Campus Compact » Program Models Service By Issue – Diversity

An across-the-campus initiative on “”Building an Intercultural Community”"

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An across-the-campus initiative designed to promote “”interculturalism,”" which the university defines as: a process of learning and exchange across cultures in which no one culture dominates. Faculty participation in the initiative include: 1) Curriculum Development Workshops on how to change departmental curricula to reflect ethnic diversity; 2) Teaching Workshops to develop techniques for teaching in a diverse classroom; 3) Special Faculty Appointments and Minority Fellowship Awards; 4) Course Development Grants to strengthen the University s American Cultures program.

Students experience the initiative through an Intercultural Certificate program which begins with Freshman Orientation, continues with an Intercultural Retreat weekend, and culminates in a year-long academic course combining fieldwork with conceptual training in building racially harmonious communities.

University Staff may participate in the initiative through an Intercultural Awareness workshop designed to gain an understanding of some of the culture-based issues students face, followed by an Intercultural Strategies Workshop designed to take action with respect to issues involving race or ethnicity on our campus.

High school conflict resolution: Students Talk About Race (STAR) and an American Social Values course

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Students who enroll in a course on American Social Values at Glendale Community College take their learning from college and translate it into learning in local high schools. Students receive training as facilitators in conflict resolution as part of the course. Those who complete training are placed in area schools by a local program called Students Talk About Race (STAR), which formed in response to the Los Angeles riots of 1992. The college students facilitate dialogue among high school students on the subjects of race, ethnicity, and gangs.

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

Trinity College Community Child Center

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Parents in Hartford, Connecticut, who are looking for day care services for their children can find them on the campus of Trinity College. The Trinity College Community Child Center is a nonprofit day care center open to faculty, staff, and students and to parents in the surrounding community. Operated out of the college s Life Sciences building and a Trinity dormitory, it is staffed largely by work-study students. The center emphasizes diversity in its clientele and offers scholarships to parents who cannot afford the fee. By opening campus space to serve community residents, Trinity blurs the distinction between college and community, highlighting instead that the campus is an integral and active part of the community.

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

Contact: Ann St. Laurant, Director, 860-297-5291 or via email at ann.stlaurant {at} trincoll(.)edu
web page: http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/ocir/program/neighborhood_revitalization.htm

COMMUNICATING COMMON GROUND

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This project sponsored by the South Poverty Law Center, the National Communication Association, Campus Compact, and the American Association for Higher Education, teams faculty and college-level communication students with elementary and secondary students to implement programs that foster respect for diversity and combat prejudice in communities across America. GC&SU recently received provisional partnership in this program and Communication faculty are working with the Service Learning Coordinator to design a community-specific program to advance multicultural education, appreciation of diversity, and a community environment in which hate, hate speech, and hate crimes are not tolerated.

Contact: Teresa Taylor at (478) 445-5772 or ttaylor {at} gcsu(.)edu

Promoting Communication about Diversity

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Students from SIUC and Carbondale Community HS videotaped a discussion about diversity with state senator Emil Jones as part of a service-learning program. They will plan a community discussion on racial and ethnic divesity and produce a video tape to be used in 15 community dialogues throughout Illinois.

Contact: diversity {at} siuc(.)edu

“”Mentoring in the City”" volunteer program and the Junior High Peace Conference

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Mentoring in the City is a volunteer program at Marian College, where college students mentor high school and junior high youth in the center city. Through service projects and fun activities, the youth develop relationships that impact both mentor and prot

Center for Community Economic Development

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In diverse cities, community development is best achieved when partners representing that diversity are able to work together. In Boston, the University of Massachusetts Center for Community Economic Development provides support to a broad network of multi-ethnic, multi-racial, community-based organizations reflecting the diversity of populations in the area. These groups meet to jointly address issues of economic development with the help of three university task forces that outline the Center s work in the areas of business development, employment and training, and neighborhood revitalization.

