by Betty Gabrielli
Last summer in her first public address in Lorain County, President Nancy S. Dye spoke of the college's "dedication in its earliest days to fighting social evils" and announced her intention to those attending the 8 July Elizabeth L. Coleman awards dinner in Elyria "to restore that commitment to the larger community."
Dye's commitment will become a reality next month when five Oberlin students begin summer placements as center for service and learning fellows with four community organizations: Elyria's Women's Development Center, Grassroots Development Center, and Seventh Generation, and Amherst's Center for Leadership in Education. The fellows are Susan Margaret Emery '96, Sundari Joshi '97, Tahnee Kirk '98, Alex Riley '97, and Aileen Seoane '98.
The center for service and learning fellowship program "was designed expressly to create educationally relevant community opportunities for Oberlin College students and to help students, faculty and staff become more involved in social action and community service in Lorain County," says Dye.
To qualify as fellows, students must have demonstrated "creativity, responsibility, and leadership in previous community-oriented jobs, internships or volunteer experiences; the ability to work well in teams; and the commitment to working in multicultural environments," says center for service and learning director Daniel Gardner.
From mid-June to mid-August the five students will focus on areas of local social concern determined after a lengthy study this spring by the community groups and Gardner. The areas include fine arts, school-college partnerships, women and children's issues, community empowerment, and environmental efforts. After undergoing rigorous training at the center, the students will spend the summer assessing current Oberlin outreach efforts and using the knowledge to develop plans to improve those efforts and create new outreach programs and partnerships.
"The new program is the second stage in President Dye's plan to make the college a more vital part of Lorain County," Gardner says. "The first stage was the creation five months ago of the center for service and learning, which built upon groundwork laid by a 1993 college community-service task force and by the contribution in 1994 of a half-million-dollar gift inspired by President Dye's commitment to such service" (Observer 15 September 1994).
The fellowship program pays each student $2,500 for 10 weeks of full-time work June through August. During the 1995-96 academic year the five students will work about 10 hours each week, earning $750 each semester implementing the new programs under center for service and learning supervision.
The fellows' assignments are varied: at the Center for Leadership in Education in Amherst, Kirk will explore opportunities for college artists and performers to interact more closely with community members, and Emery will develop programs and activities integrating Oberlin and local school systems.
In Elyria Joshi will work with the Women's Development Center in assessing current county efforts to address issues of economic empowerment, welfare, domestic violence, and public housing for women and children and will then work to help create opportunities for effective college involvement.
Riley will assist the environmental organization Seventh Generation in formulating ways Oberlin can expand current efforts to cooperate with local communities on environmental issues. At Grassroots Development in Elyria, Seoane will focus on community-organizing techniques that tie direct service to social change. She also will work to establish links between Oberlin and a diverse set of area grassroots groups, neighborhood associations, religious-based community action groups and community-based organizations.
Betty Gabrielli is a staff writer in the office of communications.