Spotlight on Members

The Stony Brook University College of Business Provides an Ethical Foundation for Future Business Leaders

The College of Business (COB), in collaboration with the Career Center, has initiated a new program called the College of Business Leadership Community Service Program.

“This initiative is to allow students to apply their academic studies in business ethics to community service,” said Margot Palermo, a professor at the COB who helped put the program together. “The main objective of the COB Leadership Community Service Program is to promote social responsibility, accountability, and the value of work experience among COB students in the Honors Ethics Business Program, and to contribute to the community.”

The affiliation between the Career Center and the COB allows two integral departments to lay a foundation for students and faculty to reach across departments and build cooperative projects. “The Career Center has not only organized the eight contributing nonprofit organizations [and] made contact with them, but [they have] also created the receptivity for the COB students to establish a win-win relationship with these organizations in the community for the upcoming fall semester,” said Palermo.

Students in the Honors Ethics Business Program (BUS 447) are partnered with one of eight Long Island nonprofit organizations. “Students will be matched in groups of four or five with an organization. Each organization has its own partnership proposal detailing the work that the students and nonprofit will do together over a course of a semester,” said Palermo.

One team, for example, will work with the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Suffolk County; they will engage in grant research and develop a professional networking event with local businesses in the area. Another group will team up with The Nassau-Suffolk Coalition for the Homeless as it endeavors to change its name to Long Island Coalition for the Homeless. Students will assist by developing a new logo, designing a Web site, and developing a marketing plan to raise awareness about the new name.

Approximately 35 students have been chosen for the program, all seniors with a minimum 3.5 GPA. Along with BUS 447, students will take Writing 301, which will assist them in writing a thesis on ethical leadership. The thesis allows students to do research in an area of specialization: management, accounting, finance, or marketing. This will provide a real-world aspect to the students’ educational experience.

“The community service component is necessary to the application and practice of good ethical leadership,” said Palermo, elaborating on the vital connection between theory and practice. “Students will bring these values to the workplace when they graduate from our program, influencing corporate culture to support managers to make the right choices and lead with ethical integrity.”

Submitted by Urszula Zalewski, Career and Volunteer Programs Coordinator, Stony Brook University

Onondaga Community College’s “Operation Gratitude” Lifts Spirits of Service Members

Operation Gratitude only has one mission: to put a smile on the face of a service member.

In preparation for Veterans Day, Onondaga Community College is hosting its third Operation Gratitude event, a letter-writing campaign to reach out to men and women in the military.  Several English classes are participating in the project and other staff, faculty and students are participating at booths located in the lobbies of the Gordon Student Center and Mawhinney Hall.  The college supplies cardstock, stationery and pens for letter writing, as well as sample letters and guidelines from Operation Gratitude on what to write.  The booths are staffed by volunteers, coordinated by OCC’s Career and Applied Learning Center, and volunteers from the campus’s Veterans Club.   To date, the college has sent over 300 letters to Operation Gratitude and will continue hosting letter-writing campaigns on a monthly basis throughout the year.

Operation Gratitude is a non-profit organization dedicated to lifting troop morale and supporting members of America’s armed forces. The group believes in showing thanks by writing letters of appreciation to deployed military personnel.  “It’s an initiative that is sweeping organizations, colleges and companies across the nation,” says Gloria Heffernan, Service Learning and Volunteer Coordinator.   “Some troops receive mail on a regular basis. But what about the ones who aren’t getting letters from family or friends?  They need them the most.”

Letters accompany gift boxes organized and sent by Operation Gratitude’s national headquarters. These care packages include everyday food, hygiene and entertainment items that troops may not otherwise have access to. Products are supplied by a number of corporate donors.

But corporate donations don’t supply a personal touch. That’s where OCC comes in. The college first participated in Operation Gratitude during National Volunteer Week in April 2009. “We wanted to do something that would be meaningful to people, something that would really engage them,” Heffernan says. “We sent more than 120 letters in the first batch and nearly 50 people participated.”

A second session was held during the National Day of Service and Remembrance on Sept. 11. The program saw even greater success and generated an additional 140 letters from faculty, staff and students. Writing letters for Operation Gratitude is now a monthly event.

For more information on Operation Gratitude, visit http://www.operationgratitude.com.

Submitted by Gloria Heffernan, Service Learning and Volunteer Coordinator, Onondaga Community College, Syracuse, NY.

SUNY Fredonia Hosts Annual Operation: Breakfast Rescue

SUNY Fredonia's Volunteer and Community Service Department will host its third Operation: Breakfast Rescue, an annual breakfast-food item donation drive that benefits the Chautauqua Country Rural Ministry (CCRM), a United Way, grassroots advocacy agency that meets the needs of the homeless, working poor and disenfranchised in Chautauqua County.

Operation: Breakfast Rescue is lead by Joyce Harvard Smith, Coordinator of Volunteer and Community Services, with assistance from Martha Diaz, the campus' NYCC VISTA member. It is co-sponsored by the Student Association as well.

"I feel it's important to be able to give back and assist those in need. We continue this program because it has proven to be very successful," said Smith, who confirmed that 208 pounds of food were collected last year. Among the items were oatmeal, Cream of Wheat, a variety of cold cereals, pancake mixes, breakfast bars, and canned fruit.

"I'm very excited about the event because it's an opportunity for the students and campus community to improve the quality of life for residents in Chautauqua County by providing them with breakfast food that would have been hard to come by (due to their financial situations)," Diaz added.

The efforts of the campus are clearly appreciated by CCRM, an organization which assists thousands of families each year with a variety of needs.

"Last year's drive addressed an unmet need in our community," said Kathleen Peterson, executive director of Chautauqua County Rural Ministry. I, along with those we serve, deeply appreciate the efforts of the Volunteer and Community Services Department in helping us to help those less fortunate."

The Volunteer and Community Services program helps college students get real-world experience while helping others in a service learning environment. The program aims to involve students within the community and illustrates to them how to work together as a team and learn from one another.

Submitted by Joyce Harvard Smith, Coordinator Volunteer and Community Services

Binghamton Area Network Advances Service-Learning

 Binghamton University, a major regional research university, Broome Community College, a large two-year institution, and Davis College, a small, faith-based college, have formed a unique network to respond to community needs in the Southern Tier of New York.   From the beginning of grant funding all three institutions were committed to the development and expansion of service-learning efforts on their campuses and cross-institutional collaboration in the development of the grant.

The goals of the Regional Network Grant were to establish a service –learning collaboration  between distinctly-different  higher education partners, increase faculty participation  incorporating service-learning into their courses, increase the number of college students in service-learning projects and address the needs  of at-risk community agencies in the Southern Tier.  The network was funded by the NYCC/PACC Consortium project, “Building on Our Strengths,” from a Learn and Serve America/CNCS grant.

The foundation of the grant was to build on a core group of nine experienced service-learning faculty who served as mentors to newer faculty. The kick-off event was a day long workshop guided by Dr. Marie Watkins, Director of the Center for Service-Learning at Nazareth College.   In order to sustain efforts, a second Campus Compact grant enabled additional workshops to faculty who wanted to learn how to integrate service-learning into their courses.  Each institution served as a site for a workshop, and experienced faculty presented at each workshop and served as mentors.   One example of a service-learning course developed included “The HIV/AIDS Epidemic” working with the Southern Tier AIDS Program to design and deliver an HIV awareness and education program. A second example is a “Computer Maintenance” course. Students refurbished and maintained an eight-station computer lab working with the George F. Johnson Dream Center after-school program for youth in the Johnson City School District.

The grants increased the awareness and benefits of service-learning in academic courses. The number of faculty integrating service-learning increased from nine to thirty faculty.

 Submitted by Maria Carra, Service –Learning Associate, Binghamton University

Stony Brook University and Island Harvest Bring Food and School Supplies to Long Island Students

In honor of opening weekend at Stony Brook University, 400 incoming freshman from the Undergraduate College of Leadership and Service hosted Island Harvest, Long Island’s largest hunger relief organization, on Saturday, August 29, 2009. There, the undergraduates prepared nonperishable food packages for Island Harvest’s Weekend Backpack Program, which provides supplemental food to public school students who rely on free or reduced lunch programs during the week, but may not have enough to eat over the weekend.

While both groups have worked together in the past, this event generated the largest amount of Stony Brook student volunteers for a single Island Harvest operation. In addition to packaging food for students in need across Long Island, Stony Brook University also collected much-needed school supplies for children in recognition of the back-to-school season. Both initiatives highlight Stony Brook University’s efforts to give back to the community through leadership, outreach, and experiential learning.

Island Harvest delivered unsorted nonperishable food and snack items to the Stony Brook Campus where students assembled packages for the Weekend Backpack Program. The operation took place during Orientation Day. Island Harvest staff members were on hand to assist students with loading the completed food bags into trucks, and provided them with information on how to volunteer with the organization.

The collaboration with Island Harvest and its Weekend Backpack Program was conceptualized by members of the Career Center (Marianna Savoca, Director; Urszula Zalewski, Career and Volunteer Programs Coordinator; Taryn Kutujian, AmeriCorps VISTA Programs Coordinator), and the Undergraduate College of Leadership and Service (Manuel London, Faculty Director; Jonathan Ragone, Quad Director, Melissa Mastrogiovanni and Tamica Shilletto, Residence Hall Directors). On Island Harvest’s end, the principal facilitator of the partnership with Stony Brook University is Joan Flynn, Volunteer and Community Service Manager and Migdalia Otero, Vice President of Programs and Operations.


