Senior Jamecia Finnie said she wasn't very happy in her pre-med biology track at Cornell. In fact, she said, she wasn't very happy with the academic environment at Cornell at all. And switching her major didn't help. There was something missing.
|
|
| Marie Kennedy, associate dean for academic affairs at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, answers a question about service-learning during the Faculty Fellows in Service Symposium, Jan. 17, in the Appel Commons. Kennedy was the guest speaker for the sixth annual FFIS event. Robert Barker/University Photography |
"We'd spend a lot of time in four closed walls analyzing and discussing complex social problems and not much time solving them," Finnie said. "At the end of the day, we'd leave school and the cycle would start up again. I wanted to be engaged in learning that involved action -- that worked to solve real problems in the community and didn't just end when I left class."
Finnie found what she was looking for by becoming one of the first seven Henry E. and Nancy Horton Bartels Undergraduate Action Research fellows. Now in her second year with the Bartels fellowship program, Finnie discussed her findings as a leader in a project combining academics with community-service work in an Ithaca neighborhood housing complex. It is part of an educational strategy, or philosophy, called "service-learning," an approach that reinforces students' academic learning with practical experiences that strengthen civic values and develop moral character and a greater sense of responsibility to the community.
Finnie addressed about 70 people gathered for the Sixth Annual Faculty Fellows in Service Symposium, Jan. 17, in the Appel Commons on North Campus. The theme of the symposium, "From Different Approaches to Common Understanding," resonated through a wide variety of talks, presentations, briefings and workshops detailing the involvement of Cornell students and faculty in meaningful community service projects.
Susan Murphy, Cornell vice president for student and academic services, provided opening remarks at the symposium. Guest speaker Marie Kennedy, associate dean for academic affairs and professor of community planning at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, addressed issues of service-learning and community outreach in research universities and also led an interactive workshop.
The movement toward community service-based pedagogy has gained considerable momentum at the national level in the past decade. The Bartels program, established in May of 2001, was a first for Cornell. Designed by Davydd Greenwood, the Goldwin Smith Professor of Anthropology and director of Cornell's Institute for European Studies, and administered by the Cornell Public Service Center (PSC), the program was a response to student-driven demands for service-learning opportunities with academic teeth. The Bartels program is among more than a dozen service-learning programs overseen by PSC, which also sponsors nearly 50 service-learning courses on campus.
For many years, undergraduate students at Cornell have engaged in numerous community service projects. But the Bartels program provides an accredited academic framework, with faculty supervisor-mentors.
Each semester, Bartels fellows take a two-credit, faculty-run seminar on the practices of action research, involving community projects. The program encourages respect for local knowledge and multidisciplinary approaches to problem-solving, said Leonardo Vargas-Méndez, PSC director. Students are neither interns nor volunteers, and the community partners are not passive recipients of charitable outreach; both sides are full participants in an academic model designed to produce positive social change.
|
Finnie's project is part of the city of Ithaca's Northside neighborhood planning initiative. The goal of her work, she said, is to "get teens in the downtown area involved in determining what problems they feel are pertinent to them and to allow them to come up with their own solutions."
It's a slow process and doesn't fit into a neat academic package. Community organizations don't exist within the rhythms of an academic calendar. Finnie and other presenters said that following the community's calendar is an inherent part of the process and one that makes service-learning a valuable, if challenging endeavor.
"[But] participatory action brings to life many difficult issues we address in the classroom and provides communities with support to improve their quality of life," said Finnie. "It's demanding work, and I would like to see Cornell support more service-learning."
Nimat Hafez Barazangi, a Cornell research fellow in Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies, presented results of an evaluation model of the Bartels program itself. Barazangi discussed how the research-based, hands-on experiences deepened students' understanding of social research through critical self-evaluation.
"If it does nothing else, the Bartels program presses home the weaknesses we have in on-campus action research-based training, while providing a way to address those weaknesses as well. Bartels fellows evaluate their own learning, including the course design and their services as well as the community partnerships themselves."
In a separate presentation, Josephine Allen, associate professor of policy analysis and management, described her participatory research on a youth awareness project called Rural Road, an AIDS-HIV-STD and substance-abuse prevention effort in Cortland County. Now in its fourth year, the project is a model of resident, social-service agency and local-school cooperation, she said. On the quantitative side, a method for data collection developed by Cornell sociology professor Douglas Heckathorn produced tangible new data that will help evaluate culturally sensitive educational intervention. Allen's Cornell team included Eunice Rodriguez associate professor in policy analysis and management, and Jennifer Tiffany, director of Cornell's HIV/AIDS Education Project. In addition, at least a dozen Cornell students, both undergraduate and graduate, have worked on the project.
The Faculty Fellows in Service Program (FFIS) was initiated in 1990 as a vehicle for Cornell faculty and undergraduate students to work together with communities to meet human needs. FFIS members sponsor and supervise undergraduate community-based research and service projects through independent studies, internships, public service, special research topics, honors theses, field studies, seminars and directed reading courses.
| Cornell Chronicle Front Page | | Table of Contents | | Cornell News Service Home Page |