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

Web site: http://www.umass.edu/larp/CED/

Contact: John Mullin, Center Direct, jmullin {at} larp.umass(.)edu

Hate Crime and Intolerance Program and Panel

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Fitchburg State College has taken the community lead on issues of race, diversity, and hate crime during the past calendar year. In spring 1999, we sponsored a Hate Crime Panel featuring former Nazi Skinhead, Frank Meeink. Other members of the panel included members of the Governor s Council on Hate Crime, representatives of the city and campus police forces and the campus counseling services. Over 300 participants from the college and community attended.

We followed that panel with a day devoted to racism and diversity on October 4, 1999. Featured speakers were Dr. Bertice Berry (Fox TV), Robert Lewis Jr. (City Year in Boston), community leaders, faculty, and students. A discussion of feelings, questions, and solutions followed. This panel preceded the beginning of a Study Circles Program in the city.

This March, various departments and offices sponsored the speaking engagement of Judy Shepard, mother of slain gay student Mathew Shepard. An overflow audience of town and college individuals attended.

In summation the campus has developed a promising practice that has gone beyond the boundaries of the college, into the community to make the issue of hate crime and intolerance one that can be openly discussed. The Boston Globe has agreed to assist us in locating more speakers for future programs.

Website: http://raven.fsc.edu/studentaff/index.html

“”Navajo of the Southwest”" course: students use art in ways that enrich the community and increase understanding

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Throughout the year, students are provided with opportunities to utilize their talents in ways that enrich the community as well as increase their understanding of what the community has to offer. Imagination, creativity, and vision in the civic arena are all nurtured through a variety of programs integrated into the curriculum through service learning, as well as through co-curricular programs. Faculty members interest in service learning has increased greatly over the past few years, and participation in communityARTworks during Orientation stimulates that interest both for faculty and students. Service learning has been utilized in a range of disciplines.

This past semester, a course, called “”Navajo of the Southwest,”" was jointly developed by a professor of Anthropology and the Associate Dean of Students. Students studied the art and culture of the Navajo, as well as the history and the current social, political and economic issues. As a part of the curriculum, the class traveled to New Mexico for an Alternative Spring Break, working with Navajo children on the reservation to create a collaborative mural. Before leaving for New Mexico, students also learned about issues of diversity and culture while engaged in service, basic group process theory, and tools for successful collaboration. Over seventy students applied for the fifteen spaces available in this class, which was an overwhelming success. Through relationships developed with Navajo while in New Mexico, students became aware of the issues surrounding uranium mining on the reservation, and continue to be activists in working to gain compensation for Navajo who contracted cancer as a result of their work in the mines.

Website: http://www.massart.edu/at_massart/ (“”Community Service-Learning”" is in the left sidebar)

CIVICUS, a thematic living-learning program

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CIVICUS is a thematic living-learning program which began in fall 1999 through collaboration among the Dean of Undergraduate Studies, the Department of Resident Life, and the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences (BSOS). CIVICUS is based upon the concepts of leadership, citizenship, scholarship, community service and the development of a diverse community. CIVICUS Associates, the students in the program, have the unique opportunity to build a “”civil society”" in their residence hall through the study and application of these ideas. The process of creating this residential community involves all CIVICUS members and is influenced by common readings, special programs, guest speakers and experiential learning, including community service. All first year CIVICUS Associates take a common core of courses dealing with the interdisciplinary issues of civil society. There is an emphasis on residence hall governance and leadership development.

Website: http://www.bsos.umd.edu/civicus.html

The Diversity Initiative

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The Diversity Initiative at the University of Maryland, College Park, was established to bring people together to discuss and appreciate their differences, as a way of helping everyone feel part of a single community. Each year, an advisory board of staff, students, and faculty coordinates a series of week-long events fostering discussion on campus about particular issues related to community and diversity. In evaluations of the program, faculty, students, and staff report feeling more a part of the campus community and more aware of diversity issues as a result of the initiative.

