Jamecia Finnie fills a void with service learning and social action

Jamecia Finnie, a biology and society major in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences from Dallas, Texas, in the Northside Ithaca neighborhood where s he conducts her research in community building. Robert Barker/University Photography.

By Franklin Crawford

Finnie, a graduating senior in the Biology and Society Program, received a Bartels Undergraduate Action Research Fellowship in 2002. That marked a sharp departure from her pre-med path - a course she had charted since high school. But Finnie said she wasn't very happy in her pre-med biology track.

"Originally I wanted to be a doctor, and I may go back to pre-med," she said. "But something was missing."

However, switching majors didn't ease her yearning for the tangible.

"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 satisfaction in the Bartels program, which embraces an educational strategy, or philosophy, called "service-learning." The approach is designed to reinforce academic learning with practical experiences that strengthen civic values and develop moral character. Students undertake collaborative research projects with local residents and municipal officials involved in social justice activities.

For the past two years, Finnie assisted Ithaca Northside neighborhood residents and municipal officials evaluating the impact of the city of Ithaca's recently inaugurated neighborhood-based planning initiative. For the past two academic years, she has been collecting and analyzing data in order to assist local leaders in strengthening their neighborhood planning efforts. Her evaluation has attempted to measure the impact this program has had on resident attitudes towards municipal government, resident involvement in grassroots planning and development efforts, as well as public and private investment in the neighborhood. The results of her work have been used by Northside residents to adjust their approach to local community-building.

"Jamecia Finnie is a remarkable young woman who cares deeply about the problems facing residents of low-income communities," said Ken Reardon, Cornell associate professor of city and regional planning and a Bartels Fellowship academic adviser. "All of those who have worked with Jamecia have been deeply impressed by her commitment to social justice, her analytical and communication skills and her sense of irony and humor."