Annual Report – Programmatic Section

Please complete this template below to share programmatic highlights.  The entire report can be three pages or less.  Please share information and highlights, in a letter-like or reporting format, that addresses the following three categories and provides a synopsis of your Bonner Program this year.

Implementation of Student Development: 

How did you implement the developmental model this year within your co-curricular and service activities? (suggested one page text):

1. The role of trainings, courses, & meetings 
2. First Year Trip
3. Second Year Exchange
4. Third Year (and beyond) Leadership Roles
5. Senior Capstone & Presentation of Learning

As part of Campus Life and Leadership, Cal Corps continued its formal assessment of the Bonner Leaders program in 2007-08.  Our department adopted the Social Change Model of Leadership; utilizing this “7 C’s” approach the Center assessed the program in terms of Citizenship, Collaboration, Commitment, Common Purpose, Congruence, Consciousness of Self, and Controversy with Civility.  Given this departmental assessment effort we did not adopt the Foundation’s student development model; while we did not explicitly adopt the Bonner model, in orientations, retreats, and advising sessions Cal Corps staff did work with students to assess their development needs (and strengths) and craft an Individual Development Plan (IDP) to meet these goals/needs.  Likewise, the trainings, courses, and meetings also were explicitly linked to a rubric meant to assess the student learning outcomes:

1.   Detail personal definitions of leadership, service, and justice.

2.   Lead diverse groups of people.

3.   Build healthy communities.

While the Center maintains a goal within all programs of providing a clear distinction over two years involvement, the challenge in implementing this structure is that many students cannot commit to the program for two years.  At the same time, the current structure within many of or Bonner-led programs continue to have an explicit developmental progression.  For example, within the Cal in Local Government Internship Program (formerly Cal in Berkeley) students serve as an Assistant Director in their first year as a Bonner Leader before moving into a Director position.  In addition, all returning student leaders to the program become a part of our Bonner Leaders Student Leadership Team (SLT), initiated in 2006-07.  Key responsibilities for SLT members include nominating our student representative to Bonner Congress and planning and conducting the Mid-year Retreat in January 2008.

The Center maintains a comprehensive approach to leadership development, with a well-articulated training and management structure.  In 2007-08 Cal Corps implemented an integrated leadership development plan that included end of semester reflection papers, large group events, elective workshops based on one’s IDP, small group cohort workshops, and 1:1 advising sessions.  Staff planned and conducted 2 orientations and 2 retreats specifically for Bonner Leaders throughout the year.  A seminar was offered for credit to those students who were interested.  All students were provided with a journal, as well as a binder at orientation and a newly created Volunteer Managers Handbook and updated Reflection Manual.  For the first time in 2007-08 each students was required to complete a Healthy Communities Project as a capstone to their Bonner yearlong experience; for the SLT members, their role on the SLT was this capstone project.

Implementation of Community Partnerships: 

Please share a summary of your work with community partners, touching in particular on the following categories (suggested one page text):

1. Orienting and managing community partnerships (orientation, site visits, meetings, strategic planning)
2. Partners as co-educators and other unique initiatives (including new academic linkages)
3. Integration of site-based or issue-oriented teams

In 2007-08 the Center worked intensively with 25+ community partners.  Twenty Bonner Leaders served as “Volunteer Managers” for local nonprofits, including the “Greening Berkeley” program that recruited more than 270 students for environmental clean-up projects.  Volunteer Managers also recruited, trained and managed volunteers for tutoring and mentoring programs.  Twenty-four Bonner Leaders directed Berkeley United in Literacy Development (BUILD) programs at 12 school sites, recruiting and working with more than 175 Cal tutors for K-8 youth in Berkeley and Oakland.

For both Volunteer Managers and BUILD, community partners completed a RFP in late winter 2007.  The lens through which the Center viewed long-term planning was its East Bay Neighborhood Initiative (EBNI); preference was given to programs that focused their work on one of our EBNI communities, Southwest Berkeley or Lower San Antonio-Fruitvale in Oakland.  In both cases the Cal Corps staff member that led that Bonner cohort (Dang/Voorhees: Volunteer Managers; Donovan: BUILD) led an information session for site supervisors.  Staff stayed in contact with supervisors through regular emails, and conducted at least one site visit to each site in the course of the year.  Site supervisors completed performance-based appraisals of Bonner Leaders and managed their day-to-day work.

