Troubled youth mentored by RU Psychology students

Inspiration, hope for the future, and much-needed interactions were provided for boys and girls on Wednesday, Oct. 24, at Uhlich Children’s Advantage Network in Chicago.

Located at 3730 North California Ave., UCAN provides residential housing for troubled youths who have faced physical or sexual abuse, have been neglected by parents or face mental illness. Youth can reside at the facility up until age 19 and in some cases until they’re 21 years old, according to UCAN officials.

“UCAN strives to build strong youth and families through compassionate healing, education and empowerment,” according to its website.

An Affirmative statement is given for each week’s mentoring session. This week’s statement was:
“I truly believe that my haters are my motivators because they wish they were me but can’t be” - Nicki Minaj

The program, BoutIt, stands for Bringing Out Unity  Through Interactive Transition. The course, ACP 250, is cross-listed with a psychology course titled “Youth Violence Intervention and Theory.”
Approximately 35 mentors and their mentees sat down together on Wednesday to discuss how the day went and if any issues came up before starting the session’s activities.

Dr. Melissa Sisco, the Roosevelt professor who teaches the course, has 15 years of experience in dealing with at-risk youth and has mentored imprisoned youth for four years. Sisco provided the student mentors with a rundown of what the activities would be for the day.

Sisco said that it took students from business and psychology majors to put this program together and she is thankful for the transformations she has witnessed in the past six weeks. Spencer Scott and Carlo Villarosa are students who led the boys’ and girls’ sides of the room, respectively.

Sisco said young people like Darnell Owens, Spencer Scott, Chase Zvonek and Carlo Villarosa helped to create the foundation for the BoutIt mentorship program and truly bring it to life.  And they all bring different types of expertise with undergraduate backgrounds in  business, education, accounting, and psychology.

”We found a way to allow RU students to learn about violence through critical thinking and comparisons of research and real world topics,” Sisco said, “and to learn problem solving, making goals, and creating change through practicing it.”

Pamela Wilson, UCAN’s residential therapeutic recreation coordinator, said the most common issue with these kids is having trouble in school and not following the program in terms of treatment plans. Treatment plans refer to taking medication and participating in therapy sessions. There are 62 boys and girls aged 12 to 17 who are currently housed at UCAN.

“We’ll take a kid who has poor social skills, struggling psychologically, struggling educationally, and struggling behavior wise, and we design a treatment plan for them,” Wilson said.

“It is hard to chart the progress because we have a wide range of kids with a wide range of issues,” she said.

Spencer Scott and Brenda Lara, who led the girls’ mentoring, agreed that the girls open up more easily and are more laid back than the boys. Even though Scott is the only boy on the girls’ side, he lets Lara do most of the leading.

“I don’t do any of the actual leading because I thought it was important that it’s very female led for the females,” Scott said.

Scott and Lara said that support is provided for the girls during activities every Wednesday and that the girls have opened up to the student mentors.

Leading the boys’ side are Darnell Owens and Carlo Villarosa. They said the boys have a harder time opening up and are separated from the girls  because, often times, they will try to impress members of the opposite gender.

“Boys are rambunctious, and they just like to be actively doing something; and talking isn’t actively doing something,” said Villarosa.

“I wouldn’t say a bad experience, but a little challenging because we have a few children with behavioral problems and special needs,” said Owens, when asked about his experiences in the program thus far.

Some lessons Owens said he would like to pass on to the boys are, “You can’t change the past, but you can change the future,” and we are “empowering our students to be a difference in young people’s lives.”

Villarosa and Owens both said that mentoring these boys has not only changed the youth for the better but also created created a positive change for classmates as well. They both described BoutIt as a “dual-learning experience.”

For more information about this transformational program, please contact Dr. Melissa Sisco at (520) 977-6485 or msisco01@roosevelt.edu.

From the Roosevelt University Torch (10/29/2012)

Learning through mentoring, consulting, and current events

This fall Dr. Amy Roberts, an assistant professor of developmental psychology at Roosevelt University, is asking RU graduate students to engage in service-learning by helping Chicago community members answer questions like:

• Are there gender differences in littering behavior?
• How are relationships between employees and their supervisors influenced by a strike?
• How can local manufacturers best attract and retain quality employees?

Dr. Roberts got the idea to offer Advanced Research Methods (PSYC 530) as a service-learning course when she was mentoring an 8th grader with the Spark program (http://www.sparkprogram.org/). Spark is a national program that matches youth with mentors working in the careers of their choice for apprenticeships.  Dr. Roberts realized that she was covering many of the major topics addressed in her research methods courses through this mentorship with an 8th grader interested in psychology research. She thought students could learn about social science research through meaningful service to Chicago communities.  

