Break Away 2008 Off and Running!

What's that going on in the picture at left? That is some of our wonderful Break Away trip leaders, with two Bonner Leaders, participating in a teambuilding activity during our student leader training before the start of the semester. You'll have to ask them just what was going on. :)

We held our first all-participant meeting for Break Away 2008 on Tuesday. We were so glad to see so many excited folks there, and we're sure everyone was so glad to finally find out the trip destinations! (See the links at left for our host sites.)

We're happy to announce that we have some Break Away Program Scholarships available this year. Break Away is a volunteer-driven program, and we rely heavily on the generosity of our supporters to make these intensive service travel and educational experiences accessible to all students. If you are participating in Break Away and would like to apply for a scholarship, please download the application and submit by October 31, 2007. If you are interested in supporting Break Away or other community and civic engagement programs at JSC with a financial contribution, please contact Laura in the Center for Service Learning.

Seasons of Service

Here at JSC it's a beautiful, inspiring time of year! (The photo at right is of our Lamoille River Clean-up canoe outing earlier this fall.) We're just getting ready for our Fall Break, and are in the process of selecting Break Away participants. We had lots of interest in the program and so many wonderful applicants! I wish we were able to take them all. (Note: did you apply? notifications are going out today and over the break.) We're working on several other opportunities for folks to get engaged. (Watch this space, you'll see it here first!) Meeting with our Break Away trip leaders yesterday, it was wonderful to welcome a new trip leader, Kyle Fisher! We're so glad to have Kyle joining us. Kyle will be co-leading our Environment trip with Dave Jacobs. Plans are coming together, sites are getting confirmed and travel arrangements are being firmed up. I feel so inspired and confident in our sites--so many great organizations, and everything is very well organized.

It's great to see so many awesome pre-trip education and service plans as well. Some of the things you'll see before our trips are campus-wide film showings, speakers, focused service projects, and perhaps a demonstration or two. We hope all of you have a safe, happy, and fun break!

Available leadership/ AmeriCorps positions for interested student volunteers

Got some time? Want to make a commitment and some money for volunteering? We have the following AmeriCorps positions available, through the AmeriCorps Education Award Only program. Please note that terms are by calendar year. If you start a one-year term on October 2, 2007, you’ll finish up October 1, 2008.

• 300 hours, $1000.00 Ed Award, 1 year term. (Campus Compact Program—7 Available)
• 900 hours, $2362.50 Ed Award, 2 year term. (Campus Compact Program—2 Available)
• 900 hours, $2362.50 Ed Award, 2 year term (Bonner Program—first year students only—less than 30 credits; 8 available).

What is the Education Award?

See this great description for all the details. Basically, the Education Award functions like a scholarship, in reverse. You sign up to complete a term of service, do all your hours (and the paperwork to document them), and voila! You get an Education Award. The Education Award is not a check, but a voucher from the US Government good for current or future educational expenses, including student loans. It’s good for 7 years and you don’t have to use it all at once.

What’s the difference between the Bonner Program terms and Campus Compact terms?

The Bonner Program, aside from being for first year students only, is a bit more structured. On average, Bonner Leaders (the name for students in the Bonner Leader Program) serve 8 hours per week at a local nonprofit in a service internship, and receive 2 hours per week of leadership training on a variety of topics. JSC’s Bonner Leader Program is one of many in the US—see our Bonner Program website and the Bonner Foundation’s website for more information. Generally Bonner Leaders are at the same organization for both years of their 2-year term (optional extension for another 2 years), giving the maximum benefit to the organization and the student.

The Campus Compact AmeriCorps positions are a bit more flexible. You can do all your hours at one organization, or many. There are fewer set training requirements. JSC students in this program generally work to find their own service opportunities, and traditionally have been students who are already participating in some kind of service. This program is particularly designed to encourage students to “go deeper” or commit more time to a program they’re already doing. For example, if you’re going to be mentoring 220 hours this year, you could sign up for a 300-hour term and use those extra 80 hours to become a mentoring coordinator (help with recruitment and training of new mentors). Many JSC students in this program have integrated one-time projects and alternative break trips into their hours.

300 or 900 hours? That’s a lot!

Maybe. Think of it this way: 2 semesters a year, 15 weeks in a semester, right? (count ‘em. This doesn’t include breaks or exams.) If you commit 10 hours a week (say 2 hours a day during the week, or maybe every other Saturday plus 7 hours during the week), that’s 150 hours in a semester. Two semesters and you’re done with a 300 hour award. For a 900-hour award, include service during breaks (including the summer) for the other 300 hours. Or, go up to 15 hours per week during the semester (15 hours per week x 15 weeks = 225 hours x 4 semesters = 900 hours). Some Work-Study positions also qualify for AmeriCorps. So for example, if you’re already working 8 hours per week as a Reading Partner for America Reads (8 hours/week x 15 weeks =120, x 2 semesters = 240 hours), you can sign up for a 300-hour term and do an additional 60 hours of service somewhere else.

Does everything count?

Most volunteering qualifies. It has to be for a non-profit organization, to begin with. Only service in the USA qualifies. (Note: Break Away trips in the USA qualify! Students participating in Break Away usually accomplish 30-50 hours of service, depending on the trip.) There are some prohibited activities, like lobbying or union organizing. (Not that we don’t think you should do these things as a US Citizen, as is your right! Just not counting for your AmeriCorps hours.) 20% of your hours can be “training and enrichment,” such as workshops or conferences. 10% of your hours can be fundraising. The rest of your hours should be direct service. Some restrictions apply, this is a basic overview—contact us with questions.

