Campus Visit Proposal
Introduction:
Last spring, the Oberlin College Bonner Scholars class of 2012 participated in a Sophomore Exchange with Earlham College and DePauw University. This was the first time most of the Oberlin Bonners were able to collaborate and work with another Bonner school. The Sophomore Exchange provides the opportunity for Bonner Scholars to become aware of the vast network that constitutes the Bonner Scholars Program. Scholars also learn about the many diverse areas that Bonner schools are located in. Although environments may change, all Bonners face similar difficulties, each school addressing such difficulties in their own unique way.
During SLI, summer 2010, I had the opportunity to reacquaint myself with students from both Earlham and DePauw, as well as leaders and directors from all over the country. I began to realize that Oberlin College is geographically isolated within the Bonner Network and felt that we, as a school, need to reach out in order to foster stronger relationships with other Bonner Schools within our region.
When it came time to select a Big Idea project, Oberlin decided to plan and organize regional campus visits. These visits are intended to enhance the relationship between Oberlin and other regional schools and allow for collaboration between schools. My Winter Term project this year was focused on planning and organizing Bonner ideas and events, with a primary focus on the Big Idea. Before further planning went into our Big Idea project, I travelled to Princeton to meet with Ari, Kelly, and Michael. I was given a tremendous amount of feedback, suggestions, and resources. Our hope is to create a public format for campus visits that all Bonner schools can utilize when considering a campus visit.
Project:
Objective: Produce a format for campus visits and execute at least one visit before the
end of the semester, spring 2011.
Oberlin will visit at least one regional school before the end of spring 2011. Due to our geographic isolation, the opportunities for collaboration have been limited to our Sophomore Exchanges and national conferences. We would like to visit another Bonner campus with the intention of learning about their program, school, and community. It is our hope to create a stronger working relationship with each school we visit, so we can continue to be resources for one another in the future.
Goal 1: Allow Bonners the opportunity to visit other Bonner Schools to meet
Bonners outside their community.
- Giving Bonners the opportunity to meet one another will allow Bonners to understand the size of our national network. Campus visits would not only allow Bonners to see the variety of people that make up the Bonner network, but they would also see that despite their vast differences, Bonners have an uncanny ability to get along and work together.
Goat 2: Learn about each others programs and how each school
can become a resource for one another.
- Similar guidelines steer each Bonner program, yet each operates in different ways. We hope to exchange methods and best practices among schools during our campus visits. In doing so, programs will have a variety of ideas and methods at their disposal.
Goal 3: Learn about one or two issue areas that the school works particularly
close with.
-Each Bonner School is located in a community with specific needs. Therefore, most Bonner programs have one or two issue areas that they focus on. It is our hope that each school will elaborate on their efforts and initiatives that they, as a Bonner Program, school, and community, have implemented. This would include student evaluations, student reflections, and a possible site visit for each issue area. Information gathered from our visit could then be implemented into Oberlin’s specific issue areas.
-Discussing issue areas addresses one of the Bonner Programs six civic engagement activities: Issues to Impact. The concepts of capacity building and convening will be focused on during these discussions. Each school will explain their strategic plan for their initiatives; they will explain the who, what, where, when, and how of how their initiatives were developed. The campus visits can be considered working groups. While meeting, each school can will be able to share their ideas and experiences surrounding the issue area being discussed. The exchange of ideas will allows each side to gain new knowledge and ideas to expand and develop the work on the issue area.
Goal 4: Begin planning long and short term goals so we can continue being
resources for one another.
- During each visit we plan to focus attention on continued communication with one another so we can continue to be resources for one another. Planning short and long term goals will set the groundwork for schools to use when they begin to implement further communication or goals. The goals could be broad, like keeping in touch through e-mail or Skype; or they could also be more elaborate, like planning a sophomore exchange or mini-conference around the issue area discussed during the visit.
Goal 5: Create video and written resources to recap the visits.
-We would like to create videos during the campus visits. These videos would help the schools remember the discussions and provide a resource that could be shared across the network. The video would include information about the school, the issue area discussed, and any other Bonner activities taking place in or around their campus.
-Oberlin would like to create a binder chronicling each school visit. The students involved in the campus visits would be responsible for writing a review of the visit, including information about the school, its Bonner program, their issue area, goals, and any other pertinent information. Students would also submit a personal reflections of their experience. This binder would then act as a resource future Oberlin Bonners to gain information for potential projects and initiatives.
Potential goal: Create a format/system for conducting long distance campus
visits.
- Considering Bonner Schools are often hundreds of miles away form one another, it would be beneficial t for us to conduct “video visits.” It would be impractical for Oberlin students to drive to New Jersey to learn about a profound idea that their Bonners have developed. Therefore, setting up a system for video conferencing would allow Bonner Schools to share the same kinds of information obtained during campus visits (about their school, programs, community, issue area, etc). The digital format would in turn be shared with the greater network via the Bonner Network’s variety of web based tools.
It is my hope that Oberlin will be able to conduct at least one campus visit a semester, whether the visit be in person or video conference. I also hope that the system that I am working to create in conjunction with the Bonner Foundation will be utilized by every school, so we can work to improve communication and further strengthen the national Bonner Network.
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