Learning through mentoring

Graduate students pursuing MAs in clinical psychology are introducing Chicago area students to social science research by guiding them through conducting social science research projects. Twelve RU graduate students visit students once a week to help them articulate questions about human behavior and design methods for answering them. This mentoring has been made possible through partnerships with the Spark program and visionary teachers at Enrico Fermi Elementary, Crete-Monee High and St. Albert schools. These mentorships enable graduate students pursuing a Masters in clinical psychology to apply the research methods concepts discussed in class while gaining experience guiding children in working through challenging questions.  

Learning through researching current events

The recent teacher strike interrupted students’ mentorship projects, but also provided opportunities to ask new research questions. A small group of psychology graduate students who had not yet started projects with youth at local schools decided instead to study issues related to the Chicago Teacher’s Union strike. Students will be exploring teacher’s feelings about the strike, how relationships between teachers and administrators have been impacted by the strike, and how the experience of this particular labor strike compares to that of workers involved in other recent Chicago area strikes. These graduate students are applying research methods to answering pertinent questions while gaining experience working with labor communities following difficult changes in relationships relate to the strike.  

Learning through consulting

A third group of psychology graduate students pursuing MA in Industrial and Organizational psychology are working with Polyair, a local company who’s human resources manager, Juliana Lopez, is a Roosevelt University I/O Psychology Masters alum. These students will be helping Polyair to improve their procedures for recruitment and retention of high quality employees. This community partnership was supported by the Organizational Effectiveness Consulting Center of the Psychology Department at Roosevelt University. Graduates planning work in industrial and organizational psychology are learning to bridge research and practice while making important connections with local business.

Roosevelt Wins Civic Engagement Award

I am delighted to inform you that Roosevelt University’s commitment to service learning and civic engagement was recognized by the Washington Center which selected the University as a recipient of the 2012 Higher Education Civic Engagement Award. Roosevelt is one of five universities or colleges in the country to receive the award from more than 89 schools which competed for the honor. The other winners are California State University San Bernardino, Columbia College in South Carolina, Tulane University and the University of San Francisco.

Professor Steve Meyers and I will accept the award on behalf of Roosevelt University at a luncheon in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 1.

The award provides $20,000 in scholarship funds that will allow Roosevelt students to access the Center’s exceptional internship programs. The Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars provides selected students challenging opportunities to work and learn in Washington for academic credit. The largest program of its kind, the Washington Center has 70 full-time staff and more than 50,000 alumni, many of whom are in leadership positions in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.

The selection committee was impressed with Roosevelt’s dramatic growth in service learning and the community engagement activities spearheaded by the Mansfield Institute for Social Justice and Transformation. During the past academic year, 1,460 Roosevelt students participated in one of 99 service learning classes. Faculty, students, and community partners have collaborated to address a wide array of social challenges that focus on areas such as urban education, environmental toxins, immigration, homeless youth, literacy and domestic violence.

This award recognizes the importance of service learning at Roosevelt. Congratulations to everyone at the University who has been involved in this great accomplishment.

Chuck Middleton, President

"Change Agents," an article in the latest Roosevelt Review

Click here to download "Change Agents," by Laura Janota in the latest issue of Roosevelt Review.  This article describes how transformational learning is being used in exciting ways throughout the university.  It profiles one innovative partnership we have established with Morrill Elementary School to increase the use of restorative justice instead of punitive discipline measures like suspensions and expulsions.

The download also includes a follow-up article, "Through their Eyes" that describes how Professor Tammy Oberg De La Garza takes a unique approach in her research and service learning outreach about literacy among Latino elementary students.

2012-2013 Grant Recipients Announced

We are pleased to announce the recipients of the Mansfield Institute's grant program for transformational learning, supported by the McCormick Tribune Foundation.  These faculty members will be able to purchase materials and needed equipment, hire an undergraduate or graduate level teaching assistant, or facilitate transportation to help them implement transformational service learning during the upcoming year.

We were able to distribute $28,000 in this cycle to support innovative uses of service learning that will allow students to develop a deeper understanding of class concepts by their outreach in the community.  Roosevelt University students in these classes, for example, will outreach urban youth to provide "street law" presentations, partner with local schools to promote restorative justice practices, collaborate with environmental organizations as part of science classes, and interview and assist immigrants in Chicago.

