Students spend their spring break fixing homes in Indiana community hit hard by recession

Instead of driving to Florida or jetting to Mexico, a group of Roosevelt University students spent spring break helping others in an unusual destination – Goshen, Ind. Dedicated to the University’s social justice mission, 10 students traveled to Goshen March 11-17 to fix up vacant homes with the not-for-profit group, La Casa, Inc. 

Undergraduates Mooni Abdus-Salam, Samantha Benduha, Molly Connor, Marius Cuciulan, Traci Gilbert, Chelsea Morrison, Hannah Pilla, Kevin Stefanowski, Bailey Swinney and Emilie Wilkie were busy every day of their break making repairs, including indoor remodeling, roofing and landscaping, on homes that La Casa makes available to low and moderate-income residents.
 
”Community service has always been important to me,” said Morrison, an undergraduate political science major who was part of the Center for Student Involvement ‘s third annual Alternative Break Immersion trip. “It’s particularly important when you help people who can’t make do for themselves,” she said.

In 2010, a group of Roosevelt students spent their spring break helping at a community center in a small West Virginia town.  In 2011, Roosevelt students went to work at Benton House, a community center in in Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood.  This year, volunteers chose to help in Elkhart County’s Goshen, Ind., which has been hard hit by the recession, including foreclosures and unemployment, due in large part to the collapse of its RV manufacturing industry.

“We took the trip to help out people who have fallen on hard times,” said Katherine Mason, the Roosevelt career counselor who led student volunteers in fixing three La Casa properties.  “It was an eye-opening experience to see how badly a small town like Goshen has suffered,” she said.

Hannah Pilla, an undergraduate English major who has participated in all three Alternative Break Immersion excursions and who helped organize the trip to Goshen, said the experience was labor intensive but very humbling.

“Every time I go on these trips, I realize I’m a lot more fortunate than many people,” said Pilla. “When you see someone who doesn’t have a place to live, it makes you feel lucky and good about yourself that you can do something to help,” she said.

Abdas-Salam, a Chicago resident who also was part of the Alternative Break Immersion trip last year, said the Indiana excursion was rewarding in part because it opened her eyes to problems that families face in semi-rural areas.

“I learned to get along with different types of people and it was great to help these families with painting, roofing, gardening and a lot of other things that needed to be done,” said Abdas-Salam, who wants to enter the not-for-profit field after graduating in 2013.

During the trip, students also spent time working at a home for recovering drug addicts and individuals with disabilities. They were assisted in their volunteer work by student volunteers from Boston University and by prison inmates doing community service. The group also had the opportunity to have dinner with members of the area’s Amish community.

Bailey Swinney, an undergraduate sociology major who went on the trip, said one of the best experiences was taking a tour after working hours in downtown Goshen where a guide from La Casa showed the group how volunteer efforts over time have helped Goshen regain its economic footing. “I loved having the opportunity to put social justice theories discussed in Roosevelt’s different classes into action,” said Swinney.

The trip gave Emily Wilkie, an undergraduate majoring in sociology and women’s and gender studies, a fresh, hands-on perspective on what it means to be homeless, addicted and/or disabled.

“I learned a lot from the open and honest discussion members of our group had.  It was truly an amazing experience and I would recommend it to anyone thinking about attending the Alternative Spring Break Immersion trip next year,” she said.

Grants to Support Transformational Service-Learning

The Mansfield Institute for Social Justice and Transformation (MISJT) is pleased to announce its annual grant program to support the development, teaching, and administration of transformational service-learning courses at the university.  Grants for faculty members have a $3,000 maximum amount, and will support transformational learning classes to be offered in Fall 2012, Spring 2013, and Summer 2013.

The brief application, along with an explanation of transformational service-learning and the grant program, can be downloaded as an MS Word document at http://tinyurl.com/misjt-2012rfp

We at the Mansfield Institute are ready and able to help faculty as they prepare their grant proposals and use transformational learning. The MISJT has two web pages with related information: http://misjt.blogspot.com/ and http://roosevelt.edu/MISJT/TransformationalLearning.aspx.

Your application should be submitted as an attachment to Steven Meyers at smeyers@roosevelt.edu by Monday, April 16, 2012.  Applicants will be notified about decisions within two to three weeks of the deadline. This grant program is supported by funding from the McCormick Tribune Foundation.

What is all the buzz about transformational learning (TL), and what is TL anyway?

Students and faculty will be presenting the innovative work that connects teaching with outreach in the community.  Stop by our celebrations at both campuses in April.  Learn how social justice teaching and scholarship is leading to real change and how you can get involved next year.

Chicago Campus:

Thursday, April 18
5:00 p.m. Presentations about transformational service learning and the Scholar Activist Fellowship program in the Congress Lounge.
6:00 p.m. Reception and celebration in the Fainman Lounge.

RSVP: nstange@roosevelt.edu

Schaumburg Campus:

Friday, April 13
10:00 a.m. Presentations and discussion in Alumni Hall
11:00 a.m. Reception and celebration in Alumni Hall

RSVP: jtani@roosevelt.edu

Roosevelt University researcher and her students worked behind scenes for passage of new state law

Kathleen Kane-Willis, director of the Illinois Consortium on Drug Policy at Roosevelt University, predicted that deaths from drug overdoses in Illinois will decline thanks to a new state law, the Emergency Medical Services Access Act, which was recently signed by Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn.

“The number one reason why folks don’t call 911 is the fear of police and prosecution,” said Kane-Willis, who has been advocating with grassroots organizers since 2010 for bi-partisan passage of the new law, which gives limited immunity from prosecution to those who call 911 or who seek medical treatment in a drug overdose situation.

