Part of the process of looking outward to community engagement off campus, is looking inward to building community on campus. Many colleges and universities are separated into various small communities disconnected from one another: academic departments keep themselves separate from other academic departments; students lives do not overlap with the lives of faculty; and within student populations, different cultures and groups are often segregated socially from one another, whether intentionally or not.
On many campuses, however, the greatest barrier is the one that goes almost entirely unspoken: the barrier between students and staff. Ironically, the staff who are critical to keeping the institution running day in and day out, are too often nameless faces to students who benefit from that institution.
At St. Thomas Aquinas College, the community service office initiated an effort this year to bridge that gap. St. Thomas Aquinas is located in a small town north of New York City. A large contingent of the workers at the school come from the town s large population of recent Haitian immigrants, many of whom are seeking education in English as a second language.
At the beginning of the school year, Sister Catherine Morgan, the community service director at St. Thomas Aquinas, first approached the director of the college s food service and cleaning staff. He agreed to grant workers paid time during work to study with a tutor. She then approached a professor in the college s education department, and asked if teacher education students would be able to tutor college staff towards the fulfillment of field work requirements. The professor not only agreed to the idea, but volunteered to coordinate student placements in the program.
Having already bridged gaps between the community service office, university food services, and the education department, the project went on to bring students and staff together. Eight students met with eight staff members once a week for brief tutoring sessions. Students in the program received training in ESL instruction, and were given the flexibility to design tutoring sessions to meet staff members needs.
For many students and staff, this was the first time that they interacted with one another. In some cases, a sense of community has formed crossing boundaries that once had gone unquestioned. One example comes from a teacher education student: upon hearing that the staff member she worked with had just lost his brother in a car accident, she helped to organize a fundraiser in the education department to raise money for the deceased brother s family.
