2009 ANNUAL REPORT OF PROGRAM ACTIVITIES

 

Please add narrative text that responds to the questions in the four categories below.

Implementation of Student Development Implementation of Community Partnerships Campus-Wide Culture and Infrastructure  Serve 2.0  Campus Issue Profiles

 

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Implementation of Student Development

 

Each year Earlham’s new Bonner Scholars are introduced to the Bonner program, service, reflection and other Bonners during the two-day New Bonner Orientation which precedes the campus-wide New Student Orientation.  Most students have a great time at orientation, evidenced by the popularity of the Bonner Selection and Orientation Committee which plans and leads the orientation.  We typically have 10-12 returning Bonners who lead and participate in New Bonner Orientation.

 

All-Bonner meetings occur monthly.  The first meeting takes place during the first week of classes each semester.  These meetings are facilitated by our Bonner senior intern and generally include a brief, interactive or community-building activity, one to three senior capstone presentations of learning, a guest speaker discussing an issue, organization or skill of interest to Bonners and announcements regarding the program and upcoming opportunities.  This past year, topics covered included  a presentation by Earlham President Doug Bennett on statistics and demographics of Richmond and Wayne County, tips on tutoring including working with people with learning disabilities, a discussion about local education with the president of the local school board and information about efforts to coordinate the work of local churches who provide food, clothing and other assistance to low-income people in our community. 

 

Each class also meets monthly.  The four-year progression includes issues related to the Common Commitments and skills that Bonners should develop.  New Bonners participate in a weekly, one-credit seminar fall semester to help insure success by familiarizing students with the expectations, key concepts and structure of the program and strengthening ties among students.  Sophomores focus on community asset mapping and project design, implementation and assessment.  Juniors learn about and practice leading reflection, examine cross-cultural ideas about service and human rights and explore policy and advocacy.  Seniors examine the structure and organization of nonprofits and learn practical tools to assist in job searches. 

 

This year we had some great experiences with retreats and service trips which we hope to repeat in future.  Our first year Bonners traveled to a new location for this year’s first year trip.  We were hosted by Step by Step and the BigUglyCommunity Center in West Virginia.  As is true of the Jubilee Project in Tennessee, where we have traveled the past several years, Step by Step is run by the father of a new Bonner.  This experience allowed our students to compare different locations in Appalachia and, in the case of Big Ugly, to observe firsthand the devastation caused by strip mining and mountaintop removal.  We plan to maintain relationships with both Jubilee and Step by Step for future trips.  Michael Tierney of Step by Step has invited any interested students to come down over school breaks for short service trips in addition to offering to host future first year trip groups.

 

We have joined with DePauw for several years for our sophomore exchange, meeting in Indianapolis which is about halfway between our schools.  This year we partnered with the Indianapolis Peace Institute, which is jointly operated by Earlham, Manchester and GoshenColleges, to organize a service experience with a local group that works with youth in low-income neighborhoods to start community gardens on vacant lots.  It was very fruitful to work with the Indianapolis Peace Institute staff because they have established relationships with a number of community organizations and were able to set up a well-run group service experience for our students.  After working at a new lot which was being prepared for its first planning, the group had the opportunity to visit a nearby garden which has existed for several years and then to participate in a thought-provoking reflection that included the representatives from the community organization with which they had been working. 

 

Junior Bonners for the first time extended the scope of our discussions about policy and advocacy by visiting the Indiana state legislature for an afternoon.  Although the visit was brief, students had an opportunity to meet a lobbyist, the state senator who represents Richmond and an aide from our representative’s office.  They sat in on part of a committee hearing and saw people testifying on proposed legislation.  We were guided by a DePauw professor who has developed a course on environmental policy which includes having students research, draft and advocate for legislation.  This course will be offered again next year in Indianapolis and may provide expanded opportunities for Earlham and Bonner involvement in addition to the visit by the junior class to the legislature which we hope will become a regular feature of our program.

 

Seniors visited the DaytonInternationalPeaceMuseum for their retreat.  This small, grass-roots museum was created to commemorate the Dayton Peace Accords which helped restore peace in the Balkan region.  Students completed a service project at the museum as well as touring.  Our Bonner colleagues at the University of Dayton recommended this site to us, and we would definitely like to return in the future because of the unique opportunity to combine service with education on social justice and global issues. 

