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In This Issue: EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR'S MESSAGE Welcome to Synergy, Washington Campus Compact’s inaugural e-newsletter. The American Heritage dictionary defines “synergy” as “the interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects.” We believe this definition describes the relationship between WACC and its entire membership as we work together to further the field of civic engagement. We intend for this newsletter to reflect this definition by featuring articles not just from WACC staff, but from our members and partners.
Last spring, we asked members what they’d like in a WACC newsletter. We received about 40 responses from a variety of constituents: faculty, community service directors, presidents, other administrators and community partners. Based on that survey and personal conversations with some of you, we’ve committed to a quarterly e-newsletter with the following information represented in every issue:
Each issue of the newsletter will be delivered to you as an email notification. The email will contain a list of article titles and brief summaries of their contents. Clicking on any one of the titles will link you directly to that article in the newsletter posted on our newly redesigned website. Of course, you also can access the newsletter directly through our website, now located at www.wacampuscompact.org.
In addition to providing information from staff, we are providing a publication venue for members’ submissions. Thanks to Sharon Niblock (Spokane Community College) and Kara Hartmann (Boise State University) for providing articles on best practices for this first issue. We welcome the student voice as well. Please see our policy for article submissions.
We are very excited about offering this quarterly
e-newsletter to you. We hope it proves to be
a useful communication tool and provides a
valuable venue to both share your work and
learn from your colleagues’ work. We truly
believe that through sharing information, lessons
learned, best practices and thoughtful reflections,
we can support one another and make a difference
on our campuses and in our communities. We
consider this e-newsletter a work in progress
and welcome your ongoing suggestions and comments.
Enjoy. WACC PROGRAMS CONTINUE
TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE Campus Connections Program This program has a stellar history, with AmeriCorps members engaging close to 5,000 higher education students in service in the last year alone. These students, through curricular and co-curricular service-learning activities, contributed more than 129,000 hours of service to local communities in Whatcom, King, Spokane, Walla Walla and Benton-Franklin counties. Over the past several years, the AmeriCorps members and higher education students have played vital roles in developing strong partnerships between campuses and local community nonprofits and schools. These relationships will be further strengthened through the civic engagement initiative the program is undertaking this year. The mission of the 2003-2006 Campus Connections program is to foster an ethic of civic responsibility among higher education students by creating opportunities for students to become engaged in service to their communities. AmeriCorps members will serve as advisors to the students by facilitating reflection sessions, maximizing the impact of the student experience, and working with faculty to integrate classroom and community learning. Program members also will partner with a community agency to provide direct service to a local nonprofit or school, and they will collaborate with other National Service members on projects for Make a Difference Day and Martin Luther King Jr. Day. In addition, program members will participate in training designed specifically to enhance their service and to help them be most effective when working with students, faculty, staff and community partners. The Campus Connections AmeriCorps members are a phenomenal resource to the campuses and communities they serve. Please contact Moonwater for information about the Campus Connections member at your institution. Community Connections Program (formerly known
as HELP) WACC recently received a no-cost extension to this grant, which is now starting its fourth year. The program has recently undergone staffing changes and is now co-managed by Moonwater and Jennifer Dorr. Notices have been sent to current partners requesting information about the number of scholarships desired; allocations will be made by October 24. We are pleased to announce that the Corporation for National & Community Service has just issued a Notice of Funds Available for this program. We intend to reapply in an effort to procure additional resources to offer to all of our WACC member campuses and your students. Washington Reading Corps Program The team of 20 AmeriCorps members placed in eight Skagit County elementary schools contributed 37,900 hours of service-and generated 550 volunteers who in turn contributed 19,700 hours of service-in support of 760 struggling readers. Their efforts were instrumental in fostering and strengthening connections between elementary schools, secondary schools, higher education institutions and community partners in and around the Skagit County region. As a means of reflecting upon the impact made by our WRC program, one of our members, Blair Austin, collaborated this year with filmmaker Jennifer Labbienti to create a short 8mm film documenting his increased understanding of human service and human connectedness. The film, Reflection, received commendation from Governor Locke and Jury's Choice honors at May's Northwest Service Symposium. It also was selected to represent the Northwest at the National Points of Light Conference, where it was presented to a crowd of 1,500 at the closing plenary session. In recognition of these and other accomplishments, our WRC team received the 2003 Volunteer of the Year Group Award from the Skagit County Community Action Agency. This year, WACC is continuing the program's success with a new group of dedicated AmeriCorps volunteers in Skagit County elementary schools.
