IN THIS ISSUE:
*Events
*Volunteer Opportunities
*Internships, Jobs, and Beyond...
*In the Spotlight: Chicago Studies Transfers Student Learning into Problem Solving
EVENTS
Bringing volunteerism back in vogue?
Thursday, April 30
7:00-8:00pm
Valois (1518 E. 53rd Street)
Is volunteerism important for civic engagement and why? What impact will Obama’s support for volunteerism have on society? Can volunteerism create substantial social change? Will Obama’s support of volunteering bring more people into public service? Join Café Society in its discussion on volunteerism’s role within society.
Islam and Sexuality Conference
Saturday, May 2
9:30pm-5:00pm
Eckhart Hall Lecture Room 133 (5734 S. University)
Sponsored by The Center for the Study of Race, Culture, and
Politics along with the Lesbian and Gay Studies Project of the Center for Gender Studies at the University of Chicago, and in collaboration with Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation, and Culture and Center for International Studies Norman Wait Harris Fund. Event is free and open to the public.
Hyde Park Jazz Society & 59th Street Jazz presents: Reginald Robinson
Saturday, May 2
7:00-9:00pm
International House (1414 East 59th Street)
Reginald Robinson, pianist/composer and educator of ragtime music and recipient of the MacArthur Genius Award, performs sponsored by Strive Tutoring. Tickets are $10 and $8 for UC Students w/ ID.
From the Ends of the Earth: Christianity in the 21st Century
Friday, May 1: 10am – 6pm
Saturday, May 2: 9am – 3pm
University of Chicago Divinity School (1025 E. 58th St.)
The 5th Annual Ministry Conference seeks to help deepen understanding among ministers, students and lay-persons as well as professional academics of certain realities and potential futures of being Christian around the world. The Conference is open to the public. To register, e-mail ministryconference@gmail.com. For questions or further information, you can also call 630-877-6322.
Hyde Park Neighborhood Club Handcrafts Sale
Sunday, May 3
11:00am-3:00pm
Hyde Park Neighborhood Club (5480 S. Kenwood Ave)
Spoil your mother with a beautiful piece of handcrafted art, and enjoy a wide variety of handcrafted works by local Chicago artists, including many from Artisans 21. 15% of proceeds benefit the Club. Refreshments will be served.
STRIVE Information Sessions
Wednesday, May 6
7:00pm – 8:30pm
Harper Memorial: Room 140
STRIVE is a unique intervention for teens with sickle cell disease. Undergraduate mentors provide one-to-one mentoring/peer support, disease management education and academic support to teens at-risk for poor academic achievement and social/behavioral problems due to frequent hospitalizations. Learn more about STRIVE and how to apply at this informational session.
VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES
Help raise community awareness on the issues of Sexual and Domestic Violence. Join the YWCA at their Francis Center (6600 S. Cottage Grove Ave.) in May and June for Informational Saturdays where the group will be walking through the community with program information. Interested volunteers should contact Elspeth at the UCSC at
emcgarvey@uchicago.edu.
Share your paper writing skills! A student from a City College is
looking for assistance with a persuasive final paper. She is willing
to meet you on campus. Anyone interested in helping should contact
Elspeth ASAP at emcgarvey@uchicago.edu.
Soundscapes/Devon: Collaborative Audiowalk in an Immigrant Neighborhood of Chicago
The University of Chicago and the Indo-American Center are facilitating a community-driven effort to create an artistic, educational, widely-disseminable portrait of Devon Avenue. This project may be of interest to students and teachers who want to explore firsthand how an organization that would like to serve a new community takes root in that community, as well those interested in music, sound art, or service-learning. Interested individuals may contact Currun Singh at 773-702-8635 or currun@uchicago.edu for more information or to find out how to get involved.
Screening and Workshops around Divided We Fall: Americans in the Aftermath
This spring, the University of Chicago will host a two-day series of screenings and workshops around the newly-released film Divided We Fall: Americans in the Aftermath, which explores hate and healing in America post-9/11. Screenings and Q&A will be held for middle and high school students and the public, with reflective discussions, interfaith dialogues, and oral history trainings to follow for those interested in communities across Chicago. If you would like to bring the film and a workshop to your community, school, classroom, etc., please let us know and we will do our best to make it happen. Interested individuals may contact Currun Singh at 773-702-8635 or currun@uchicago.edu for more information or to find out how to get involved.