About Island Harvest

Fighting hunger and touching lives, Island Harvest serves as the bridge between those who have surplus food and those who need it, supplying hundreds of community-based nonprofit organizations on Long Island with critical food support to help stem the advancing tide of hunger in our communities.  Island Harvest has delivered 57 million pounds of food, supplementing more than 44 million meals, since its inception in 1992.  In support of its mission to end hunger and reduce food waste on Long Island, the organization is actively involved in educational and hunger awareness programs to inform the public about the insidious but often unrecognized problem of hunger here, in one of the wealthiest regions of the country, and how individuals, businesses, schools and commercial food establishments can make a difference.  Island Harvest is a member of Feeding America (formerly America’s Second Harvest).  For more information about Island Harvest, visit www.islandharvest.org, call 516-294-8528 or contact Migdalia Otero at migdalia@islandharvest.org or Joan Flynn at joan@islandharvest.org.

Submitted by:  Urszula Zalewski, Career & Volunteer Programs Coordinator

 Purchase College-SUNY Is “Focused” on Impacting Youth

When one thinks of Westchester County, images of easy living as those described in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” may come to mind.  Many people living outside of the county may be unaware that it is home for many residents living at or below the Federal poverty guidelines.  Purchase College-SUNY is very aware of the poverty that exists in Westchester County and has made it their goal through Project Focus to help underserved youth attain the skills necessary to improve academically and attend college.  

Mission of Project Focus

Project Focus is a service-oriented program that is dedicated to providing academic, leadership and life skills to underserved K-12 students.  Its mission is to prepare underserved youth academically and socially to help them achieve their goals-one of which is the pursuit of a higher education. Founded at Purchase College through the support of New York Campus Compact and AmeriCorps VISTA programs, Project Focus trains its college interns and volunteers to provide academic support and to facilitate workshops on everything from public speaking to fiscal management.

Community Partnerships, Vital to our Mission

Project Focus seeks to accomplish its mission by developing strong community partnerships with local elementary, middle and high schools throughout both Westchester County and New York City (NYC).  Project Focus currently has partnerships with two elementary schools, three middle schools, six high schools and two community centers.

Understanding the importance of reaching youth early Project Focus has partnered up with the Big Brothers Big Sisters program in Port Chester, NY and “PS 247 the New York City College Partnership School,” located in Brooklyn, NY.  PS 247 the New York City College Partnership School, is the first public school of its kind in NYC to focus solely on encouraging and preparing its students to go to college as part of their education; Purchase College, SUNY is proud to be one of their first college partners. 
Project Focus also recognizes the importance of reaching youth before they enter adulthood.  By partnering with schools like Central Park East Middle School, located in Harlem, NY, student interns and volunteers are able to teach students what it means to be a leader through art related workshops.  Project Focus also partners with six Westchester high schools covering Port Chester, Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, Peekskill, Greenburgh, including a partnership with various high schools through “Yonkers Partners in Education (YPIE).”  YPIE is a not for profit 501(c) (3) organization created as a means to renew the education system in the city of Yonkers.  Through collaboration with the Board of Education, YPIE seeks to develop creative programs to help improve academic achievement and secure funding from private sectors.  Project Focus is a proud partner of YPIE and looks forward to helping them further their goals this fall 2009 . 
In addition to serving in the public school system, Project Focus has partnered up with local community centers.  Project Focus serves at the Don Bosco Community Center and the Carver Center in Port Chester, NY, both located within 15 minutes of the Purchase College campus.   
Focused on Change, One Intern at a Time

Project Focus, established approximately 3 years ago, has grown leaps and bounds over the course of its mission.  Over the past semester, the number of intern participants involved in Project Focus grew 260%, beginning with 10 interns in fall 2008, and ending the year at 36 interns in spring 2009.  Interns and volunteers have shown their dedication to the youth they serve, from attending weekly planning meetings to prepare for the next workshop or the actual time they have committed to facilitating lessons.  Numbers do not lie and collectively they put in a total 2,853 hours toward impacting youth this past spring 2009. 
Project Focus is honored by the success it has seen over the years and hopes to continue to have an impact in both the local community and on the Purchase College campus.  As Project Focus continues to grow in community partners and college interns and volunteers, it strives to produce the same growth in the lives of the youth it serves.  

Submitted by Rebecca Marshall, VISTA Member at Purchase College  

Wagner and St. John’s coordinate, collaborate with Staten Island nonprofits VIA “HEASI”

On Staten Island, Campus Compact members Wagner College and St. John's University educate thousands of students who are bright, eager and motivated by youthful idealism (and graduation requirements) to engage with the community.
           
Hundreds of not-for-profits on Staten Island do meaty, substantive work in the arts, health care, senior services, addressing poverty and other areas.
           
Their passion for what they do is the kind of stuff that can inspire a twenty-something in search of a purpose in life — and in these economic times, the organizations are sorely in need of extra manpower.
           
Recently, during a meeting of the Higher Education Alliance of Staten Island (HEASI), gears were set in motion to formally connect the island's colleges and nonprofits. 
           
"This is the first step we're taking to broadcast as an organization what we can do for you," said Dr. Cass Freedland, director of the Center for Leadership and Service at Wagner College, during a presentation at St.John's Kelleher Center on Staten Island, which was attended by college representatives and dozens of not-for-profits.
           
"This came in response to the economic crisis, where organizations are suffering," said Sharon Lynch Norton, vice provost for St. John's Staten Island campus. "We're blessed with resources of students and we can help fill the gap.
           
"The recession has been a catalyst for coming together."
           
Both colleges do community outreach, and students frequently fan out into the community as part of class curricula. They tutor in schools, work in health care and the arts and learn skills as they volunteer on the business side of not-for-profits, making Web sites and analyzing surveys.
           
HEASI formed several years ago. The group's work to unite college students in the borough of Staten Island already has taken shape in such projects as a series of on-campus political forums held last fall during the presidential election campaign.
           
"I think a lot of folks have great ideas for working with college students but didn't know how to implement them and get in touch with the colleges. Now there will be a structure," said Vincent Lenza of the Staten Island Not-For-Profit Association, who attended the session.
           
Among ideas circulated were a college not-for-profit fair where groups would set up tables and talk about their work. Another idea was for setting up easy ways for groups to e-mail point people at the colleges with projects and proposals.

The notion that college students could lend a hand to local nonprofits came as a sweet relief to Carol Dunn of the Staten Island Interagency Council for the Aging, who was forced to eliminate her two 10-hour-a-week staff positions last year and has been run ragged trying to keep up with the workload ever since.

"There are so many things they [college students] could do to help me out, and I'd introduce them to the world," she said, ticking off her need for everything from data analysis to outreach to senior groups. "They would learn a lot about having a purpose in life. That keeps people functioning. Without a purpose people lose their way."

Submitted by Lee Manchester, Director of Media Relations

SUNY Med Students Spearhead New Scholarship to Honor Community Outreach /Global Health Director Susan B. Stearns

In a wonderful display of “playing it back,” the College of Medicine Alumni Foundation at Upstate Medical University in Syracuse has created an endowment fund for the Susan B. Stearns, Ph.D., “Scholarship for Community Engagement.”  Initiated by three 2009 graduates and a faculty member at Upstate, the scholarship will be awarded annually to a student in Upstate’s College of Medicine. The scholarship honors student advisor Dr. Susan Stearns, founder and director of the university’s Office of Community Outreach and Global Health Education and associate professor of cell and developmental biology at Upstate.

The scholarship was initiated by Sarah Greenberg, Danielle Yerdon and Elizabeth Dawson, 2009 graduates of Upstate’s College of Medicine; and George Blakeslee, clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at Upstate.

“The scholarship will recognize one student annually who demonstrates Dr. Stearns’ dedication to community advocacy and engagement,” said Vincent Kuss, the Foundation’s executive director. “Dr. Stearns has involved Upstate students in numerous volunteer initiatives that have enhanced their academic experience at Upstate as well as the quality of life for Central New Yorkers. This scholarship recognizes her for her dedication and commitment to the students and to the people of Central New York.”

Stearns founded Upstate’s Office of Community Outreach and Global Health Education in 2008 to create a coordinated space for students to form initiatives, create projects and find opportunities to engage with the community. That same year and largely through her efforts, Upstate was named to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll to recognize the university for its community services activities undertaken by its students.

For more information about the endowed scholarship fund, visit http://www.upstate.edu/publicaffairs/public_media/?id=1364.htm or contact Vincent Kuss at
315-464-4361.

Submitted by Doretta Royer, Hospital/Media Relations Manager

Hobart and William Smith Colleges- Alternative Spring Break

During this past semester’s week-long spring break, six HWS students decided that instead of breaking out their bathing suits, they would roll up their sleeves. For eight days in March, seniors Christina Kinnevey  and Cathleen Zupan, junior Samuel Georgian, and first-years Lauren Schwarzenberg, Alyse DiCenzo and Joseph Yanaitis, drove to St. Louis, Missouri, to join more than 100 other students from around the U.S. in the City Lights Program. Sponsored and run by the National Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, the group assisted in various service projects from tutoring to environmental clean up.