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

Web site: http://www.inform.umd.edu/ohrp/campus/divinitiative/index.html

Contact the Associate Director at gb20 {at} umail.umd(.)edu

Success System Abilities: building students’ civic responsibility

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The University has developed the Success System Abilities that focus on building students with both a strong academic and civic responsibility. The core competencies included in every course are integrally connected with critical thinking skills and include valuing diversity and global perspectives both of which are vital to civic responsibility and community partnerships as well as student growth.

Website: http://www.davenport.edu/du/facultyandstaff/facultyresources/servicelearning/whatisservicelearning.htm

The Olivet Plan: a president initiates fundamental institutional change

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In the last five years, Olivet College has undergone a transformation that has led to the restructuring of college life and learning around a new commitment to community. This transformation reflects the way in which a college president, through his or her words, actions, and interactions with members of the campus community, can have a dramatic effect.

Upon his appointment as president of Olivet College in 1993, Dr. Michael Bassis perceived a lack of shared purpose among faculty, staff, and students. There was, he felt, no common identity that held the campus together, no common goals that drove the curriculum. President Bassis initiated a process that led to fundamental change. The process is best seen in four key steps: a question posed to faculty; the ensuing period of discussion and generation of ideas; action taken to turn those ideas into reality; and the extension of discussion to the campus as a whole.

The question that started it all, posed directly to faculty, was this: Given the range of opportunities open to them, why should students choose to enroll at Olivet? The president emphasized the history of Olivet, which was founded as the first college in the nation to accept students regardless of race or gender, and asked faculty to explore the institution s values and their own.

The very act of discussing and forming new ideas brought faculty together and energized the process of institutional change. The answer that faculty proposed centered on the idea of social responsibility. Faculty authored a vision statement and titled it, Education for Individual and Social Responsibility. The new vision statement defined five sets of learning outcomes related to communication skills, reasoning skills, individual responsibility, social responsibility, and skills specific to students field of study. Now it was time to turn that shared vision into reality. A year of intense deliberation among faculty resulted in the Olivet Plan, a new academic program for the college. The Olivet Plan describes how the college will deliver education that leads to the desired learning outcomes. The plan eliminates fifteen majors and minors, and adds two new ones. It revises general education requirements to emphasize diversity, and requires freshman and senior year experience courses, each with a service-learning component. It also requires all students to complete a portfolio of their work addressing each student learner outcome.

With a new sense of purpose among faculty, President Bassis extended the scope of campus discussion to the rest of campus. This time, a new question was posed to faculty, staff, students, administrators, and trustees: What does it mean to be a responsible member of this college community? The discussion that followed resulted in the Olivet College Compact, a statement defining the values that govern the social culture of Olivet. By 1999, when the first class to attend Olivet under the new curriculum graduates, they will not have seen the lack of purpose that Dr. Bassis perceived when he first came to Olivet. Instead, they will have experienced their undergraduate years at a college redefined by its own community and guided by a commitment to social responsibility.

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

The Olivet College Plan is online at http://www.olivetcollege.edu/about/plan.htm

Service Learning & Teacher Education: A Necessary Partnership (SLATE Subgrantee Institutions)

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This project is expanding throughout the community, campus, and region. Students in a literacy education course, are school and after-school tutors, work in family resource centers, in adult education facilities, detention homes, nursing homes, and conduct storyhours in bookstores and libraries. They provide support for the blind by reading newspaper over the radio, and work with disability services. Benefits for the community are as multitudinous as benefits to students. Local agencies are provided energy, ideas, and one-on-one attention to clients that the agency can t provide. Students learn experientially the psychological constructs of literacy, diversity of their local community, career clarification, and civic responsibility. A business education athlete tutored battered women at a shelter, in computer skills, earning their trust and recognizing his own gifts. We found agencies wish to participate in developing placements and understand the instructor s course objectives. Challenges are finding time for people to meet, and for students to honor their commitments. As an institution, we recognize the benefits and challenges of service learning. We are working on curricular developments to integrate service throughout our pre-service program, as well as to provide support to teachers state-wide, using service learning.