With its passage, Illinois becomes the fifth state in the nation (New Mexico, Washington, Connecticut and New York have approved similar legislation) to grant limited immunity to drug users who are overdosing and to those who reach out on behalf of a drug user in an overdose situation. The law protects individuals from prosecution when small amounts of most illegal substances are involved. It does not protect drug sellers or traffickers.

In Illinois, the grassroots coalition that worked for passage of the new law in 2010 and 2011 included parents who lost children to overdose, researchers, Roosevelt University students in Kane-Willis’ Drugs, Alcohol and Society class, Students for Sensible Drug Policy in Illinois and drug-treatment providers.

“We did background research and went down to Springfield to advocate for the new law,” said Clay Wallace, a Roosevelt graduate sociology major (also pictured) who was the teaching assistant for Drugs and Society, a transformational learning class. Wallace, a resident of Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, enlisted the support of his state representative, Democrat Barbara Flynn Currie, who co-sponsored the Emergency Medical Services Access Act.

“This was democracy in the making, and it showed me that lawmakers are willing to look at things on a practical level.  The bottom line is no one wants people to die from a drug overdose and our lawmakers understood that,” he said.

“I hope this new law will someday be remembered as the first in a series of policy reforms that helped lead to a substantial reduction in the lives lost due to substance abuse,” said retired Chicago Police Captain John Roberts, a resident of Homer Glen in Will County, whose 19-year-old son died of a heroin overdose. Roberts is the founder of the Heroin Epidemic Relief Organization (HERO) and a member of the broad-based coalition that worked behind the scenes for passage of the new law.

The bill’s sponsor in the Illinois House, Representative Kelly Cassidy said “Simply put, this bill will save lives.  I am thankful to the advocates who worked so hard for so many years to pass this bill.  I am particularly grateful to the parents who shared the stories of their tragic losses to raise awareness and hopefully prevent others from enduring what they have."

Promoting child literacy through transformational learning

Students in Tammy Oberg De La Garza's READ 320 collaborated with the Logan Square Neighborhood Association during Fall 2012 to promote child literacy through transformational learning.



Her students document how much they learned in compelling videos. These undergraduates describe how they not only helped others, but also how the experience affected their personal development.

Transformational Learning Update for 2011

Transformational learning anchors the university's social justice mission in the classroom, allows students to reach out into the community as part of their coursework, and helps students become engaged citizens who have the tools to promote social change.  The unique and innovative model of service learning that we have developed at Roosevelt University actively involves students in addressing social problems as it allows them to help individuals in our neighborhoods.

We are happy to share that the use of transformational learning has dramatically expanded at Roosevelt over the past two years.  Many instructors have started to use service learning as part of the Mansfield Institute's work in interrupting the "cradle to prison pipeline."  Others faculty have embraced service learning through new partnerships between the MISJT and other units at the university.

Consider this quick comparison that reflects the growth in transformational learning.  In Fall 2009, instructors offered 16 classes that included transformational learning, with a total enrollment of 169 students.  In Fall 2011, this number is now 42 sections, enrolling 623 students.

Transformational learning has been infused as an option within the general educational curriculum.  Jan Bone's section of LIBS 201 (Writing Social Justice) is one innovative illustration.  This growth has encompassed virtually all sectors of the university.

We are pleased to expand our support of social justice-oriented courses and programs within the Heller College of Business, including their social entrepreneurship undergraduate business major and MBA concentration, internship programming, and applied opportunities to address chronic social issues (such as poverty and food security) through firm-level solutions.  We are similarly happy to report that transformational learning has become emblematic of particular departments at Roosevelt: 18% of undergraduate classes offered by the Department of Psychology during Spring 2012 will have a transformational learning component.

The Mansfield Institute has been able to support this work by providing grants, teaching assistants, and guidance about how to include service learning into coursework.  We have deepened partnerships with community organizations that address social inequality to facilitate the placement process for students.  These successes reflect the dedication of Roosevelt University faculty to the social justice mission and illustrate their commitment to using effective teaching methods that help transform students into socially-conscious individuals.

Teaching Assistant Grant Recipients

We are pleased to announce the recipients of the Mansfield Institute's Teaching Assistant Grant Program for Spring 2012.  Each of these faculty members will be able to hire an undergraduate or graduate level teaching assistant to help them implement transformational service learning during the upcoming semester.

This is the second year of this highly successful program, and we are happy 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 conduct background research for Occupy Chicago, analyze the effectiveness of programs offered by the Young Men's Educational Network in North Lawndale, help a community organization develop assisted housing facilities, and assist in the afterschool programs at Whittier Elementary School in Pilsen.

Congratulations to this year's awardees:

Jan Bone (English Composition)
LIBS 201 - Writing Social Justice

Jennifer Clark (Economics)
ECON 102 - Introduction to Microeconomics

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

Melissa Sisco (Psychology)
PSYC 387 - Child Abuse and Family Violence

Fabricio Prado (History)
HIST 112 - The World since 1500

Lisa Lu (Psychology)
PSYC 310/BIOL 310 - Fundamentals of Behavioral Neuroscience

Sofia Dermisi and Jon DeVries (Finance and Real Estate)
REES 441 - Real Estate Design and Feasibility

John McDonald and Jon DeVries (Finance and Real Estate)
REES 451 - Public/Private Development

Alfred DeFreece (Sociology)
SOC 290 - The Research Process
SOC 480 - Sociological Theory and Methods

Erik Gellman (History)
HIST/SOCJ 201 - Introduction to Social Justice Studies

Tana McCoy (Criminal Justice)
CJL 220 - Juvenile Justice

George Seyk (Heller College of Business)
BADM 398, MGMT 492, ACCT 492 - Internships

Tom Farmer (Psychology)
PSYC 381 - Children and Families