"The poverty, stories of violence, corruption and desperation that existed in St. Louis was like nothing I have ever heard or seen in any other city in the States," said Kinnevey. "This project provided me with a greater awareness of the need that exists within our own borders and what it means to really go out and help people."

City Lights is a not-for-profit organization aimed at drawing college students toward a lifetime of service and justice. By tapping into their education and career experiences, volunteers are expected to work through the framework of the Gospel in the homes and neighborhoods of urban St. Louis, and then continue this service in the myriad of places they return to when they leave. Additionally, in cooperation with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, the program hosts a series of training programs in urban leadership and biblical discipleship for college students.

For the HWS group, projects included tutoring, cleaning out a stream, helping widows with tasks in their homes, spraying for mold in houses that were affected by recent floods, construction work, and working with refugees displaced from all over the world.

Recalling a particularly enlightening encounter with a Nepali refugee, Georgian says, "This man loved his life, and loved God, and his compassion was overwhelming. His first thoughts are to enjoy life, praise God, and help those around him," he continued. "Headed back to New York, my prayer was simple. That we could all learn to be a little more like him - happy and generous with what we have in life."

This City Lights trip is one of many Alternative Spring Break opportunities for HWS students to travel off campus, do service work together, and reflect more deeply on themselves and societal issues.

"I went in expecting to be challenged and that expectation was more than exceeded," concluded Kinnevey. "I was inspired and I returned with a new energy - I am excited to be able to dedicate myself fully to service in my AmeriCorps job next year."

Submitted by Cynthia L. McVey, Communications Writer

The Consumer Bankruptcy Law Project at Colgate University

Debra’s Debt
Debt can ripple out from the traumas of life—domestic violence, illness, death of a loved one, or the loss of a job.  For low-income individuals, the ripples can quickly become waves pushed by the momentum of high interest rates and higher balances.  As debt accrues, it breeds its own misery, inundating the individual with phone calls, threatening letters, and a host of new stresses.

This proved true for Debra Crane.*  Debra, a cancer survivor living in central New York with her teenage daughter, lost her job as a data entry clerk shortly after separating from her husband of more than 15 years.  Faced with medical costs, no income, and no medical insurance, her debt quickly accumulated.  She found a part-time job that helped mitigate the growing burden, but she quickly found her wages under threat of garnishment from her creditors.  Unable to find full-time employment in a weakened economy, Debra realized that a bankruptcy offered the only hope of surfacing from the sea of debt that she had accumulated during her time of crisis.

But obtaining legal services for a bankruptcy is difficult for many low-income individuals, especially since passage of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA) of 2005.  The act was adopted to reduce fraud but has had the effect of making the process more complicated and expensive. BAPCPA added eligibility requirements for debtors to file under Chapter 7 and added the possibility of financial sanctions against attorneys, who can be held personally liable for any inaccuracies in their clients’ filings. Many general-practice attorneys have stopped filing bankruptcies, others have raised their fees, and few are willing to take on cases pro bono.  The Utica office of Legal Aid Society of Mid-New York (LASMNY), for instance, saw a drop of their pool of attorneys who would handle cases pro bono from eleven to two.  While BAPCPA aimed to correct abuses within the bankruptcy system, it has hindered the ability of individuals like Debra to obtain a fresh start.

A Regional Response

The Legal Aid Society of Mid-New York and Colgate University’s Upstate Institute responded with a collaborative effort.  In 2008 they partnered to launch a pilot Consumer Bankruptcy Law Project, led by attorney Susan Conn, a former managing attorney at LASMNY and a Colgate alumna.  Now supported by a $45,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Herkimer and Oneida Counties, the project trains undergraduates from Colgate University to assist LASMNY with bankruptcy cases in order to help build a new pool of pro bono bankruptcy attorneys.  The project aims to assist individuals like Debra obtain a stronger financial footing, and also builds skills, knowledge, and insights among the participating students.

Student volunteers are chosen through a rigorous application process by Colgate’s Upstate Institute (http://upstate.colgate.edu/).  Accepted students complete more than twelve hours of intensive training conducted by Ms. Conn that includes working through hypothetical cases. Training includes the topics of bankruptcy law, legal ethics, and the consumer credit system, along with discussions about poverty issues and public benefits.  
While the students undergo training at the beginning of the fall semester, LASMNY staff screens potential clients.  To be eligible, individuals or families must be low-income (below 200% of the poverty guidelines) and facing substantial debt due to illness, actions of an abusive ex-spouse, death of a family member, or loss of a job.  Clients must be seeking a Chapter 7, or liquidation, bankruptcy; the protracted repayment plans of Chapter 13 cases are too cumbersome for the project’s scope. 

After qualifying for the program, a client completes a bankruptcy questionnaire about his or her financial situation.  In addition to the questionnaire, the client gives LASMNY copies of credit reports, bills, wage statements, and other documents necessary for the case.

Ms. Conn assigns a pair of students to work with her on each client’s case.  Ms. Conn, the students, and the client meet at the LASMNY office to review the bankruptcy questionnaire and other documents together.  The students then organize the client’s bills, tracing the path of the debt from original creditor to collection agency to court judgment.  Ms. Conn and the students compile a draft of the client’s debts, income, expenses, and property onto the corresponding bankruptcy forms.  These four or five forms constitute some of the most time-consuming aspects of a bankruptcy case.  In addition, the students draft a memo outlining the particulars of the client’s case. With this preliminary work done, a pro bono attorney completes the documents, files the appropriate forms, and represent the client in bankruptcy court. 

Regional Impact

The Colgate students’ work has enhanced LASMNY’s ability to recruit pro bono attorneys. Planning is underway for a conference in fall 2009 for prospective pro bono attorneys that will cover current bankruptcy law, provide continuing legal education credits, and build awareness of the program in order to recruit additional pro bono attorneys.

In all, 16 students have been trained, 20 clients have been accepted into the project, 12 cases have been referred to attorneys, and 4 cases are pending referral.  The project has saved each client an estimated $1,500 to $2,000 in legal fees and helped them address an average of $50,000 in debt.
Assessment of the project draws on all participants — Ms. Conn, the Colgate students, the pro bono attorneys, and the clients themselves.  For their part, the student volunteers report a deeper understanding of how credit and debt systems function or backfire and the place of these systems in the American economy.  Students have refined their career plans based on participation in the project.  While it naturally attracted a number of students predisposed to a career in law, some modified the type of law they wanted to practice.  A few saw bankruptcy as an area of law they had not previously considered, while one even acquired a position as a paralegal at a New York bankruptcy firm due in part to experience on the project.  For others, the project reaffirmed their interest in public interest law.

This partnership between the Legal Aid Society of Mid-New York and Colgate’s Upstate Institute is providing a direct benefit to low-income individuals in central New York while also educating students about the region, consumer debt, and basic bankruptcy law.  The Consumer Bankruptcy Law Project offers another model for engaging the intellectual resources of students at a small, private liberal arts college to benefit the lives of residents of the surrounding community.
*The individual’s name and details of her case have been altered to ensure confidentiality.

New Venture at Alfred University Honors Civically-Engaged Faculty Member/Mayor

During the 2008-2009 academic year Alfred University began an exciting, brand new service learning initiative on campus.  The Gary Horowitz Center for Service Learning was founded to honor the work of Dr. Gary Horowitz, a faculty member and administrator at AU for 28 years, who urged his students to be civically engaged through their academic pursuits.  Dr. Horowitz himself was very active in the community, serving as the mayor of Alfred, editor of the Alfred Sun newspaper, and working with many other community organizations. A major piece of this initiative is the Gary Horowitz Service Learning Experience.  The Horowitz Service Learning Experience is a living-learning environment for students who enroll in a 1-credit hour course during both the fall and spring semesters and work as a group to identify and complete a year-long service learning project.

During the inaugural year of the Horowitz Service Learning Experience our students were able to form partnerships with three organizations which provide programs and services for area at-risk youth.  These agencies were the Salvation Army of Hornell, NY, Literacy West New York Inc., and the Allegany County Youth Court.  The Alfred University students took on roles as tutors and mentors within these organizations and helped with fundraising efforts on campus as well.  In March our students held a 50-50 raffle to help raise funds for the Allegany County Youth Court in conjunction with a dodge ball tournament that the Youth Court organized with the help of some of our students.  The Horowitz Service Learning Experience students were able to raise a total of $200. $100 went to The Allegany County Youth Court and $100 went to the winner of the raffle, the Salvation Army of Hornell.  The students were able to complete over two hundred hours of service through the 2008-2009 academic year with the Gary Horowitz Service Learning Experience.  The students lived together in a residential community that offered time and flexible space for them to process their “experience” at home.  The Resident Assistant of the community was also a member of the Experience as well. 

The service learning initiative is also working to integrate service learning into course curriculum in order to make it part of the Alfred experience for students.  This initiative supported two courses which offered service learning components during the 2008-2009 academic year with five more in line for 2009-2010. In conjunction with course development, Alfred University held a service learning workshop in January led by Heather Sullivan Catlin, Associate Professor of Sociology and Service Learning Faculty Liaison at SUNY Potsdam, which was attended by 20 faculty and staff members and covered a wide range of topics concerning service learning. 

To wrap up our year, a lunch reception was held to recognize the achievements of our students and community partners.  A short documentary was developed to give students the chance to talk about their experiences and what they have taken from this experience.  During the event, a Community Forum was held, which engaged faculty members, staff, community partners, and the service learning students in discussions covering multiple topics related to service learning including partnership building, impacts and outcomes, reflection, civic engagement and reciprocity.  The Community Forum created great dialog and new ideas for Alfred University as the initiative moves forward with service learning and student civic engagement.  
  