Congratulations to this year's awardees:

Catherine Campbell (Psychology)
PSYC 520 - Basic Clinical Skills

Tammy Oberg De La Garza (Education)
READ 320 - Teaching Reading in Elementary Schools
READ 323- Teaching Reading through Children's Literature

Melissa Sisco (Psychology)
ACP 250 - Grounds for Change / PSYC 250 - Youth Violence: Interventions and Theory
PSYC 382 - Psychology of Mentorship

W. Aaron Shoults-Wilson (Biological, Chemical, and Physical Sciences)
PHSC 105 - Introduction to Environmental Science
BIOL 112 - Environmental Biology

Amy Roberts and Kim Dienes (Psychology)
PSYC 254 - Childhood and Adolescence

Sofia Dermisi and Jon DeVries (Finance and Real Estate)
REES 493 - Urban Sustainability

Heather Dalmage and Alfred DeFreece (Sociology)
SOC 327/427 - Race and Ethnic Relations
SOC 381 - Youth, Race, and Culture

Mike Bryson (Sustainability Studies)
SUST 350 - Service and Sustainability

Priscilla Archibald (Literature and Languages)
ACP 250 - Grounds for Change / SPAN 252 - Immigration Today

Steve Balkin (Economics)
ECON 213 - Crime, Economics, and Urban Life

Chicago celebration of transformational learning

On April 19th, the Mansfield Institute for Social Justice and Transformation held a celebration for transformational learning and the scholar activist program at the downtown campus.  The event, coordinated by Nikita Stange, AmeriCorps VISTA, was an opportunity for students and faculty to present the social justice work they have been doing in Chicago and beyond. From business to psychology and education to economics, students presented their research and service learning projects.

Nicole Comer, a teaching assistant for BAMD 398 described creating partnerships for Roosevelt students that will allow students to have social justice oriented internship opportunities in the Heller College of Business. 

Heather Dalmage and two of her students, Amanda Warren and Greg Fuller, described their experiences at Morrill Elementary School.  Their sociology class learned about restorative justice and participated in Peace Circles and student mentoring while fulfilling their transformational learning course requirement. Both Amanda and Greg both continued to volunteer at the school after their class was finished. Amanda said, “There is a huge difference between learning about injustice and actually seeing it.”  Kristina Peterson also had students from her Clinical Mental Health Counseling Course at Morrill in Spring 2012, and Alfred DeFreece will have sociology students there in the Fall 2012.  Leslie Bloom from the College of Education also had her students involved with school disciplinary practices.  Through the scholar activist program, she and her students examined how community organizations implement restorative justice programs in the Chicago Public Schools.  They were able to prepare a report that their community organization partners (COFI) can use in the future to secure funding.

Also in the realm of education, Tammy Oberg De La Garza used transformational learning and partnered with the Logan Square Neighborhood Association. Her students mentored Latino students and implemented “best practice” instructional methodologies.  Her students created videos that highlighted their experiences working with children.

Peter Lee, Corrie Harris, and Nicole Farr described how they learned about the issues behind the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, from the perspective of business and stock traders to individuals working with the Occupy group.  They expressed enthusiasm at having had a chance to better understand an issue they knew little about and found the experience rewarding. 

Joseph Bulter and Alex Atkins presented on their work with the Young Men’s Educational Network (YMEN) where they assisted boys in North Lawndale.  Through their work, they were able to make connections with the young men with the hopes of preparing them to become leaders. 

Students from Lisa Lu’s PSYC 310 course described their experiences trying to teach neuroscience to middle school students.  They expressed initial nervousness about being the leader in the classroom, but found the experience rewarding, especially since they were able to all work together towards one common goal: to deliver a science lesson.  The students were successful in their presentations as the school remarked that they loved having the Roosevelt students there.

Katie Copenhaver’s LIBS 201 class worked with nonprofits in helping build communication and marketing materials.  They conducted organizational assessments that allowed them to better understand the partner organizations.  One group worked with the Mansfield Institute to help categorize their social justice related materials.  Terry Pernell remarked that the experience taught him that at RU “we actually practice social justice not just preach it.”  Through their research and subsequent reports, students not only provided valuable help to the organizations but also strengthened their writing and research skills.

Transformational learning in Spring 2012

As the Spring 2012 semester comes to a close, we are happy to a few of the innovative ways in which Roosevelt University faculty members used transformational learning in their classes.

See photos from Mike Bryson's course in Sustainability Studies in which his students partnered with Growing Power Youth Corps to work together at the Chicago Lights Urban Farm.  

You can also learn how students in Lisa Lu's course ("Fundamentals of Behavioral Neuroscience" taught lessons about the brain to 7th and 8th graders at the Young Women's Leadership Charter School as part of Brain Awareness Week 2012.

These are wonderful testimonials to how transformational learning can make a difference in the lives of Roosevelt University students as well as the youth involved in these outreach efforts.

As a whole, transformational learning continues to grow at the university.  In total, we offered 99 transformational learning courses in 2011-2012 with an enrollment of 1,460 students.  This is a three-fold increase compared to just two years ago.  If you're interested in learning how to use transformational learning in your own classes, please feel free to contact the Mansfield Institute staff -- we'd be happy to help.