 

This past year saw renewed interest in several Bonner student leadership opportunities.  For example, the Bonner Publicity Committee, which was almost completely inactive the previous year, broadened its scope and became the Bonner outreach Committee.  This renewal was due to the large number of comment cards filled out during the BonnerCenter for Service and Vocation dedication lunch expressing the desire that Bonner Scholars play a more active role in bringing the Earlham and Richmond communities together and mobilizing the entire Earlham community to get more involved with the surrounding Richmond community.  Senior intern Anna Lockhart played a key role in bringing together and leading this committee.  She also produced two videos to help better inform Earlham students about opportunities and helped get several articles in the Earlham Word newspaper.

 

Interview with Richmond Mayor Sally Hutton

http://bonnernetwork.pbworks.com/Mayor-Sally-Hutton

 

Interview with Cope Environmental Center

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzsSMkq5gn0

 

Students volunteer to clean up Richmond for a day 

http://ecword.org/index.php/2009/04/features/students-volunteer-to-clean-up-richmond-for-a-day/

 

Community strives for arsenic-free water for trailer park

by Anna Lockhart

http://ecword.org/index.php/2009/03/news/community-strives-for-arsenic-free-water- for-trailer-park/

 

BonnerCenter for Service and Vocation is dedicated

http://ecword.org/index.php/2008/10/news/bonner-center-for-service-and-vocation-is-dedicated/

 

Bonner profile: Anna Obermayer and human rights support

http://ecword.org/index.php/2008/10/features/bonner-profile-anna-obermayer-and-human-rights-support/

 

Bonner profile: Adetokunbo Adeshile

http://ecword.org/index.php/2008/10/features/bonner-profile-adetokunbo-adeshile/ 

 

Activism through community work is encouraged 

by Anna Lockhart and Emily Ostroff 

http://ecword.org/index.php/2008/10/op-ed/activism-through-community-work-is-encouraged/

  

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Implementation of Community Partnerships

 

Each year during May and June, Bonner staff visit our partner sites.  Information gathered from these visits and a mailing that is sent out around the same time is used to update our printed directory of service opportunities for the following academic year.  In August, service partners are invited to a lunch on campus that provides a chance for networking as well as updates on the Bonner program, Federal work study and other ways students can get involved with them.  At the beginning of each semester, we host an Involvement Fair where partners can meet with students from across campus who are interested in serving.  The fall semester event, which is usually held outdoors, is particularly popular and draws around 30 community partners and several hundred students.  In the spring partners are invited to attend the Bonner senior dinner and celebration of service.  This past year we increased the number of community partner representatives on the Bonner Advisory Committee from one to three, and we also now have a representative from Earlham’s Community Partnership Council.  This council includes community leaders who help strengthen mutually beneficial connections between the college and the surrounding community. 

 

Several exciting opportunities for significant student impact through service continue to evolve.  For example, both Girls Inc. and the Boys and Girls Club work very well to train, communicate with and maximize the benefit derived from having a group of Earlham students serving with them.  With support and consultation from Bonner staff and students, each has developed models which work organically within their structures to develop the skills and awareness of the students who serve with them and seek to foster collaboration and mentorship among the students. 

 

Earlham-run programs continue to be popular among students and to provide opportunities for leadership development.  The Westwood program is a student-led after school program at a low-income housing complex.  The Amigos program’s English classes and translation services are fully staffed by Earlham volunteers, and this past year a recent Earlham Bonner alum was hired as part-time paid staff by Amigos and did an outstanding job of working with the student coordinators and developing written policies and materials which will aid in orienting new volunteers and giving them useful tools to use in their work.

 