Submitted by Ryan Arroyo, Service-Learning Coordinator/AmeriCorps VISTA Member

Oswego Students In the Schools

“Mentor Oswego” is a student-lead organization connecting college students with children and teenagers at eight different programs throughout the city of Oswego.  College student volunteers provide homework help and social activities, as well as model positive behaviors for the children, most of whom would not get their homework done otherwise or would be going home to an empty house.  For further information on this well-coordinated program, see

While any student can volunteer with Mentor Oswego, many choose this program when enrolled in GST302 Service Learning.  To earn an additional 1 credit for Mentor Oswego, students complete 20 hours of service at one site, attend three discussion sessions with other college student peers in the program, complete three reflection papers, and complete a personal journal.  Mentor Oswego students are expected to apply what they learn through class discussions at their sites and then reflect on those experiences afterward, making the experience not only beneficial for the service recipients but for the service providers as well.  “This experience has confirmed my decision to want to be a teacher.  I know I was there to help the kids, but I think they helped me as much as I helped them,” said one GST302 student.  Student growth in self-efficacy, independence and insight are among the many markers of program success.

One unique feature of the program is that once students complete one semester through Mentor Oswego they can serve as a Group Leader and direct students new to the program in their service activities.  Group Leaders have made it possible for the program to expand year by year. There are currently eight mentoring programs involved in Mentor Oswego, all led by student Group Leaders or paid student workers (past Group Leaders) who help coordinate the programs and ensure quality in program delivery. There were three Group Leaders each semester this past year; each student leader had previous service experience and enrolled in a 2-credit service-learning course as part of the requirements to be a Group Leader.  They learned how to facilitate reflection activities with the first-time volunteers they oversaw, explored their own leadership/communication styles and strengths, discussed the meaning of service and diversity for children and adolescents, and examined local, national, and global poverty issues.  Group Leaders also each completed 80 hours of service; they attended programs along with first-time student volunteers twice a week, helped give presentations to recruit volunteers, communicated as college-community partner liaison with community organizations on site, prepared activities for the children, and, of course, led discussions with the other student volunteers.  Group Leaders also helped to support activities in the campus Center for Service Learning and Community Service, speaking with peers, answering volunteers’ questions, recruiting new students, and working with community agencies as the program continued to expand. 

For the year, more than 100 students volunteered with Mentor Oswego; they provided over 3,000 hours of service and touched the lives of approximately 200 children and teenagers.  Many of the programs were run at schools in the Oswego City School District.  There is interest and need for student volunteers at other schools in the city, and plans are underway to expand to having a presence at all seven schools in the district by next year. 

Submitted by Alyssa Amyotte, Coordinator of Service Learning and Community Service

Cornell University- Multilingual Cornell Students Provide Critical Translation Services During Recent Tragedy in Binghamton

Tragedy struck the Central New York city of Binghamton April 3, 2009, when a gunman entered the American Civic Association (ACA) and began firing, leaving fourteen dead and four others critically injured. More than 40 people were held hostage that day. For most of them, English is not their first language. How does a community care for a population in distress, whose access to and understanding of the services available to them are limited by a language barrier?

Enter volunteers from Cornell’s Translator Interpreter Program (TIP). A student-led program operated through the university’s Public Service Center, TIP trains bilingual and multilingual students and staff to serve as volunteer translators/interpreters for community agencies in emergency and non-emergency situations. The language skills of TIP volunteers are tested and confirmed by Cornell language faculty members; they also receive training on confidentiality and other key issues. TIP currently provides translation in 56 languages to more than 300 community agencies in Tompkins County and surrounding areas.

The Binghamton City School District (BCSD) and the Broome County Bar Association contacted TIP shortly after the April 3 incident. Since then, TIP Translators have assisted with grief counseling, information sharing with extended family members, and legal consultation for the many immigrants and refugees who utilized the ACA. TIP Translators also interpreted counseling sessions for the more than 60 ESL teacher and students affected by the tragedy.

“The Cornell Public Service Center’s TIP Program was a life saver for the BCSD after the ACA tragedy,” said Trina Newton, the district’s assistant superintendent for curriculum, instruction and accountability. “Our students and teachers are settling into the ‘new normal.’

“Every university should have a TIP Program. It is invaluable,” Newton added. “We are forever indebted to the students and the TIP program.”

Niagara University- NUCAP

Niagara University’s president, the Rev. Joseph L. Levesque, C.M., has focused on community engagement since his inauguration in January of 2000. To advance this concern, he has worked with several campus-wide groups, including a committee on community revitalization. These efforts have built upon already-existing structures that have been in place since 1965. That year, the university established the Niagara University Community Action Program (NUCAP) to direct the involvement of Niagara's students in community-service projects.  In 1994, a grant from the Corporation for National Service enabled the university to expand community-service efforts by establishing the Learn and Serve Niagara program.

For many years, accounting students in NU’s College of Business Administration have provided free income-tax assistance to elderly and low-income residents of the community. Last year, NU’s Lambda Chi chapter of Beta Alpha Psi received the top award for preparing the most tax returns in the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program at the national organization's meeting in Anaheim, Calif. The award, presented annually by the Internal Revenue Service, was one of only eight awards given nationally. The presentation marked the second time Niagara University students have been recognized for their participation in the VITA program, having received two awards in 2006--one for the most tax returns prepared and another for the largest amount of money refunded to taxpayers in the local community. "The VITA award exemplifies Niagara University's commitment to community service in the spirit of St. Vincent de Paul," said Al Oddo, professor of accounting at Niagara. "Our students prepared more than 700 tax returns and provided over $500,000 in federal tax refunds to low-income and elderly taxpayers in our community." Beta Alpha Psi, founded in 1919, is an honorary organization for accounting, finance and information systems students and professionals. Its primary objective is to encourage and give recognition to scholastic and professional excellence in the financial information field. In the spring 2009 semester, Niagara University students prepared tax returns at two sites, Niagara University and at the Community Outreach Partnership Center office, which is located in a low income area of the city of Niagara Falls. NU students have been involved in the tax preparation program since 1992. The tax preparation is conducted during the spring semester of each academic year.

Submitted by: Marilynn Fleckenstein, Associate Vice President, Academic Affairs

University at Albany, SUNY, “Building on the Strengths of Student Leaders”

The Community and Public Service Program (CPSP) at the University at Albany, SUNY, is a university-wide initiative focused on connecting students from all majors to community service opportunities for credit.  During the 2008-09 academic year, 850 students served in some 300 organizations throughout the Capital Region, a 20% increase in student numbers from the previous year.  CPSP was established in 1970 and is administered by the School of Social Welfare.

New initiatives at the CPSP include service learning capacity-building with faculty, the first annual “Great Danes Give Back” day of service held in Spring 2009, co-sponsored with New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG), and the Refugee Conversation Partners Project.  With an emphasis on connecting the global and the local, CPSP, in collaboration with UAlbany’s Office of International Education, UAlbany’s Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Program, and the U.S. Committee on Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), will implement the Refugee Conversation Partners Project beginning Fall 2009.  This project will allow undergraduate students from across the university the opportunity to engage with refugee families in practical English language conversations through the CPSP’s Community Service course.

In Spring 2009, with support from the University at Albany Commission on Diversity and Affirmative Action Grant Program, the CPSP conducted the Campus Leaders Roundtable on Community Change.  One of the gaps in the CPSP has been the lack of student leadership, i.e. student leaders who are actively involved in determining the direction that the program is going.  Given that CPSP strives to focus its work on low-income communities of color, the need to engage students of color on campus seemed like an obvious next step.  Thus, the purpose of the Roundtable was to bring together and mobilize multi-cultural student leaders on campus and to identify gaps and priority areas in university-community engagement activities.  

The Roundtable was co-facilitated by Sharon Stevens, MSW, PhD student in Social Welfare and Nana Banful, SUNY-Albany ’10.  The Roundtable included students representing a diverse range of campus organizations whose constituencies included African, African American, Latino/a, and Caribbean students.  Findings from these groups point to several ways to enhance community engagement: 1) create opportunities to enhance student understanding of poverty issues in Albany; 2) offer programs that develop student leadership skills; 3) make global connections to local issues; and 4) increase knowledge and skills around community organizing and social justice issues.  Future plans include the development of a Community Organizing Institute that will enhance student leadership skills while building community resilience.

Submitted by: Loretta Pyles, Director, Community and Public Service Program and Assistant Professor, School of Social Welfare

Levermore Global Scholars Program (LGS) at Adelphi University

The Levermore Global Scholars Program (LGS) at Adelphi University fosters social leadership among its students by encouraging them to address specific community needs. Over the past couple of years, LGS scholars have been involved in over ten different initiatives including Community Computer Coverage and setting up an alternative spring break program in the Dominican Republic.

The Community Computer Coverage (CCC) was started by LGS junior Matthew Sanfilippo and LGS sophomore Asif Zaman, who organized a donation drive for old, unwanted computers. They refurbished the computers and established three computer labs in different educational centers located in underprivileged neighborhoods in order to teach computer literacy to youth and adults with low computer literacy skills.

