Amherst Annual Report – Programmatic Section

 Implementation of Student Development:

1.      The role of trainings, courses, & meetings:

The Bonner Leader Program prepared students who wished to be in challenging and rewarding leadership roles on and off campus. Bonner Leaders agreed to be an active member of the program for four on-campus semesters, and each agreed to make the program his or her primary commitment after academics.

Program Goals: 1. To enhance student understanding of the rights, privileges and duties of citizenship in a diverse democracy; 2. To gain the skills necessary to provide effective leadership; 3. To prepare an active team of student leaders to strengthen the campus culture of community engagement; and 4. To facilitate student recognition of the connections between community work and academics.

Curriculum: The curriculum for Bonner Leaders was roughly divided into two parts: Sophomore Year (first year in program) and the Junior Year (second year in program). This model ensured that students were given progressively greater levels of responsibility, and the appropriate accompanying training and support.

Training and Enrichment: Orientations for new Bonner Leaders were held at the beginning of each semester. Several of the Second Year Leaders helped develop the orientation program. The orientations aimed to build trust, communication, and teamwork within the group. The group bonded during programs that were focused on processing challenges, evaluating results, and experiencing the dynamics of cooperation, leadership, and diversity within a team. They gained a sense of community and purpose, as well as basic knowledge needed to fulfill their leadership roles.

In addition to the orientations, Bonner Leaders attended ongoing leadership development trainings throughout the fall and spring semesters.  The CCE invited numerous guest speakers to provide training and enrichment.  The trainings/workshops addressed key leadership skills and allowed the students to reflect on their current and future role as leaders and engaged citizens.

Community Learning: A powerful part of the Bonner Leader program was the opportunity students had to learn about needs of the local area. Bonner Leaders volunteered at a designated community based organization each week.   There they had the opportunity to interact with knowledgeable staff and community members. Through their direct work with our community partners, the Leaders were introduced to community problems. Through discussion and an opportunity to reflect on their experiences, they began to gain an understanding of their role as an agent of social change. Bonner Leaders served on the Board of Directors of two of our community partners: A Better Chance (ABC) and Habitat for Humanity.

Individual Development Meetings: Bonner Leaders attended one on one meetings with the Program Director at the beginning and end of each semester.  The meetings provided a structured time for reflection about the program and each student’s individual goals.  The meeting at the beginning of the semester focused on discussing the Bonner Leader’s individual objectives for personal and skill development. The meeting at the end of the semester focused on discussing the Bonner Leader’s skill development and performance during the semester.

All Bonner Meetings: The Leaders attended All Bonner Meetings for approximately two hours per week throughout the academic year. All Bonner Meetings were used to share information, goal setting, partnership program development, training and enrichment, recognition, celebration, and reflection.

Committees: The Bonner Leader Program had several committees, each of which helped the program to meet its goals and function smoothly. The committees also gave students opportunities to participate in overseeing and contributing to the success of the Program. Committees included the Leader Hiring Advisory Committee, Political Engagement Committee, Publicity Committee, Training and Enrichment Committee, and Awareness Week Committee. Each committee was led by a chairperson, who reported on their progress at the weekly Bonner Leader meetings.

2.      First Year Trip:

Bonner Leaders helped to run a three day trip to Holyoke during the first-year student orientation.  Fifty students and sixteen upper-class students participated in the 2007 trip. The trip allowed first-year students to explore a variety of ways that students can make an impact on the immediate and broader communities, to gain a realistic perspective of their roles as community workers and to bond with fellow classmates. During their three-day stay in Holyoke, a number of speakers from the community presented workshops for the students on a range of issues related to community engagement and social justice with a particular focus on how those issues relate to Holyoke. Students experienced many of these issues firsthand by volunteering for four hours each afternoon at nine different sites around Holyoke. At these sites, students did direct service work and learned about the mission of the organizations as well as the social issues and needs they addressed in the community. The time spent at these volunteer sites allowed students to interact directly with community organizers and to learn about different types of service work.

Sophomore (first year in program) Bonner Leaders began coordinating partnership organizations, engaged in self-assessment and personal development planning activities, facilitated training/reflection for peer Bonner Leaders, designed events and trainings based on the needs of student volunteers, and served as a committee member for at least one of the program committees.

3.      Second Year Exchange:

In 2008, CCE staff began conversations with the Bonner Leader programs at Johnson State College, Hobart and William Smith Colleges about a joint service project that would potentially take place during the spring of 2009. CCE staff attended Bonner meetings, and Amherst College students attended a number of Bonner events including the Bonner Congress and the Impact Conference. Three Bonner Leaders took part in the Summer Leadership Institute at Allegheny College in June of 2008. Two Amherst students spent spring break in Princeton learning more about the foundation and Bonner Leader programs at other campuses, one result of which was the implementation of a Sleep Out to Speak Out event on our campus.

4.      Third Year (and beyond) Leadership Roles

As mentioned, the curriculum for Bonner Leaders was roughly divided into two parts: Sophomore Year (first year in program) and the Junior Year (second year in program). Junior Year (second year in program) Leaders continued to coordinate partnership organizations, engaged in self-assessment and personal development planning activities, designed new programming based on needs, served as a committee chair on one of the program committees, facilitated trainings for first/second year Bonner Leaders based on their interest and needs, advised first year student leaders in planning events, and participated in trainings and reflections aligned with the needs and interests of Bonner Leaders.

