Rhodes College 2009 Annual Report

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2009 ANNUAL REPORT OF PROGRAM ACTIVITIES

Student Development

Bonners at Rhodes grow through their four years along the Bonner Developmental Model. Through the unique learning environment formed by a community of students committed to service, the resources of community partners and the utilization of unique cultural institutions in Memphis, we move students from compassion and idealism to a mature and sustained commitment to people and issues in the world.

First Year: Exploration

A program orientation held prior to the start of the freshman year includes:

Welcome dinner with parents and families
Icebreakers and team builders
Overview of the Bonner Program and the Bonner Foundation
Scholarship requirements
Introduction to service opportunities
Introduction to Rhodes faculty members and service learning
Entering Student Survey

Freshman class weekly meetings on topics including

Opportunities within the service community
Memphis and its communities
Diversity
Time Management
Personality Assessments
Social justice and citizenship
Personal values and consensus building

*Optional meetings will include:

Kinney service programming
Memphis service programming
Other training and enrichment opportunities
Participate in Service Reflection groups

Other Meetings:

One-on-one meetings with program staff member held twice a semester
Choose a primary service site by the end of the academic year
Shadow older Scholars at service sites

Second Year: Experience

Sophomore Workshops are held each semester on leadership topics and how they relate to service commitment. Topics include Advocacy, the Social Change Model and Reflective Leadership.
Main hours and projects are focused on a particular area or service site
Participate in trainings specific to scholar’s work at primary service site in order to develop skills and receive certifications that are necessary
Advisory committee composed of faculty member, community partner representative, Bonner staff member meet once per semester to evaluate progress.
Invite new Scholars to shadow at primary service site.

Third Year: Action and Research

Programs on career and vocation including:
- Career planning
- Developing a personal mission statement of life-long service learning
Take a leadership position at service sites and/or campus organizations
Participate in internships that relate to primary areas of service
Invite new Scholars to shadow at primary service site

Fourth Year: Application and Analysis

Senior Dinners are held each semester with the featured speaker being an individual who has made a significant impact within their community.

Seniors will spend time reflecting. Their activities will include:

o Writing letters to influential people in their lives

o Presentation of learning and community impact

Complete an Exit Survey
Continue to hold campus and community leadership positions
Share experiences and expertise with younger Scholars
Senior Presentations offer a capstone experience.

Sophomore Exchange: We traveled to Tougaloo College in Jackson to meet with their very first Bonner Leader group. Our Bonners offered their experience of integrating service and training/enrichment with studies.

Serve 2.0

Our senior intern (Cord Mclean) took the lead on the Bonner video project this year. We decided together to assign one video to each class. We spent an hour during our spring retreat brainstorming ideas for the project and making concrete plans for completing the project by March 2, which was the deadline for every group. Cord kept in regular contact with the designated leader of each group, and we received all of our videos by the deadline.

Additionally, this year we developed a Bonner blog specifically for use during Bonner recruitment. We had a few students submit informal entries about themselves and their service work. The blog did not get as much use as we originally envisioned, but we think it is a step in the right direction, and that we will continue it next year, incorporating a bit more planning into just how it will work.

Implementation of Community Partnerships

We have a yearly community partner event where we invite our strongest partners to campus. This provides them with an opportunity to network with one another, and it provides us with a way to share in detail all of the ways that we can partner with their agencies (Bonners, work-study, academic internships, summer internships, regular volunteers, paid opportunities). We have attached our Community Partner Handbook to give you a sense of the material we cover at this meeting. One of our key goals at this meeting is to explain the Bonner developmental model and to encourage our partners to think about going deeper with their students in terms of the level of meaningful work they offer.

This year we will have an Americorps VISTA member in our office. One of her projects is to meet with all of our agencies one-on-one to further discuss how Rhodes students can best meet the needs of the agencies, and how the agencies can provide the best possible opportunities for our students. We hope that these meetings will further highlight some of our partners with whom we need to form a closer connection.

View our Community Partner Handbookrevised.doc

This handbook contains the following helpful information:

· The Student Development Model explaining a placement opportunity at levels 1-4, in accordance with the Bonner model.

· List of skills students should develop at placements

· Above Suspicion Policy

· Informed Consent Guide

· Guide to Handling Problems

· Explanation of a Community Learning Agreement

· Volunteer Retention Tips

· Student Performance Evaluation

Campus-Wide Culture and Infrastructure

The Bonner Center for Faith and Service is part of Student Services at Rhodes. Serving as the primary link between the college and the many community projects that define Rhodes’ dynamic city/campus relationship, it includes the Kinney Program, Bonner Scholars Program, Chaplain's Office and Office of Community Service. The Bonner Center works closely with the Office of College Relations to facilitate student involvement in externally-funded projects like the Rhodes Learning Corridor (RLC). With the development of the Rhodes Fellowship initiative, described below, the college also plans to establish a Fellowships Office. This office will work closely with the Bonner Center, Buckman Center for International Education and Career Services Office to expand partnerships both locally and internationally.