One of the computer centers was set up for high school students who are interested in gaining computer skills. At this center, LGS junior Matthew Sanfilippo taught basic Microsoft Office skills and helped students write resumes and cover letters to assist them in obtaining jobs and internships. Matthew also worked with immigrant students from a local middle school and taught them basic HTML and web-design skills.

Two other LGS scholars, Asif Zaman and Nicole Rodriguez, set up a computer lab in a parents’ center of a local high school. With the help of the high school administrators, the scholars assembled a group of interested parents with low or non-existent computer skills and began computer literacy classes. Although some of the students have had experience with computers through their secretarial or clerical work, they were often not familiar with word-processing or spreadsheets.

Once the word about the class spread, the number of students in Asif and Nicole’s class grew from the initial twelve to twenty three students. Due to the large number of parents interested in Asif and Nicole’s class and the diverse level of computer literacy among the students, Asif and Nicole divided the group and set up two separate computer labs.

“This class aims not only at teaching computer skills but also showing how the older generation can learn from younger generation and vice versa,” said Asif. LGS scholars intend to continue teaching their classes throughout the summer and in the fall semester, tackling different challenges every day.

Also this past academic year, LGS collaborated with the Orphanage Outreach, Inc. to set up an alternative spring break program for LGS students in the Dominican Republic, which took place between March 14 and March 21. Nine Adelphi students participated in this service learning program and carried out tasks such as teaching English and basic hygiene to children ages 6-18 in local schools in Monte Cristi, Dominican Republic.

During the semester, students attended a one-credit seminar, “Dominican Republic Experience,” in order to contextualize and reflect upon their experiential learning abroad and become more familiar with the culture, history, and politics of the Dominican Republic. Students participated in a campus-wide donation drive for school supplies and games, non-perishable food items, and gently used clothes, which were then donated to children in the orphanage in Monte Cristi.

Once in the Dominican Republic, students underwent basic training to learn concepts related to teaching English and hygiene. Then, they teamed up with other university students and taught in various schools in Monte Cristi and nearby agricultural towns. Teaching four to five hours a day, students had time to meet with their group leaders to reflect on their experiences and plan for their next activities with the children. At the end of the week, students had an opportunity to see more of the country by traveling to Dajabon –a town bordering Haiti – in order to visit the Haitian market, which opens twice a week between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. This was a great opportunity to see the friendly relations between Haitian and Dominican citizens at the local level.

Upon returning to Adelphi University, students shared their experiences with the rest of the community by delivering multimedia presentations to students, faculty and administrators. For the program participants this alternative spring break was an eye-opening experience that allowed them to learn about another country while performing community service. 

Written by Yana Kusayeva, LGS Coordinator

For more information about the Levermore Global Scholars and the LGS spring break in the Dominican Republic please visit: www.adelphi.edu/levermorescholars

Service Meets History – Nazareth College Learns and Serves with Ganondagan State Historic Site

The Nazareth College Center for Service-Learning works hand-in-hand with Ganondagan State Historic Site to bridge the Rochester Native community with students and faculty at Nazareth, Monroe Community, and Saint John Fisher Colleges of Rochester, NY.  Nazareth’s partnership with Ganondagan began with a 2001 Ethnobotany service-learning course and has since expanded the number of service-learning courses that have resulted in course guides, in-class lectures, and, recently, the formation of the Native American Studies Interdisciplinary Service-Learning Initiative (NASISLI).

NASISLI provides an opportunity to introduce and advance service-learning and Native American studies content in community and academic settings.  This past spring, NASISLI fostered a collaboration of resources and expertise to engage over 100 students in creating lesson plans for 4th, 7th, and 11th grade level teachers to implement in their classes.  The service-learning courses generated through the efforts of NASISLI created socially and culturally appropriate and sensitive course material to advance the history, traditions, and beliefs of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) people.  The lesson plans were created in partnership with staff from Ganondagan who will disburse the lesson plans to teachers looking for useful guides in the classroom.

While the experience for many was rigorous and at time frustrating, the students that participated in the project took much meaning and knowledge from the project.  For some, the project was an opportunity to give back to their community.  Others received “a sense of fulfillment and encouragement, knowing… [they] did so well on something that mattered for more than just the grade on it.”  Still others valued the opportunity to work with new people and interact with a community who is frequently overlooked and marginalized in American society.

Throughout the spring semester, NASISLI organized several events held at Nazareth College that were funded through a Learn and Serve Pennsylvania/ New York Campus Compact grant.  These events included “Connecting Cultures: Native American Studies and Service-Learning” by South Dakota State University Diversity and Service-Learning Associate Valerian Three Irons (Mandan-Hidatsa) and Nazareth College senior Andrea Rosenburg.  Mr. Three Irons shared his perspective about the importance of cultural awareness and cultural appreciation.  Ms. Rosenburg discussed her three month service-learning experience with the Lakota Nation.

Mike Tarbell (Mohawk) from the Iroquois Indian Museum in Howe's Cave, New York presented in February on American Indians and Baseball in “Baseball's League of Nations: American Indians and Baseball.”  Mr. Tarbell enlivened his presentation with photos, videos, and stories from his own career as a semi-professional baseball player and his talk was based on the very popular exhibit at the museum entitled “Baseball's League of Nations,” which illuminates the experiences of Native Americans and America's National Pastime.

Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Colgate University, Michael Taylor (Seneca) spoke on “Native Americans, Sports Mascots and Logos, and the Public Gaze: Representations and Imagery of the Native American ‘Other’,” addressing the issue of using Native American names and images in team mascots.  In April, a “Dialogue, Dine, and Dance” was held at Nazareth College which brought together students, faculty and community members to eat traditional foods and share their experiences with service-learning while learning about and participating in traditional Iroquois dances.

Submitted by Andrea Rosenburg, a senior history and sociology major and student assistant at the Center for Service-Learning, and Dr. Marie L. Watkins, Associate Professor and Director, Center for Service-Learning Nazareth College

Rochester Institute of Technology Showcases “Everyone is a Student—Everyone is a Teacher”

The “Imagine Festival,” RIT’s campus-wide event, drew over 20,000 visitors in May.  Four RIT students showcased their service-learning efforts that are part of a Learning Community with youth from Rochester's northeast neighborhoods.  The Learning Community was formed to assure that the principles of "every one is a student - everyone is a teacher" were the foundation of this work. The students partnered with the youth to produce a publication reflecting the findings from a community health indicators assessment project, Bridges to Wellness/Puentes a la Salud. The youth provided original photography and written materials that feature community assets (strengths) from a youth perspective.  The final publication, called "Strengthening Community - One Block at a Time", was also featured at a grantee showcase sponsored by the Greater Rochester Health Foundation, the assessment project funder.  Other partners in the project include the Anthony L. Jordan Health Center and the North Street Community Center.

Michael Serra ('10) worked with Eulita (age 16) and Jordan (age 16) on their ideas to convert vacant lots into productive spaces such as community gardens and exercise and athletic fields.  Jordan also worked on a proposal to encourage community block parties and celebrations. Andrew Salmon ('10) partnered with Jose (age 16) and Devon (age 15) on a project that called for turning grafitti into community murals. Nikki (age 16) teamed up with Jonathan Winkle ('09) in a proposed "trash cans as art" concept. As part of the health assessment project, Eulita, Devon, and Jose led focus groups with other neighborhood youth to solicit their views on community assets. Choula Lee ('10) is helping to coordinate the focus groups. As the youth coordinator for the Bridges to Wellness/Puentes a la Salud project, Choula will continue with the project during the summer and the 2009/10 academic year.  A new Learning Community will be formed during the new academic year to support the next phase of the project.

Submitted by Ann Howard, Director of RIT Community Outreach Partnership Center and Professor, Science, Technology and Society/Public Policy

ESF and Upstate Partner to Benefit At-Risk Kids in Syracuse

This spring, two special-purpose institutions in SUNY established a unique partnership for service and service-learning in Syracuse.  The  SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF) partnered with SUNY Upstate Medical University (Upstate) to hold monthly after-school programming for children at the North Area Athletic and Education Center (NAAEC), an after-school center that provides educational programs to at-risk children of all ages. The center improves the lives of youth by providing services, such as computer workshops, art classes, boxing instruction, and GED classes. The NAAEC lost a considerable amount of its state funding in January 2009, resulting in the need to lay off employees and the inability to purchase new supplies.  A good planning effort by Elizabeth Mix and Andrea Leifer, VISTA members at each institution, allowed  ESF and Upstate to join forces to alleviate that loss of funding.
 
At nearly the same time, ESF and Upstate were awarded an MLK Day grant through the Campus Kitchens Project, a project that works to feed the hungry through promoting service in higher education.  The project began on Martin Luther King (MLK) Day, January 19, 2009.  Once a month through April, ESF volunteers planned environmental science-related activities while Upstate volunteers planned health and nutrition-related activities for the children who attend the center.  Together, Upstate and ESF planned healthy meals using environmentally-friendly products.  The meals were prepared and served by students in ESF’s honors writing course titled “Food and the Environment,” as part of the course’s service-learning component. 

Throughout the semester, this project engaged 76 student volunteers with upwards of 100 children from the Syracuse City School District.  For some of the children, the college volunteers were among the first college students they had ever met.  Multiple volunteers returned on their own throughout the semester to teach art and/or computer classes to the children.  The children and college volunteers alike looked forward to every visit.   

