaging MassArt (and local high school) students to help analyze the data. The research may yield partnerships and collaborations not strongly cultivated by MassArt, and so I welcome and otherwise encourage the art community to help decide exactly how the campus community can further nurture these local organizations. I am also thinking broadly about how my research will be published and disseminated.
One last thing: Many people asked about the galleries at MassArt; yes, most exhibits in our galleries are free and open to the public (with exception to opening nights). More information can be found here: http://www.massart.edu/Galleries.html.
Until next time, continue to inspire without boundaries and make a difference in the communities you live!
Peace, love, and happiness to everyone,
Jeff~
MACC AmeriCorps*VISTA serving Massachusetts College of Art and Design
Jeffrey.Robinson@massart.edu
“That school destroyed my neighborhood,” he voiced.I came to an arrant halt over this statement because his outcry brought the issue of stewardship of place right to my feet. After he left, I stood on the sidewalk and simply reflected on MassArt’s perception among locals and how the community *really* thinks about the college.
Colleges and universities across America work tirelessly to assess the neighborhoods they live/work within, and, more than ever, spearhead civic engagement and service-based learning initiatives to help university and community live in accord. But a grandiose paradox cannot be overlooked; while providing educational opportunities and public services for a community, institutions often times forget that massive expansion of its urban campuses gravely upsets its closest neighbors. Another, what seems to be a non-heeded concern, is the vast growth of student populations void of adequate dorm space to house them. This debauchery forces students to seek off-campus housing in Section 8 dominated neighborhoods, which yields escalated rents for everyone, even the locals. And let us not even mention the trash and disrespect produced by America’s best and brightest students. I am not speaking of these issues to be negative, but this realm is the tough stuff on community research that we all succumb to, and more specifically, I will need to cull as part of my neighborhood analysis efforts.
My experience with that local gentleman oriented a host of new questions that MassArt wants answered. In addition to providing meaning for the college’s role in Mission Hill, now campus leaders want to know how does the community perceive the college, and how can the campus community make strides for better relationships and partnerships. The task seems daunting, albeit imperative to understanding how MassArt’s public art programs, civic engagement, and service-based curricula cut against the grain of civic and social responsibility.
MassArt, while naturally flawed at times, truly takes its role in Mission Hill seriously; that’s why I am here – to research and analyze the level of HOW serious the nation’s first art school collaborates. New Student Orientation begins tomorrow and 400-plus students will pile into various parts of Mission Hill and lower Roxbury to explore the neighborhoods that MassArt hopes will provide a collaborative and healthy synergy between locals and artists. Moreover, the Center for Art and Community Partnerships has an impressive amount of public art programs and partnerships ready to go for the fall semester.
In addition to New Student Orientation duties, I began meeting with MassArt leaders to lay the groundwork for my research efforts. By the end of September I will be on the streets interviewing community leaders, distributing asset surveys, and engaging MassArt (and local high school) students to help analyze the data. The research may yield partnerships and collaborations not strongly cultivated by MassArt, and so I welcome and otherwise encourage the art community to help decide exactly how the campus community can further nurture these local organizations. I am also thinking broadly about how my research will be published and disseminated.
One last thing: Many people asked about the galleries at MassArt; yes, most exhibits in our galleries are free and open to the public (with exception to opening nights). More information can be found here: http://www.massart.edu/Galleries.html.
Until next time, continue to inspire without boundaries and make a difference in the communities you live!
Peace, love, and happiness to everyone,
Jeff~
MACC AmeriCorps*VISTA serving Massachusetts College of Art and Design
Jeffrey.Robinson@massart.edu
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Adaptation
In the first few weeks of settling in at Bunker Hill Community College, I thought for sure that a mistake had been made. Generally, my over-optimistic, cheerful attitude and perspective are appreciated and in addition to that, I often find others that share the same excitement and energy. Here, it just seemed… different. I spent all summer thinking of ideas, strategies and resources to make the work plan that I envisioned, successful and inspiring. I had ideas to really engage students and faculty members into the works of community organizing. I wanted to provide an opportunity for students at Community Colleges to really take on the meaning of “community” and come together with members of their neighborhoods to challenge social issues and stigmas. But, my optimism has been slightly doused. There are politics within the seams of every institution. There are barriers, the do’s and don’ts, and all of them have a way of sapping your vision of its color… Turning it from bright blues and yellows to dark browns and grays… With that, comes the real challenge, and in this case it’s the ability to adapt.