Several of these sites have served as partners for several years; direct supervisors or points of contact, these community members served as co-educators on a day-to-day basis.  During the spring and fall – both for the Bonner Leaders program itself and for participants in Bonner-led programs – community members served as workshop presenters, panelists, and speakers.  While we did not replicate our February 2007 community partner summit, we did invite partners to celebrate with us at the end of the programming year.

In the coming year we have sorted out BUILD from the Bonner Leaders program; instead it will be a stand-alone program separate from Bonner.  We have plans to collaborate with 13 Volunteer Managers Sites (for a total of 20 Bonners); these 20 Volunteer Managers will form their own cohort and will work closely with the nonprofit Berkeley School Volunteers at 10 sites.  While last year we did not have a method of assessing the developmental nature of placements, in August 2008 we are holding what we hope will be a forerunner to a Community Advisory Group to provide us with feedback on (among other things) how we can best measure community impact.

Campus-wide Culture and Infrastructure: 

Please describe key elements and progress in the development of campus-wide infrastructure and the role of the Bonner Program in enhancing (or being enhanced by) campus-wide culture and participation in service, touching on the following (suggested one page text):

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

The Cal Corps Public Service Center at UC, Berkeley is primarily responsible for sustaining a culture of service on the UC Berkeley campus.  Founded in 1967, the Cal Corps Public Service Center’s mission is to engage the University and the community in reciprocal partnerships to create educational programs for students, to promote leadership through service, and to foster social justice and civic engagement.

The most important development this year has been the Center Director’s appointment to work directly under Vice-Chancellor for Student Affairs Harry LeGrande and Vice-Provost for Undergraduate Education Christina Maslach to conduct a landscape scan and offer recommendations regarding deepening the campus commitment to service.  Her work will involve leading conversations among upper-level campus administrators and faculty members to bring the work of Cal Corps under a larger center that also would include faculty and departmental involvement in the surrounding community.  One tangible result already has been the launch of the Berkeley Engaged Scholars Initiative (BESI), which already has selected 10 faculty members with whom to partner student leaders to assist them in incorporating community need and social action into their course offerings. 

Current collaboration with key departments is dynamic; as one example, in the past year we partnered with a faculty member within the American Cultures course that exposed each of her 200 students to a local neighborhood through service-learning experiences and community-based research.  Faculty engaged in service-learning continues to be random and voluntary, with no rewards offered to faculty members who do engage in these types of courses.

Service-learning takes many forms at UC Berkeley.  The academic co-curricular programs led by Bonner Leaders tap into the DECal program at UC Berkeley.  This program allows students to faciliate courses for units for their peers.  In 2007-08, Bonner Leaders designed and facilitated 5 DECal co-curricualr service-learning courses, all of which were sponsored and supported by a faculty member.  In total, 156 students enrolled in these DECal courses, the overwhelming majority of whom received passing grades.  The service learning courses that emanated from the Cal Corps office had a social action component to them, either a policy-focused internship (Cal in Local Governemnt), hands on direct service with a local community action agency (Social Issues, Social Action), or week-long immersion project (Alternative Breaks).  Cal in the Capital, whose DECal took place in the spring term, prepared students for summer internships in the nation’s capital.

This past year Cal Corps successfully built on its co-curricular offerings to include policy research within a community-based research (CBR) model.  Through a second-year Learn and Serve grant from Princeton University the Center further integrated this pedagogy into its Cal in Local Government program.  The Center’s involvement in this initiative has led us to further explore our own service paradigm and offer recourse sheets for students considering integrating their service pursuits into their academic work.

One direct outcome from both CBR grant and Bonner Leader-supported programs is our expansion of this work in founding a New Orleans semester-long exchange/internship program.  Students will enroll at the University of New Orleans; the Dean of our departments has met with the Vice-Provost at UNO, and plans are moving forward to negotiate an exchange program between the two schools, to roll out in fall 2009.  The foundation of this program will be a 20-hour/week internship focusing on a CBR project of value to the host agency.  (The Center placed 8 interns with 6 Community Advisory Group sites in a pilot program in summer 2008.)  Each of these students will be sponsored by a faculty ember so as to earn credit for the internship, thus carry a full course load and still qualify for financial aid.

In terms of inter-campus collaboration, our Center plans to host at least four other Bay Area Bonner schools during our January 2009 Leadership Symposium.  This will be a follow-up to the moderately successful meeting during February 2008.

Finally, we continue to engage the campus for a commitment to raise funds for service scholarships.  The campus has allocated two development officers to work within our division to raise money for stipends for scholarships, particularly around paid internships.  There have been several promising leads thus far.