Through the partnership that ESF created with the NAAEC, a supplies drive was organized with the Corporate Volunteer Council of Central New York to collect much- needed supplies for the center.  Supplies such as paper, crayons, binders, as well as arts and crafts supplies were donated from many different corporate sponsors.  Overall, the project collected $650 worth of supplies that were delivered to the NAAEC on May 1, 2009. 

The partnerships between ESF, Upstate and the NAAEC have proved to be truly beneficial in meeting the needs of the Syracuse community.  While the project was only one semester long, the partnerships will be carried on well into the future.     

Written by Elizabeth Mix, VISTA Member at SUNY ESF    

Stony Brook University VISTA Program Brings “Causes” to Students

Stony Brook University has an extremely large population of students (over 23,000) and those that commute or are unable to travel off campus find it difficult to participate in service activities without suitable transportation. In an effort to engage more students in community service and make volunteering more accessible to the campus community, Taryn Kutujian, Stony Brook’s VISTA Coordinator, has enabled the creation ofa trinity of programs: Quads for Causes, Clubs for Causes, and Commuters for Causes. Through these programs, students have the opportunity to engage in direct outreach and experiential learning by fostering awareness about a poverty-related issue that students collectively decide to support.

Quads for Causes was officially launched during the spring 2009 semester with Whitman College, a residence hall within Roth Quad at Stony Brook University. Through “The Whitman Giving Project,” students worked closely with Nassau-Suffolk Coalition for the Homeless and its Executive Director, Greta Guarton, in an effort to raise awareness about homelessness on Long Island. The residential staff in Whitman College and Ms. Kutujian created unique and innovative programming for its 200 students that both highlighted the stereotypes of the homeless individual and challenged students to immerse themselves in the homeless perspective. Thought-provoking presentations were given by Ms. Guarton and her associate, Iris, a formerly homeless person and a current student enrolled in higher education at the Pondering Poverty event. Students have also collected toiletries and clothing to donate to the homeless, and are in the process of holding a campus-wide auction, the proceeds of which will go towards purchasing in-kind donations. The program has been so successful that three other quads on campus are currently planning programming for the fall 2009 semester with Ms. Kutujian. Altogether, the quads will be focusing on Global Education, Hunger, and Homelessness, with many other awareness topics to come.

The first organization on campus that will be participating in Clubs for Causes is Alpha Epsilon Delta, the International Health Pre-Professional Honor Society (AED). With over forty active members and a tremendously outstanding reputation on campus, AED has chosen to focus on cancer awareness and outreach, particularly concerning children. Ms. Kutujian’s facilitation of other campus programs has encouraged a partnership between AED and the Make A Wish Foundation, which will work together to serve the needs of children afflicted with cancer, and raise awareness about the variety of needs this population requires. AED members will be talking to others on campus about the importance of cancer funding and research, creating campus-wide events with representatives from Make A Wish Foundation. In turn, these events have expanded awareness and availability of opportunities to engage in direct outreach that will enable the foundation to grant as many “wishes” as possible for Long Island community members.

Commuters for Causes is a program that will address the needs of those students who do not live on campus and have access to transportation to community sites  These students will be able to permeate more communities and spread the message of community service beyond the confines of the University. Ms. Kutujian is currently in talks with Shannon Kelly from Commuter Student Services to address the needs of commuter students and to decide on an area of interest. Those involved with Commuters for Causes may also work with the other facets of the program to provide transportation to those who cannot provide it for themselves, thereby creating more of a presence in underserved communities where Stony Brook students are needed most.

The primary goal of Quads for Causes, Clubs for Causes, and Commuters for Causes is to inspire students to engage in community service and service-learning activities regardless of the time and season. We always see a huge amount of support and encouragement from Stony Brook residents with respect to monetary and in-kind donations, but it was clear that there was a need to have a sustainable program for individuals to belong to beyond the holiday season. By pairing residents with a nonprofit organization of their choosing, it enables them to truly embrace the multi-faceted issue of poverty, and see how it affects those who endure it throughout the entire year. Greater attention will also be paid to the promotion and expansion of service-learning activities on campus, particularly since all three facets of the program are heavily based on direct outreach.

Written by: Taryn Kutujian, AmeriCorps VISTA Coordinator, Stony Brook University

Stony Brook University’s VISTA program is housed in the Career Center, and is facilitated by Urszula Zalewski, Career and Volunteer Programs Coordinator.

Wagner Makes New Connections with Service-Learning Program

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Stuffing envelopes instills many qualities: humility, patience, tough fingers, and a pasty tongue. It is not, however, known for expanding the intellect. That’s what college is supposed to do.

And there’s the rub. It has been a persistent tension since the 1990s, when service learning became de rigueur on college campuses. At its most basic, service learning moves volunteer work from campus clubs into the classroom. How that actually plays out varies widely from place to place. Many colleges scatter students across dozens or even hundreds of community groups. Even within a single service-learning course, students might be working with a half-dozen different agencies.

The movement has gained new energy with the election of President Obama, who has made increasing service a central plank of his higher-education agenda. But across the board, colleges and universities struggle with service learning’s twin goals of providing meaningful help to the community and academic rigor to students.
  
The challenge is to focus not only on the quantity of volunteers but also on the quality of the work they are doing. At Wagner College, on Staten Island, the provost dreamed up an idea to do just that.
  
The approach, dubbed Civic Innovations, connects entire academic departments with single agencies on the island. That setup enables the college to draw up a financing proposal for a soup kitchen rather than just serve meals. And faculty members and their partner agencies develop syllabi for courses together — ensuring a clear connection between the soup line and the sociology tome on poverty.
  
"That is a really powerful combination,” says Julie Plaut, head of national academic initiatives for Campus Compact, the largest nonprofit group promoting service learning. The arrangement is also a model that the Corporation for National and Community Service supports.
  
So far, six academic departments at Wagner are participating in the program, and the college intends to bring on more over the next few years. At the same time, college leaders plan to concentrate their efforts in one neighborhood, Port Richmond, in an attempt to noticeably improve the quality of life on the island’s north shore.
  
Richard Guarasci, the college’s president, hopes that federal grant money will support the expansion — but says Wagner will bankroll the whole project if need be. “It’s up to higher-education leaders,” he says, “to make sure this is a core part of what we do and isn’t just an additive or fad.”

PERSISTENT LINK
  
Many fads came and went in the 1980s. But the idea of linking service and learning never went away.
  
The concept was kick-started in 1985, when several college presidents decided to counter the popular image of college students as disaffected, materialistic, and self-absorbed. That year the presidents of Brown, Georgetown, and Stanford Universities started Campus Compact to promote — and publicize — volunteer work on campuses.
   
The nonprofit group embraced the service-learning model, and by 2003 its membership had grown to include a quarter of all colleges in the United States. Students were logging millions of hours each year. But around that time, leaders in the field began to ask, “Service to what end?”
   
Robert Hackett, one of those leaders and vice president of the Bonner Foundation, says colleges began to take a closer look not only at learning outcomes but also at whether students’ volunteer work was actually making a difference in their communities. On both counts, he says, many colleges were falling short.
  
That is something even colleges on the leading edge of service learning still worry about. California State University at Fresno was recently honored by the national service corporation at the American Council on Education’s national meeting in Washington. The university sends more than 10,000 students into the community each year, and its president has set a goal of logging a million service hours annually by 2011. But sheer numbers aren’t enough, says Chris Fiorentino, director of Fresno’s Jan and Bud Richter Center for Community Engagement and Service-Learning.
  
As at Wagner, the university plans to start directing those volunteers to one particular neighborhood, in West Fresno, to maximize their impact. It is a move more colleges need to consider, Mr. Fiorentino says.
  
"One of the risks is that a lot of schools think, ‘Oh, well, we’re just going to do something,’” he says. “My fear is that people rush into this stuff, as they see donations and press, and that they don’t really think about, ‘What are the needs in the community?’”

TEAMWORK
  
At Wagner, Civic Innovations was a collaborative effort from the beginning.
 
"Agencies keep telling us in higher education, over and over, ‘We don’t know if any students are coming to us next semester. We don’t know the ability of the students,’” says Devorah Lieberman, the provost. Plenty of Wagner students were volunteering, she says, but the college needed a more coherent approach to service learning.
  
In 2005, early in the development process, Ms. Lieberman shared her idea with the leaders of United Activities Unlimited Inc., a Staten Island agency that provides educational, recreational, and social programs for residents. Kim McLaughlin, director of the In-School Youth program at United Activities, and Ms. Lieberman decided to apply for a three-year, $600,000 grant from the national service corporation’s Learn and Serve America program.
  
When a technical glitch erased much of the application, they stayed up all night to finish it. Ms. McLaughlin would type furiously for a few hours, while Ms. Lieberman slept. Then the two would switch.
  
Once Wagner got the grant, in 2006, getting Civic Innovations up and running was a bit of a rush job, too. “I was called in a few weeks before classes started,” says Patricia Tooker, an assistant professor of nursing. Administrators thought the three courses she taught were best positioned to try out the new service-learning approach. Ms. Tooker was game.
  
Now students in her freshman course mentor children on health and nutrition in schools that have formed partnerships with United Activities. Juniors work with school nurses to research and tackle systemic health problems, like childhood obesity and asthma. And seniors serve as health educators, developing lessons and working directly with kids. “School nurses are doing mostly triage,” Ms. Tooker says. “They don’t really have the opportunity to be creative.”
  