This past year perhaps the most significant development among our partners was the expansion of opportunities for students wanting to work with the city of Richmond.  Earlham faculty members in the math and computer sciences departments were approached by the Richmond Sanitation Department to help them analyze their routes and collection practices to see if there are more fuel and time efficient ways to carry out waste collection.  A Bonner computer science major was recruited to collect data by riding with garbage collectors and measuring distances traveled, the amount of time spent at each stop on the route, etc.  He has also been involved in developing computational models and plugging in the data to help prepare an analysis and recommendations for the city.  This student has become more generally interested in the work of the sanitation department and the need to develop sustainable options for waste disposal and has continued to work at this site during the summer.  Other students were asked to help with a recycling program at the city office building by developing educational displays and colleting and measuring recyclable materials from offices throughout the building.  This project expanded to include a campaign to increase participation in the city’s curbside recycling program, especially among renters.  The students developed educational materials about the recycling program and recruited around a dozen other students to canvass a particular neighborhood on a Saturday distributing information about the recycling program and talking with residents about why they do or do not currently participate.  The students hope that this project will continue next fall with the canvassing of other Richmond neighborhoods.  Meanwhile, service efforts continued with the city’s Human Rights Commission, where the number of students serving increased with a focus on developing a brochure on tenant rights and responsibilities and conducting extensive research to create a searchable database of relevant case law regarding discrimination cases.  The mayor’s student assistant again organized a neighborhood clean-up day in the spring involving dozens of Earlham students working with city workers and volunteers.  This day of service is becoming an annual all-campus activity and grew significantly in visibility and participation due to the hard work of a sophomore Bonner Scholar.

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Campus-Wide Culture and Infrastructure 

 

Last fall Earlham’s Center for Service learning and Career Development was renamed the BonnerCenter for Service and Vocation.  The dedication activities and Wayne Meisel’s presence helped heighten awareness across campus of the department’s mission and its commitment to engaging all students, faculty and staff to some degree. 

 

The BCSV’s internship coordinator is working with faculty across campus to develop some consistency between the internship experiences required or permitted by many majors.  In addition, many Earlham professors continue to incorporate service components into their courses as an important source of learning for students.  For example, students in a sociology course on aging volunteered at several sites in Richmond which serve elders, and students in a psychology class assisted with recreational programs at a residential treatment facility for adolescent boys with significant mental and behavioral disabilities. 

 

The Bonner program works closely with both admissions and financial aid in the recruitment and selection process.  Teaching faculty, academic advisers and coaches Aare generally aware of their students who are also Bonner Scholars.  Bonner staff is consulted and is able to consult appropriately with colleagues when, for example, a particular student is struggling to fulfill all of his or her commitments.  As a department within Earlham’s student Development Division, the BCSV also benefits from opportunities to consult and collaborate with colleagues in residence life, student activities and multicultural affairs.  

 

The historic election of 2008 provided an opportunity for widespread civic engagement.  The Informed Citizen Project, supported by a grant from the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation, offered Earlham students channels for both education and participation.  The debates, election night and the inauguration all played to standing room only crowds.  Each debate was followed by a panel of faculty who shared their observations and analysis and answered questions.  Faculty from the politics department created a web site with links to nonpartisan sources of information on candidates and issues and information about voting.  A number of students helped with a variety of voter registration activities on campus and in the community with training and support provided by Bonner staff.  Registration was particularly challenging on our campus because our student body comes from 44 states and 71 countries.  The students registered over 100 voters.  Following the inauguration, other faculty panels and speakers on campus specifically addressed policy challenges facing the new administration, helping to keep the high level of interest brought about by the election going. 

  

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Serve 2.0 

 

The Bonner Center for Service and Vocation and the Bonner Scholars Program have pages on the official Earlham web site which provide current students, alumni, prospective Bonner Scholars  and faculty with information and resources.  In the past year, internship resources have been significantly developed.

 

This past year a good deal of development was done for Bonner Scholars using Moodle internal courseware.  Calendars, newsletters, the Bonner handbook and the service opportunity directory were all posted here for easy access by Bonner Scholars.  New Bonners used Moodle to submit journal entries and other assignments.

 

Bonner staff experimented with various methods for providing electronic forms.  Some had problems for the users such as Google Documents and Adobe PDF forms.  At the end of the academic year staff settled on Survey Monkey as the best way to collect information previously submitted on paper forms.  Survey Monkey forms have been designed and began to be used with summer service in 2009.

 

Bonner staff collected many useful summer service links in Delicious and posted a link to the links in Moodle.  This seems like a great way to give students access to this information, and the links can be updated whenever a new, useful resource is encountered online. 

 

We are excited about developing a more robust online presence utilizing web 2.0 tools to facilitate communication and service.  At the same time, we recognize some challenges since new tools and sites are constantly emerging, and it can be difficult to decide what will best meet our needs without becoming too disparate or having to create repetitious content.  In the coming year, however, we plan to make significant advances in the ways we interact with and support our community partners, students and prospective Bonner Scholars using web 2.0 tools.

 

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Campus Issue Profiles

  

Due to time constraints we have not been able to complete a campus issue brief.