OK, Sign me up!

Want in? Call, email, or stop by and see Laura Megivern to learn more and sign up.

20th Anniversary Celebration Photos

A few photos from our 20th Anniversary celebration and service project (painting the Johnson Food Shelf on Friday).

See fantastic "SERVE Alum" Heather Noyes McAnirlin '96 and her daughter, Olivia, with JSC Career Center Co-Director Ellen Hill. Thanks to all who came out to help us celebrate!

On Twenty Years of Service Learning at JSC and Making Meaning

I am particularly privileged to be able to work with so many wonderful students as they make meaning of their service experiences. I have had so many profound conversations with our students, whether it’s in the van on the way back to campus after a day volunteering at a local arts organization, or late in the evening in our office. I am so impressed by the work that our students put into making meaning. As one author wrote, service learning is a sync-ing up of one’s studies with parallel practical application.

Perhaps more than anything else, I get to see students exploring, in great depth, the commonality, universality, and diversity of human experience. There is a sense of brotherhood or sisterhood that I get to see students experiencing with those they seek to serve, a connection to what it truly means to be human. There is a recognition of interdependence: the difference between caring for the well-being of others because it makes oneself feel good, and the caring for the wellbeing of others because it is to care for one’s own well being. I am reminded of a quote from Hillel, “if I am not for myself, who will be? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?” So often when the realization of the pure and simple truth of these questions hits, I see students no longer able to be idle or self-interested.

I have seen and discussed this commonality of human experience, and the meanings and conclusions we can draw from service experiences, with so many students. Our programs provide a wonderful laboratory for studying democracy, with a small d. What does it mean to be a citizen, or a global citizen? What does it mean to be a member of a community, or many communities?

Watching students make connections between their roles as a student here at JSC and their life outside the campus—whether it’s down the street or in their hometown—is astonishing. It is such an honor to see the application of classroom experiences, the connections that our students make—to watch that moment where the textbook or lecture comes to life. This is a new kind of scholarship—public scholarship that encourages our students to become active, thoughtful, engaged community members—and it informs our passionate commitment to the Local. We live the words of educator Johnetta B. Cole, who said, “The most profound expression of education is action—action in the interest of helping to heal what ails our communities, our nation, and our world.”

Over the 2006-7 academic year, JSC students logged over 15,600 hours of community service. Our students volunteered here on campus, mentoring local children; others participated in local community groups and coalitions, like the Lamoille Valley Hunger Coalition; some volunteered elsewhere in the state, like the group that traveled to sort food at the Vermont Food Bank in Barre; many participated in Break Away trips all across the US, whether it was to the mountains of Utah, planting trees, or New Hampshire working with children, or the coast of Maine building a home for Habitat for Humanity. A group of students and staff participated in our international Break Away trip, traveling to Tanzania in East Africa to work with children affected by the HIV/AIDS crisis. Even when serving on the other side of the world, JSC volunteers think about “bringing it home”—how to integrate this new experience, new knowledge, into their lives as community members and citizens.

So, how are we moving forward? We have several exciting developments. Inspired by the many experiences and insights our students offer regarding social and economic justice, we are finding new and innovative ways to increase not only access to our programs but also to the college experience. This includes overhauling the financial structure of our Break Away program to offer new lower program fees and scholarships. We’re also supporting long-term engagement with the AmeriCorps Education Award Program, a US government program that provides students with financial incentives to perform 300 to 900 hours of service. This year alone, we are recruiting students for this program to receive education awards equivalent to scholarships of over $35,000!

We are also finding ways to provide more students with the opportunity to serve and participate. Our CSLocal program offers many “low-commitment” options for students seeking to explore the community, get out of their dorm room, or simply looking for something to do. We organize four or five of these local service-learning opportunities a month, each holding to the principle that the length of service should always exceed the length of travel.

Our Bonner Leader Program offers leadership, service and long-term engagement for first year students who wish to commit to a two-year service internship in a local non-profit. Both of these programs have seen tremendous growth in the past year, and we hope to continue that trend!

We’re committed to continuing education outside the classroom, especially in discourse and engagement with important social issues. Through training sessions before service trips, book discussions, film showings, campus lectures, and a new project from our Bonner Leaders called Talko Tuesday, we’re showing how talk can lead to some pretty big things. Our students are learning, through their efforts, what it means to be an active citizen: to be a part of the conversation. After all, decisions are made by those who show up. Johnson State College and the Center for Service Learning have been preparing students for twenty years—preparing them to show up, and have something to say—and will continue to do so for many years to come!

What we are doing here is remarkable: in today’s troubled world, we are educating students to be citizens—to really engage in the world around them. It’s anti-apathy, anti-cynicism, realism and idealism together. Our students leave JSC knowledgeable and ready to address our global and local challenges, to be creative about solving problems, and to speak up. We echo William Faulkner by urging, “never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world, in thousands of rooms like this one, would do this, it would change the world.” Thank you for joining us!

Welcome to the Engaged Life Blog!

Welcome to the The Engaged Life! This blog is for the Johnson State College Center for Service Learning. You'll see: upcoming events; reflections and articles on service, civic and community engagement; stories and images from service projects; and more. We encourage you to post comments, and if you're interested in becoming a blog writer, please email Laura. We hope to make this a place where JSC students, faculty, staff and friends can keep up with life in the CSL, on campus, and in the world around us.