As at most colleges, the nursing curriculum at Wagner is packed, and at first many students grumble about the extra time commitment, Ms. Tooker says. But most come to see the value. “I had a student who saw a kid whose teeth were rotting, and the student talked to the kid about the importance of brushing his teeth, and he’d never heard about brushing teeth before,” she says. Moments like that, Ms. Tooker says, make for better lives, and for better nurses.
  
“If you care about what’s going on in health care,” she says, “you’ve got to get them out there in the community.”

OUTSIDE THE COMFORT ZONE
  
Wagner’s approach is rooted in place.
  
From its perch atop Grymes Hill on Staten Island, the college has an expansive view of New York Harbor. The campus’s previous occupant, a wealthy shipping magnate, built his manse on the spot so he could literally watch his ships come in. Other titans of industry, the Vanderbilts among them, also once called the hill home.
  
At the base of the hill today is an active but impoverished Liberian community. For years, few Wagner students ever made it down there.
  
Erica Vasaturo was downright frightened when she learned she’d be volunteering in the neighborhood, called Park Hill after the onetime housing projects of the same name. “I was scared, because I’m from Staten Island,” she says. “You hear stories and they’re like, ‘Oh, God, don’t go in there. You’re gonna die.’”
  
What Ms. Vasaturo found in Park Hill, however, was a passion for teaching.
  
She had transferred from Sacred Heart University, in Connecticut, in her junior year, unsure of what career she wanted to pursue. “I’m a history major, and people kept asking me, ‘What are you gonna do, teach?’ And I was like, ‘No, there’s a lot of other things you can do.’”
  
Last spring, when she and two classmates first arrived at the neighborhood’s Fox Hills Tutoring Center, they were confronted by chaos. The children, Ms. Vasaturo discovered, were eager to learn. They just needed more structure. To provide it, she and her classmates decided to have the students work on family-history projects — interviewing family members, writing their stories, and even creating poetry.
  
The Wagner students realized how little they knew about life beyond their own homes. “A lot of kids at Wagner are really privileged,” Ms. Vasaturo says. “We’re kind of sheltered.”
  
For her, the contrast was particularly stark. The students she tutored attended elementary school at Public School 57, where fewer than half the students meet state standards for English and, in most grades, do only marginally better in math. The vast majority of the kids are poor enough to qualify for free or reduced lunches. The public schools Ms. Vasaturo had attended on the south side of the island “might as well be private.”
  
She hopes to spend her career remedying such inequities and plans to teach on the island after she graduates.
  
Time in Park Hill has altered Lori R. Weintrob’s career path, too. Ms. Weintrob, chair of the history department, trained at the University of California at Los Angeles as a historian of French civic culture.
  
But increasingly, she is interested in the history of Staten Island. A lot has been written about the ferry, Ms. Weintrob says, but not nearly as much about the people and the civic life of the place itself. She thinks her next book will be on the topic. In the meantime, she is living out an area of academic interest for her: intellectuals in civic life.

LIKE ANY MARRIAGE
  
At Wagner, faculty members and community groups meet several times before each semester begins to hammer out the syllabus. Not everything has gone smoothly, of course.
  
This year, for example, the sociology and anthropology department teamed up to work with a branch of New York’s Retired & Senior Volunteer Program, or RSVP, on the island. Faculty members wanted the organization to think big — dreaming up a survey or research project that could take it to the next level. The small agency felt a little overwhelmed by all the attention at first.
  
"It’s like any marriage,” says Julia Barchitta, dean of learning communities and experiential learning. “We have to find our comfort levels together.”
  
The college hired Cassia Freedland to help facilitate those conversations. As director of the college’s Center for Leadership and Service, she is also the go-to person for questions that are less academic. Can you send a few extra volunteers to this one-day event? Could Wagner students help round up 30 turkeys for Thanksgiving dinner? Is there temporary storage space available on the campus? It is all the little stuff that relationships are built on.
  
Over the next few years, Mr. Guarasci, the president, hopes that Wagner can strengthen its relationship with one neighborhood in particular. Port Richmond has a growing Hispanic immigrant community, and by concentrating its service in one area, Wagner hopes to reduce the poverty that has grown up in the neighborhood as well. “The next big challenge for us,” he says, “is to ask the question, ‘Are we really changing the coefficients of poverty in these communities?’”

Written by  Elyse Ashburn, The Chronicle of Higher Education    February 27, 2009 — Volume 55, Issue 25, Page A25

Hobart and William Smith Colleges: “Geneva City Council Makes History”

On March 11, the Geneva (NY) City Council made history when they held their regular monthly meeting on the Hobart and William Smith campus. At the top of the evening's agenda were briefs from several HWS students who spent the fall semester working within the Geneva community to explore a variety of local issues.  For a description of their service-learning projects which benefited the Geneva community, go to http://hws.edu/dailyupdate/NewsDetails.aspx?aid=11687.

"These students have invested a piece of themselves in Geneva," said Geneva Mayor Stu Einstein during the meeting. "This is a big deal to us, and I hope that having a City Council meeting on campus shows how seriously we're taking their projects."

Einstein spoke about the beneficial relationship between the City and HWS. He presented President Mark D. Gearan with the City's flag. Gearan spoke briefly about how our past and futures are intertwined. Katie Flowers, Associate Director of the Center for Community Engagement and Service Learning, spoke about how these projects are incredible collaborations because students, community partners and faculty come together to improve the place in which we all live, study and work.

The following students presented their fall semester research:

Sarah Holland '09 - worked with Geneva Mayor Stu Einstein to map out all of the public and private green spaces in Geneva. She determined that access to green space in Geneva is not linked to socio-economic status, but she did find some areas where the City could be utilizing the green spaces better.  Holland worked on her project with Associate Professor of Environmental Science Tom Drennen.

Casey Marshall ’09 - worked with Assistant Professor of Psychology Julie Kingery and Jane Gerling from Success for Geneva's Children on the Kindergarten Literacy Initiative Project. Marshall, Kingery and Gerling spoke with the children and their parents on the first day of school to determine how certain factors (socio-economic status, whether the parents read to the children, whether the parents read for pleasure, whether they frequently visit the library) impact literacy. Their research will be used by the Geneva Reads initiative. Also, Marshall has continued pursuing this work as an honors project. She'll interview the students again at the end of their school year to see how or if they have progressed.

Kayla Shoemaker '10 - worked with Associate Professor of Architecture Stan Mathews to compare Geneva to Travis City, Michigan. The two are similar in some key ways, but Travis City has a thriving downtown area and booming tourism. She wrote a report with several recommendations of initiatives Geneva could undertake to bolster its own downtown area.

Austin Kana '09 -- worked with City officials to create a comprehensive energy efficiency audit for all of the Geneva City government and the Geneva School District buildings. Kana's interest in energy audits began last summer during an internship in the Boston-area with the Environmental Protection Agency. He also encouraged the city to hire an engineer to discover why the Public Safety building uses so much more energy than comparable facilities.  Kana worked with Associate Professor of Environmental Science Tom Drennen on his project.

Sophomores Samantha Tripoli, Stephanie Soybel, Emily Dingley and Amanda Slack- worked with Janelle Toner in the Recreation Department to determine alternate uses for the ice rink. They recommended hosting trade shows and a food and wine expo in there. The group worked with Professor of Sociology Jack Harris.

Susan Kridler ‘11- worked with the City Planning Office to look at ways Geneva could be more bike-friendly.  She relied on research previously done in Ithaca, and in the end recommended that Geneva was already a very bike-friendly city, although if the city plans to remodel Routes 5 and 20, they might consider adding a bike lane. Associate Professor of Environmental Science Tom Drennen assisted with this project.

"These are living, breathing projects and the conversations that they spark continue long after the semester is over," said Flowers. "I believe that students learn better when they're actively involved in their learning, and the community is also elevated by their work. As these projects continue, semester after semester, we will begin to make huge strides forward and see the impact of student work in the community."

Chancellor Cantor delivers address to University community, announces new Chancellor's Leadership Projects

On Thursday, March 19, Syracuse University Chancellor and President Nancy Cantor delivered her yearly address to the University community. In her address, titled "Remaking America: Universities as Anchor Institutions-the Syracuse Example," Chancellor Cantor reflected on President Obama's call to action for universities to use their intellectual capital to reform our schools, cleanse our natural environment, bridge the toxic schisms in our social environment, and mobilize our talented youth in "Remaking America," and described SU's engagement in these pressing issues in the City of Syracuse and across the world.
Chancellor Cantor also announced that she has directed $2 million in external funding SU recently received toward 19 Chancellor's Leadership Projects. The projects exemplify the University's vision of Scholarship in Action and bring together faculty, students and experts from various disciplines to address critical societal issues affecting the Central New York community and the larger world.

To view the 19 Chancellor's Leadership Projects please visit: http://sunews.syr.edu/chancellorrelease.cfm

Source: http://sunews.syr.edu/story_details.cfm?id=5842

SUNY Fredonia “Engaging In Our Community”

SUNY Fredonia will continue its workshop series which teaches students and the campus as a whole about the importance of community involvement.  Volunteer and Community Services enables students to obtain real-world experience while helping others.  The program aims to involve students with the community to work together as a team and learn from one another.  The “Engaging Our Community” series identifies and builds college and community partnerships, enhances cultural and economic connections, and fosters civic responsibility.  Service learning allows students to contribute to the community while gaining firsthand experience related to their coursework. Go to www.nycc.cornell.edu for further details on community engagement at Fredonia.