Connection of Community-Based Learning to the Rhodes Vision

Community-based learning and engagement are fundamental to the Rhodes Vision. It states the college’s desire to “graduate students with…a compassion for others and the ability to translate academic study and personal concern into effective leadership and action in their communities and the world.” To realize the Rhodes Vision, the college has identified four key imperatives, with the third (Student Engagement) articulating a commitment “to enhance student opportunities for learning in Memphis.” In addition, the recently implemented Foundations Curriculum makes community engagement an integral part of a Rhodes education. Foundation 11 (“F11”) requires each student to “participate in activities that broaden connections between the classroom and the world.” The college catalogue lists which degree requirements a particular course fulfills, including those that fulfill the F11 requirement.

Recognizing the community engagement aspect of many courses was a motivating factor in moving to the Foundations Curriculum. According to Rhodes’ 2006 National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) data, approximately 15-20% of our courses already have a community-based dimension. Data from the 2006 Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE) indicate that approximately 14% of faculty members include a community-based project in one or more of the courses they teach. The college’s Senior Exit Survey indicates that more than 80% of Rhodes students engage in some form of community service while they are at the college.

Rhodes has nearly 100 formal partnerships with community organizations that provide internships, volunteer opportunities and other experiential learning for students. This compliance report considers both curricular and co-curricular service opportunities, which are all recognized as community-based learning at Rhodes.

Types of Community Service

As part of the process for its re-accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the Rhodes community adopted “Rhodes Fellowships: Linking Education and Practice” as its Quality Enhancement Project (QEP). In preparation, a committee identified more than 1,000 current student activities outside of the classroom (over a four-year period) that might satisfy the requirements for a Fellowship. These community-based learning opportunities are defined as “activities outside the classroom that complement and broaden the student’s program of liberal arts education.” They focus on (1) research, (2) community/civic engagement, (3) study abroad, (4) creative activities and/or (5) student work/internships. All participants do reflective work and experience personal and social development as well as academic enrichment.

This Fellowships program, formerly known as the Scholarships-to-Fellowships initiative, grew partly out of the Bonner Scholars Program outstanding ability to develop students’ servant-leadership. Other Fellowship-type programs have also demonstrated success in enhancing student learning while improving student recruitment and persistence. They include the St. Jude Summer Plus Program and Rhodes Institute for Regional Studies (research), Robert Buckman Fellowships (study abroad), the Center for Outreach in the Development of the Arts (CODA), Mertie Buckman International Internships and Rhodes Student Associates Program.

The QEP is designed to build on these previous successes with experiential learning while supporting five student learning outcomes. These outcomes, each correlating with a component of the well-established NSSE scale, are: (1) integration of factual knowledge, fundamental principles and/or specific skills learned in the classroom with the Fellowship activity (NSSE: higher order thinking); (2) strengthening of analytical or creative abilities toward establishment of a professional identify (NSSE: gains in practical competence); (3) participatory, collaborative and/or team-oriented learning (NSSE: active and collaborative learning); (4) personal and social development (NSSE: gains in personal and social development); and (5) development of critical reflection skills (NSSE: reflective learning).

Another hub for community service is the Kinney Program at Rhodes. Established in 1956, the Kinney Program is the primary driver of student volunteerism. Ten student coordinators—each responsible for a particular area of service—provide Kinney’s leadership. In addition, many Rhodes students have taken the initiative to start new service programs under the umbrella of larger initiatives like the Rhodes Learning Corridor (RLC). In collaboration with neighborhood stakeholders, four nearby public schools and other community and educational organizations, the RLC seeks to:

Create teaching, research and civic engagement opportunities for Rhodes students and faculty through programs integrated into Rhodes curricular and co-curricular activities;
Create and sustain mutually respectful and beneficial ongoing partnerships leading to a healthy, clean, safe and vibrant community in the neighborhoods adjacent to campus;
Improve teaching, learning, interest and performance at Learning Corridor partner institutions and encourage life-long learning among all partners.

The RLC facilitates positive changes in the community while providing multiple beyond-the-classroom learning opportunities for K-16 students. Rhodes students, faculty and staff focus their efforts in four key areas: capacity building, community renewal, community health and opportunities for youth. On campus, various academic and student organizations facilitate programming. Off campus, our community-based partnership office serves as a hub for community connections among residents and various partners. Facilitated initially by two federally funded grants, the RLC has since received additional public and private support from both national and local funders.

Since its inception, RLC has involved more than 1400 students in tutoring, mentoring, research and evaluation or service-related events in Midtown North, a struggling neighborhood just north of the Rhodes campus. The latter range from one-day clean-up projects or community celebrations to long-term commitments like rehabilitating an apartment complex or establishing the weekly Healthy Thursday meals and a thriving community garden. Students have also worked on the Crossroads to Freedom project, which links a digital archive on the Civil Rights era in the Mid-South to community engagement and education. Approximately 40 faculty and staff have made commitments to the RLC. In addition to teaching service-learning courses and mentoring students, they serve in capacity-building roles by mentoring community residents and business owners and by helping to establish some 30 ongoing community-based organizations.