5.      Senior Capstone & Presentation of Learning

Students who had completed all four semesters of the Bonner Leaders program were offered the opportunity to become Senior Mentors. They served as “coaches” to the new Bonner Leaders, assisting them in planning recruitment strategies, scheduling, trainings and reflection activities for their program or service group. Senior Mentors encouraged new leaders to implement strategies to strengthen the relationship between students and community partners. Mentors also worked with CCE Program Staff on projects such as program and event planning, website development, and program evaluation.They served as a resource for student involvement, educated the campus community about civic engagement, and helped recruit students to become involved in the Bonner Leader program.

Implementation of Community Partnerships: 

1.      Orienting and managing community partnerships (orientation, site visits, meetings, strategic planning)

The Center for Community Engagement programs have several common features: a focus on reciprocal, sustained engagement opportunities with a defined number of community partners, an approach that recognizes that Amherst students benefit at least as much from these partnerships as the larger community, and efforts to integrate all aspects of community engagement with academic pursuits. In 2007-2008, the CCE had eight primary community partnership programs.  Staff and Bonner Leaders worked together with these programs to set goals, plan orientations for new volunteers, and plan campus visits for educational/youth programs. Each partnership worked to develop a volunteer handbook so that new volunteers would have a deeper understanding of the program goals and objectives as well as the expectations for training of volunteers. Bonner Leaders served as a valuable resource in sustaining and strengthening our community partnerships. Teams of two Bonner Leaders were assigned to each partnership. It was their role to assess the needs of the partner agency and to align college resources to meet those needs. This included the participation of hundreds of other Amherst students who worked in a volunteer capacity in these agencies.

2.      Partners as co-educators and other unique initiatives (including new academic linkages)

A Bonner Leader developed a new approach to connecting engagement with academics. This leader had been involved in an alternative spring break trip to the Dominican Republic. Concerned about the need to do deeper work with the community of Yabacao, the leader approached a faculty member about the possibility of organizing a Special Topics course for the students who had been on the trip.  As a consequence of the Bonner Leader initiative, the students ended up developing a program that will ease access to college for recent high school graduates in Yabacao. Now that this precedent has been established we anticipate that at least 5 teams of students will use the Special Topics approach this year to do deeper community work.

3.      Integration of site-based or issue-oriented teams

Education teams: This year the CCE had educational partnerships with: El Arco Iris, Girls, Inc., P.L.A.N., Big Brother Big Sisters, A Better Chance (ABC) Tutoring, Pipeline, and Student2Students. Bonner Leaders worked together to plan campus visits for program participants and to discuss best practices in tutoring and mentoring. They also worked to assess the training needs of student volunteers and to implement training programs to meet those needs.

At present, our largest community partnership is with the Amherst Public Schools. Last summer, 60 public school students came to campus for a four-week, intensive academic and college preparation program. This year we continued to work with the same students, mostly through tutoring at their schools.  

Campus-wide Culture and Infrastructure: 

1.      Key relationships and activities involving faculty and academic connections. In particular, what work was done with relevant coursework, a minor, or other curricular integration.

Several new community-based courses were launched in 2007-2008, including: History 48, Historical Perspectives on Criminal Justice and the U.S. Economy, taught by professor Martha Saxton to 12 Amherst students and twelve men incarcerated in the Hampshire County jail; and Mathematics 5, Calculus with Algebra, Professor Tanya Leise’s introductory calculus course, in which students could tutor math at a local afterschool program in lieu of taking one exam. In addition to scheduled courses, Associate Professor of Political Science Javier Corrales offered a Special Topics course to students working on Intercambio Ya!, a student-led initiative to alleviate poverty and promote educational opportunity in a rural community in the Dominican Republic.  Essentially a small-group independent study, the course provided a structure for students to research educational systems in the Caribbean and Central America. Special Topics offer a promising way for students to connect their work in communities to coursework; they do depend on the willingness of faculty to supervise them on an overload basis, in addition to their scheduled courses.

2.      Key relationships and activities involving other departments or divisions on campus (for example for recruitment, student wellness or retention, financial aid, and so on).

Bonner Leaders did “inreach” rather than outreach work, organizing the campus community to be engaged.  Two students, for example, worked with athletic teams to ensure that every team was involved with a community agency or issue. Other teams of Bonner Leaders worked with campus affinity groups, with campus activist groups, and with resident counselors to ensure that every student had ample opportunity and guidance to engage in local communities. The partnership with the Athletics Department is particularly noteworthy for the progress we have made in engaging a constituency that has been less visibly involved in community engagement activities in the past. Over half of the coaches agreed to encourage their team members to participate in at least one community engagement opportunity, and every women’s sports team took part in Amherst’s first-ever Girls and Women in Sports Day. This event brought over 80 school-aged girls to campus for a day of sports instruction and play. In a college where such a high percentage of the student body plays a varsity sport—and where participation in athletics requires a significant time commitment—this is a significant accomplishment.

3.      Unique initiatives (such as events or strategic planning) that have enhanced institutionalization of service and civic engagement on campus

The Amherst College Bonner Leaders are involved in key roles in every aspect of the Center for Community Engagement work.  Last year, Bonner Leaders played a growing role in setting program priorities and establishing policies for the CCE.  Several leaders were involved in deciding which student proposals would receive funding from the Community Engagement fund. Bonner Leaders will be members of the 2008-2009 advisory board to the CCE.  The CCE could not create a culture of service on our campus without the essential efforts of the Bonner Leaders.