On Tuesday, April 21 at 2 p.m., the Office of Volunteer and Community Services will host “Engaging in Our Community: Learning through Service” in room S104 of the Williams Center.  The event is free and open to the public.

The program, which will feature a panel of faculty and staff members representing various campus areas, is designed to recognize the accomplishments and progress of students, faculty and community partners in service learning, while raising awareness about future volunteer opportunities as well.  According to the Office of Volunteer and Community Services, during the current academic year, Fredonia students have per­formed over 9,550 hours of community service thus far, ranging from volunteering at local soup kitchens, raking leaves throughout the community; tutoring and mentoring children, running campus donation drives, and participating in fundraisers such as the Aids Walk, Out of Darkness Walk, Sing for a Cure, Operation Breakfast Rescue and many more.

Featured panelists will include faculty members Michael Jabot and Helen Reddy from the School of Education, Rebecca Conti from Department of Mathematical Sciences, Emily VanDette from the Department of English, Kim Weborg-Benson from the Department of Geosciences, and Anand Perala, who serves as the campus’ Americorps VISTA (Volunteers In Service To America) volunteer through the Office of Campus Life.  The panel will be moderated by David Rankin from the Department of Political Science, and the event is being chaired by Joyce Harvard Smith, coordinator of the Office of Volunteer and Community Services.
For more information on the many good deeds happening on and off campus through the efforts of SUNY Fredonia volunteers, visit www.fredonia.edu/campuslife/volunteer/newsletter.pdf.

City College Faculty Fellowships for Service-Learning

Each year, the Colin Powell Center awards five to ten fellowships of $2,000 each to faculty members who choose to integrate service learning into one or more of their courses. Service projects are designed to enrich the academic content and maintain academic rigor. The Center’s faculty fellowship program was established in 2005 with a $200,000 grant.  Since then, the Center has awarded 25 faculty fellowships.

Along with financial support, fellows complete a one semester workshop training program developed by Powell Center staff, and thereafter receive one-to-one technical assistance. The workshops enable faculty fellows to incorporate service elements seamlessly into existing course work. Additionally, faculty fellows can obtain an additional $1,000 to cover related course expenses, and, if they repeat the course in its new service learning format, another $750 to pay for a student course assistant. Student course assistants also take the service learning course, and have been enthusiastic advocates of the approach.
“The Powell Center’s Faculty Fellowship program is the cornerstone of the Center’s service-learning work on campus,” says former Powell Center Deputy Director Andrew Rich. Professor Rich was an early advocate of service learning at the Powell Center, after participating in a similar program at Wake Forest University. “By putting students into community service placements to work on real problems, you bring your course material to life.”

Catherine Franklin, assistant professor of education, wholeheartedly agrees. She teaches Inquiry in Education, which requires 15 hours of field experience. This past semester, she adapted the course so students could fulfill their fieldwork obligation through service. Some students tutored elementary-school students at the East Harlem Tutorial Program. Others assisted in the Discovery Room at the American Museum of Natural History. In all cases, service placements invigorated the students’ educational experience.

“These students have been able to move from simply observing to actually interacting with children and their environment,” Professor Franklin says, “Now when we talk about what to do with a resistant student, their responses are much more grounded and reflective of their experiences. They’re noticing much more about what’s going on in the environment, and they’re invested in the outcome. These students are truly getting a taste of what it’s like to be a teacher, and some of them haven’t even declared a major yet.”

Experiences like Dr. Franklin’s help spread the word on campus about how valuable service learning can be. “A culture of acceptance for service and civic engagement has really grown at CCNY,” says Powell Center Deputy Director Nora Heaphy. The Center’s efforts are part of a larger movement across hundreds of campuses nationwide to ground education more deeply in an ethic of service. But CCNY program is unique in attempting to develop service learning (which often requires a fair amount of time and support) on a public, urban campus. In such settings, the program may be more difficult to pull together, given the demands on student time and resources. Still, its benefits to CCNY’s students and the college’s long standing social mission, service learning is an utterly appropriate approach to education. Over the past few years at CCNY, it’s being built one faculty fellow at a time.

Catherine Franklin, assistant professor of education, wholeheartedly agrees. She teaches Inquiry in Education, which requires 15 hours of field experience. This past semester, she adapted the course so students could fulfill their fieldwork obligation through service. Some students tutored elementary-school students at the East Harlem Tutorial Program. Others assisted in the Discovery Room at the American Museum of Natural History. In all cases, service placements invigorated the students’ educational experience.

“These students have been able to move from simply observing to actually interacting with children and their environment,” Professor Franklin says, “Now when we talk about what to do with a resistant student, their responses are much more grounded and reflective of their experiences. They’re noticing much more about what’s going on in the environment, and they’re invested in the outcome. These students are truly getting a taste of what it’s like to be a teacher, and some of them haven’t even declared a major yet.”

Experiences like Dr. Franklin’s help spread the word on campus about how valuable service learning can be. “A culture of acceptance for service and civic engagement has really grown at CCNY,” says Powell Center Deputy Director Nora Heaphy. The Center’s efforts are part of a larger movement across hundreds of campuses nationwide to ground education more deeply in an ethic of service. But CCNY program is unique in attempting to develop service learning (which often requires a fair amount of time and support) on a public, urban campus. In such settings, the program may be more difficult to pull together, given the demands on student time and resources. Still, its benefits to CCNY’s students and the college’s long standing social mission, service learning is an utterly appropriate approach to education. Over the past few years at CCNY, it’s being built one faculty fellow at a time.

Geneseo Student’s Oral Hygiene Project in Nicaragua

Allison Kornblatt ’10 won a $1,000 grant to develop and implement a dental hygiene program for adults and children in El Sauce, Nicaragua.  She leaves May 16 to spend six weeks in Central America to teach the program in schools and in rural communities and is planning the project so pre-dental and other students can continue the work on campus or in El Sauce. 

Before SUNY-Geneseo Junior Allison Kornblatt leaves for summer break, she will pack her bags with a whole bunch of toothpaste and posters and put the finishing touches on a friendly little cartoon character.

She's not sure what he or she looks like yet, but knows it will make it fun for kids to learn about proper brushing technique and the importance of oral hygiene. The character will also speak Spanish; she's taking it with her to Central America.

The cartoon will become the mascot for Kornblatt's award-winning service-learning project, Smiles for El Sauce. The Spanish and pre-dental program major recently received a $1,000 Carter Academic Service Entrepreneur award from New York Campus Compact to buy supplies so she can implement a long-term campaign in El Sauce, Nicaragua. NYCC is an association of college and university presidents from 78 campuses statewide who are dedicated to promoting active citizenship in education. Only four students across New York were chosen for the award. An independent panel of reviewers chose the winning proposals and Kornblatt's "was their top pick," said Jim Heffernan, NYCC executive director, based at Cornell University. The College's strong partnership with the El Sauce community and the opportunity for learning for Kornblatt really set it apart, he said.

Geneseo alumnus Kellan Morgan ‘06 has run the growing program in El Sauce for two and a half years, working closely with community leaders and members on health, tourism and economic development projects. Kornblatt will spend six weeks working with Morgan, El Sauce dentist Dr. Denis Garcia Roque and laying the groundwork for Smiles for El Sauce. She leaves May 18. She will also enlist the help of the students in Geneseo's New York School of English class there. They know the culture and what kids will relate to, says Kornblatt, so they will name the mascot. The naming winner receives a Spanish-English dictionary.

"I'm really excited," said Kornblatt. The project combines her passion to pursue a career in health care and of helping others. "I want to volunteer my time, not just in my own community but to help other communities," she said. Thinking globally and having skills such as speaking a second language and international experience is "almost a necessity," said Kornblatt, especially now that our view of community is expanding.

In El Sauce, Kornblatt will visit schools and remote health outposts, teaching young children and their parents the basics of good dental hygiene. She is designing educational posters, laminated cards kids can take home and educational coloring books. Her brother, Michael Kornblatt, is a first-year dental student at the University of California at San Francisco and will also volunteer this summer. She  also created a glossary of dental terms in English and Spanish with a phonetic key for her successors.
Kornblatt's goal is to continue Smiles for El Sauce for years to come. Members of the campus pre-dental club and other students can participate on campus or as volunteers in El Sauce. She is also designing methods to evaluate the program's success.

She will get some help from David Browne, of New Jersey, who is visiting El Sauce next week and bringing a donation of dental and medical supplies with him. Browne found Geneseo's "On Scene" blog about the service-learning program online and was inspired to visit. He is also taking the tours Geneseo has helped the El Sauce residents create. The need for dental education in El Sauce is great. Roque performs an average of 20 tooth extractions daily, says Morgan, because he doesn't have resources to fill cavities or perform root canals. Roque believes it is more effective to focus on preventive dental care and instill good habits in children so they can avoid problems later. "I think that this is a very worthwhile campaign because it could have a real lasting impact on the community," said Morgan.

Such an experience will distinguish Kornblatt and other Geneseo students from other job seekers, said Rose McEwen, associate professor and chair of foreign languages. "It is ... perhaps the only opportunity in a student's lifetime to be able to creatively implement a project of their own design," she said, "that will markedly strengthen their employment opportunities, allow them to immerse themselves in a different culture and make a dramatic difference in the lives of our fellow human beings."