ORIENTATION SUCCESSFULLY
LAUNCHES NEW PROGRAM
During the first week of September, Washington Campus Compact (WACC) brought together 15 AmeriCorps members who were selected to serve on this year's Campus Connections team for a program orientation. The orientation was a huge success. Intertwined with intense workshops were opportunities for the AmeriCorps members to network and team build with one another. The result was a group of individuals with a strong sense of shared identity and shared goals. Facilitated by Moonwater and Program Coordinator Julie Muyllaert, the orientation provided training in conceptual and skill development. It specifically focused on civic engagement and civic responsibility, advising strategies, facilitating reflection, and volunteer recruitment and management. All of the training was based on a series of best practices created or compiled by Campus Compact staff and aggregated into a tool kit. WACC hopes to make this tool kit available for other practitioners and programs as well. These passionate volunteers — now the Campus Connections team — have committed the next 11 months to serving our member institutions, students and local communities. They bring with them a repertoire of skills and abilities, creativity and enthusiasm. Many thanks to all of them for their willingness to serve in this capacity. Campus Connections is a statewide national service program that places AmeriCorps members on campuses in an effort to engage students in service and to foster within them an ethic of civic responsibility. For the 2003-2006 cycle, WACC is partnering with 10 member campuses: Western Washington University, Bellevue Community College, Edmonds Community College, Antioch University Seattle, University of Washington, Seattle University, Heritage College, Gonzaga University, Eastern Washington University and Spokane Community College. INTERACTIVE WEBSITE
GIVES AGENCIES WHAT THEY NEED Editor's Note: Boise State University received a $20,000 grant spanning 2000-2003 through WACC's Partners in Service program. The purpose of the strategic planning and implementation grant was to strengthen the service-learning program's infrastructure and build processes that will allow continued growth. An interactive database-driven website can facilitate many administrative functions for service-learning programs. Perhaps the most critical function is to relieve the workload and confusion for agency partners, especially those who coordinate large numbers of students, students from different courses or students with varying hour requirements. The Boise State University Service-Learning website, http://www2.boisestate.edu/servicelearning, allows agencies to post multiple projects, propose specific class matches, request/update numbers and types of students, post new orientation times, as well as edit their information anytime they want, from anywhere. Infusing "agency voice" in the service-learning partnership-building process may be nothing new. However, adding the ability for agencies to download rosters and automatically email student participants can transform agency/campus partnerships. The Boise State University Service-Learning website allows agencies to access updated project rosters and student contact information in formats that include faculty information, course objectives and evaluation parameters. Special functions allow agencies to easily email all or specific groups of students, as well as quickly download student information into Microsoft Excel files for their own tracking systems. In addition, agencies can look up past student participants, view past projects and copy them into the current semester, and edit projects anytime. Providing these agency database functions also benefits Service-Learning staff, students and faculty. Online agency access reduces the middleman role of Service-Learning staff, while it increases the accuracy and timeliness of critical partnership information. Student and faculty autonomy also increases. They can access updated, detailed agency and project information for their specific classes at any time. In addition, students and faculty can feel confident that agency partners have current student rosters, faculty contact information and course objectives at their fingertips. Service-learning programs ask a lot from agency partners, much more than just receiving random volunteers. We ask them to be co-teachers. The Boise State University Service-Learning website gives agencies what they need to accomplish this, effectively and efficiently. APPRECIATION IS KEY
WITH AGENCY COORDINATORS Editor's note: WACC hosted its second annual Summer Institute on August 11-12, 2003 in Leavenworth, Washington. This year's training was "Assessing Service-Learning and Civic Engagement." Two experts in the field of assessment facilitated the training:
It was my pleasure to attend the Washington Campus Compact Summer Institute held at the Sleeping Lady Mountain Retreat in August. This was the second institute I have attended; it was a great benefit to see and interact with participants from the previous year. I always come away with ideas that I can put into practice in the Supervised Volunteer Experience class that I coordinate on our Spokane Community College campus. The insight I gained this summer is to focus more on the agency coordinators! Without them, service learning, community service, experiential learning or community-based learning (whatever the experience) cannot be meaningful and a true benefit to the students we serve. In our situation, the students help me select the agencies with which they will have their volunteer experience, based upon their own personal goals. I have always focused very closely on making sure that the agencies "fit" the needs of the students. But, I have to admit that, until the institute, I wasn't as focused on making sure that the coordinators know how much I appreciate what they do for the students. Without their help, the experience would not work. Of course, done correctly, it takes the coordinator's time to orient the students to the agency and the processes used; it takes time to verify hours volunteered, fill out paperwork and complete evaluation forms at the end of the quarter. If the agency coordinators don't do "their thing," the students won't take from the experience the feeling that they have made a valuable contribution to their community. Do the coordinators get the same feeling, that is, the feeling that they have also made a valuable contribution by orienting and working with students whom I send to them? Well, this school year, my answer to this question will be a resounding YES! At the institute, ideas were given about how to appreciate agency coordinators. A few examples include having a meeting on the college campus and providing food, calling them, sending email messages or notes of thanks, and stopping by the agencies to thank the coordinators personally. Be creative! What fits your community agencies and also fits your school budgets? Teamwork always works! A good personal example follows. As part of the end-of-quarter process for our class, students must have an evaluation form completed by the agency or community partner. I consider it part of reciprocation and reflection. Recently I received a completed evaluation form for a student who volunteered at Catholic Charities. It certainly made me feel good when the agency coordinator wrote, "Thank you for including our program in your Supervised Volunteer Experience class! It was a direct benefit to our clients to have assistance. We'll hope to have future involvement from more of your students." When I called the agency coordinator and thanked
her, she told me that I had made her day. The
reality was that she had made my day. And,
the student was thrilled to know that she had
done a great job contributing back to the community. DATES
/ ANNOUNCEMENTS Oct.
31
Please complete the online survey at http://db.compact.org/2003survey/. (For easier data collection, a blank copy can be printed before completion.) Make sure to complete the submission and click “finalize” at the end; otherwise, your survey will be incomplete.
If a significant number of WACC members respond,
our office will receive a state survey report.
This will break down our state data and compare
it to national trends. As an added incentive,
the state with the highest percentage of member
campuses responding to the survey will receive
the forthcoming Introduction to Service-Learning
Toolkit, 2nd edition (revised): one free copy
for each campus that responds.
The declaration has been distributed to more than 4,000 educators, policymakers and others, not counting those who have accessed it (and the signatories list) on the CC website.
For the full text of the declaration, a list
of current signatories and instructions for
becoming a signatory, please go to: Nov.
17-18
Presidents have received their invitations (including a draft agenda and registration form) to select up to four delegates: one administrator, one faculty, one student and one community partner.
This second annual event will convene colleagues
from around the state for a networking, information
sharing and professional development opportunity.
Participants may offer input about the future
direction of WACC and the services it provides.
We are incorporating participant feedback from
last year’s meeting to enhance the event. March
10-12, 2004
The conference has become a model for professional development among service-learning practitioners including faculty, administrators, students and community partners.
The conference provides practitioners opportunities
to publicly present their work and network
with service-learning professionals from throughout
the Campus Compact western region. Campus Compact
members attend the conference at a reduced
rate. April
22, 2004
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