Website: http://www.soe.umt.edu/grants/slate/

Diversity Task Force

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In August 1999 we assembled 70 faculty, administrators, staff, and students to serve on a Diversity Task Force to investigate diversity issues within the UNCA community and in the wider community. The Diversity Task Force was divided into subcommittees: Curriculum, Students, Faculty and Staff, Student Diversification, Disabilities and Liberal Arts Learning. This task force reached out to leaders in the local community, asking them to sit down with us and frame the particular questions that fall under the overarching question “”How can UNCA promote healthy diversity on campus and in the wider community?”" The community is helping us to understand the question, to identify problems in our community, and to work together for solutions.

In April 2000 the Diversity Task Force published a 68-page report assessing our current situation and suggesting strategies for improvement in all areas of diversity, including racial and ethnic identity; gender issues; social, economic, and cultural concerns; and issues of disabilities of various kinds. Specific topics included diversity in faculty recruiting and hiring, multicultural values in our curriculum, student diversification, and learning disabilities.

As we were talking with community leaders to frame these questions, UNCA launched or expanded more than 14 partnership programs with community organizations working for diversity. Our partners include economic development groups, nonprofits serving people with disabilities, groups working for social justice, programs working with at-risk youth, and public schools in our city and county. Several of these initiatives bring us into closer collaborations with our nearby sister schools, Mars Hill College and Warren Wilson College.
These community partnerships are thriving thanks to the work of dedicated faculty, administrators, staff, and students working with the Adelaide Key Center for Service-Learning and other UNCA programs. These community partnership programs provided service opportunities for many of the 1,000 students who took part in volunteer projects and service-learning projects during the academic year.

Combining study and service the rigorous study of our Diversity Task Force and the concurrent forging of strong community service partnerships with local nonprofits, schools, and government agencies has challenged and energized our campus and our community. We know more about the scope of the problems we face. Now we are collaborating with our colleagues and neighbors to solve these problems by working together.

Contact person: Margaret Downes, Ph.D., Director, Key Center for Service Learning, downes {at} unca(.)edu

Key Center web site: http://www.unca.edu/keycenter/

CultureLinks Program: a service-learning option for international students

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The CultureLinks Program at Indiana University of Pennsylvania is a service-learning option for enrolled international students. CultureLinks is sponsored by the Office of Service Leadership in the Department of Student Activities and Organizations in collaboration with the Office of International Affairs.

CultureLinks empowers international students to lead culture-specific presentations and discussions to area K-12 pupils and other groups sponsored by Indiana County human service agencies. Through these presentations and discussions, and their direct interaction with the international students, pupils receive a heightened awareness and gain an appreciation of our global society and their future role as citizens in shaping it. In addition to the culture-specific presentations, special school and campus celebrations, such as Global Village Days, International Day, Unity Day, and Cultural Heritage Days, bring together many of the international students in a multicultural festival setting. International students participating in the CultureLinks Program also volunteer in other capacities, including: visiting dependent care facilities; assisting with blood drives; supporting the English As A Second Language Program, and; mentoring IUP K-6 University School pupils.

Through their participation, IUP international students participating in the CultureLinks Program are given the opportunity to contribute to the community in which they currently are residing. They gain practical knowledge about the United States and our domestic culture while gaining satisfaction and pride in their particular cultural heritage and history.

“”Building Bridges”": Empowering high school students to become problem solvers

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Alcoa High School in coordination with the School to Career programs have selected violence reduction and reading improvement as the two areas where “”Building Bridges”" between the schools, businesses, and community agencies create safe pathways for children. The objective is to empower high school students to become problem solvers as they address the issues that deal with violence and diversity. By utilizing reading, drama, art, music and puppetry this group of student role models will impact younger children with the message of peaceful resolution and making positive choices.