“The art of life is a constant readjustment to our surroundings” Kakuzo Okakauro. Adapting and transitioning to this foreign environment has in fact, been the challenge of my first month as an AmeriCorps*VISTA at Bunker Hill Community College. In North Carolina, I had created a haven, a place of safety. Here in Boston, I’m new and I’m learning more about the area and more about myself. What has been extremely helpful during this month of orientation to my new life in Boston is the support I’ve received from my fellow VISTAs. I have never met such a wonderful group of encouraging and intelligent people, all of whom are willing to lend a listening ear and advice whenever I need it. With their support, I feel I now have more pieces to the puzzle of my work plan configured. In the next month, I’ll be implementing the structure for Serving Our Communities, a six week “Common Interest Community" that includes, orientation to, exploration of, and service to one of the many cities of Boston. This program is in its pilot stage, and has a lot of barriers and possibly unrealistic expectations. Having no real example to lead by, I’ve struggled to create the structure of such a tedious program in a place as transitory as a Community College. I’ve been given great ideas from other VISTAs and I’m equally anxious and excited about putting them to use.
I’ll be blogging about this challenge and my adjustment to life outside of North Carolina… I hope you’ll stick around to see what a year of internal and external growth brings to fruition for this Bunker Hill Community College VISTA!
Warmly,
A@ron
“The art of life is a constant readjustment to our surroundings” Kakuzo Okakauro. Adapting and transitioning to this foreign environment has in fact, been the challenge of my first month as an AmeriCorps*VISTA at Bunker Hill Community College. In North Carolina, I had created a haven, a place of safety. Here in Boston, I’m new and I’m learning more about the area and more about myself. What has been extremely helpful during this month of orientation to my new life in Boston is the support I’ve received from my fellow VISTAs. I have never met such a wonderful group of encouraging and intelligent people, all of whom are willing to lend a listening ear and advice whenever I need it. With their support, I feel I now have more pieces to the puzzle of my work plan configured. In the next month, I’ll be implementing the structure for Serving Our Communities, a six week “Common Interest Community" that includes, orientation to, exploration of, and service to one of the many cities of Boston. This program is in its pilot stage, and has a lot of barriers and possibly unrealistic expectations. Having no real example to lead by, I’ve struggled to create the structure of such a tedious program in a place as transitory as a Community College. I’ve been given great ideas from other VISTAs and I’m equally anxious and excited about putting them to use.
I’ll be blogging about this challenge and my adjustment to life outside of North Carolina… I hope you’ll stick around to see what a year of internal and external growth brings to fruition for this Bunker Hill Community College VISTA!
Warmly,
A@ron
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
UMASS Boston on the road to engaging their students in the community
It has yet to be a full month since I started my placement at UMASS Boston. However, I can say that it has been one of the most interesting experiences of my life. I have been blessed with a very welcoming group of individuals to make sure I get acclimated to the campus.
I have been working in the Office of Student Leadership and Community Engagement at UMASS Boston. This department thrives off of working to every individual's strengths, rather than focus on improving the weaknesses. This view fuels greater productivity amongst a team. The few students that I have met thus far have an enormous amount of passion and creativity towards their missions and I think that the motto of this office has contributed a great deal towards their enthusiasm.
This year I will be working greatly with the students of UMASS. The ultimate goal is to get the students more engaged in working with the community. The students would be volunteering and creating programs for the benefit of creating a more unified community where they feel connected to the individuals and families they live with.
Currently, I am planning a Volunteer Fair to make the students aware of the various opportunities there are to get involved in the community. I hope to have a large variety of community based organizations attending it in order to gain the interests of the diverse population of students.
From what I have seen, the VISTAs before myself contributed a great deal towards this goal. I have some big shoes to fill and I look forward to working with the students and the community organizations this year as well as building on and improving all of our strengths.
Please feel free to contact me. My email is debra.harris@umb.edu.
One love,
Debra Harris-MACC Americorps*VISTA at UMASS Boston
I have been working in the Office of Student Leadership and Community Engagement at UMASS Boston. This department thrives off of working to every individual's strengths, rather than focus on improving the weaknesses. This view fuels greater productivity amongst a team. The few students that I have met thus far have an enormous amount of passion and creativity towards their missions and I think that the motto of this office has contributed a great deal towards their enthusiasm.
This year I will be working greatly with the students of UMASS. The ultimate goal is to get the students more engaged in working with the community. The students would be volunteering and creating programs for the benefit of creating a more unified community where they feel connected to the individuals and families they live with.
Currently, I am planning a Volunteer Fair to make the students aware of the various opportunities there are to get involved in the community. I hope to have a large variety of community based organizations attending it in order to gain the interests of the diverse population of students.
From what I have seen, the VISTAs before myself contributed a great deal towards this goal. I have some big shoes to fill and I look forward to working with the students and the community organizations this year as well as building on and improving all of our strengths.
Please feel free to contact me. My email is debra.harris@umb.edu.
One love,
Debra Harris-MACC Americorps*VISTA at UMASS Boston
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