The Broadway Youth Center Drop-In Program, seeks activists, artists, healers, thinkers, LGBT folks of color, organizers, adult allies, and mentors available for 1-2 shifts per week—which last from 12 noon-5 PM, Monday through Saturday. This summer opportunity will also include important training and support on issues related to harm reduction, anti-oppression values, boundaries, and the roles of a youth worker in our space. If you are interested or would like more information, please contact Lara at larab@howardbrown.org or 773-299-7613.
INTERNSHIPS, JOBS, AND BEYOND...
Reasoning Mind is a non-profit that is using the Internet to dramatically improve the math achievement of children from disadvantaged communities. Thousands of children have benefited from the curricula, which not only teach basic math knowledge, but also develop students’ critical thinking skills. By working as a Program Coordinator for Reasoning Mind, you can make a difference for thousands of elementary school children from disadvantaged communities. If you’re interested in learning more about Reasoning Mind, visit their website at www.reasoningmind.org or email sgaudino@gmail.com to arrange a meeting.
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Chicago Studies Transfers Student Learning into Problem Solving
Mutisya Leonard, Staff Writer
Chicago has been a key city in the history of American politics, labor movements, civil rights, and most recently, the election of America's first African American President. Chicago has been dubbed too 'City of Broad Shoulders', and rightly: as the third most populous US city, attracting up to 45 million visitors annually; as a principal destination for commerce and manufacturing; as an architectural capital and a candidate city for the 2016 Olympics. In so many ways, the city dares to exceed its ‘Second City’ status.
Through appointed classes and co-curricular involvements, Chicago Studies, an initiative co-sponsored by the College and UCSC, seeks to highlight opportunities for students in the College to engage experientially and academically with the city of Chicago. The program encourages students to explore how knowledge and skills learned at the University can be applied, tested, and questioned in engaging the city of Chicago as a classroom and teacher.
Beyond Hyde Park is a city of 76 other neighborhoods, accessible largely by public transit. Yet for all its diversity, most city residents—and University students are no exception—only know a handful of communities: where they live, work, gather with friends and shop.
Although Chicago Studies is now an exciting and encouraging avenue to get students out of Hyde Park, students have long participated in community service and made meaningful connections between classwork and experiences of Chicago.
Frank Bechter’s Anthropology class this Quarter, Ethnographic Methods, examines an important aspect of ‘method’ in anthropology, and what is the ‘regimen’ of an ethnographer. Marshall Knudson, a third year in the college majoring in Anthropology, considers the class “a clearinghouse for tabling issues and forming viable research questions in the context of the city.”
“The class provides a support framework as we go into the city on field assignments and investigate first hand,” Knudson said. “It’s an opportunity to penetrate beyond headlines, to scrutinize understudied issues, to unsettle our received ideas about the city’s people and places.”
Students in the class are investigating everything from co-operative residential living, to multilingual newspapers, to afro-centric bookstores. “Surveying these issues,” Knudson continues, “helps us articulate genuine, substantiated opinions that provide key information in undergirding individual student scholarly and civic engagements and activism.”
Another student in the class, second year Sean McClellan, feels empowered that his class reading provides perspectives for his fieldwork on homelessness in Lakeview, and appreciates how his classwork enriches and informs his volunteer involvement with STRIVE, a youth intervention program of ProjectHEALTH, a national non-profit. STRIVE provides peer support to adolescents with sickle cell disease so they can manage their condition and realize their full potential. According to University Student and STRIVE Education Coordinator Sarah Micley, Sickle cell disease is one of the most prevalent chronic illnesses affecting inner-city children, predominantly African-Americans.
“70,000 African-Americans have Sickle cell disease—about 1 in 500—and 3.5 million more are carriers,” Micley said. “Cook County’s Department of Health currently reports over 200,000 African-American children as enrolled in Chicago Public Schools, over 400 of whom suffer from Sickle cell disease, nearly 85% of them considered low-income.”
“It is well-documented that the social and economic challenges facing low-income youth and families both cause and perpetuate health disparities,” Micley said. “ A child from a low income family with Sickle cell disease, struggles with a ‘double jeopardy’: every challenge faced by at risk youth in general; social pressures, academic demands, drug and alcohol abuse amplified by their socioeconomic background, and then a second time by their disease.”
STRIVE volunteers find it exciting to be part of important service work that has real academic, economic and social merit.
In his own studies of Chicago, Carl Sandburg remarked: "Here is the difference between Dante, Milton, and me. They wrote about hell and never saw the place. I wrote about Chicago after looking the town over for years and years."
The University Community Service Center (UCSC) fosters the development of civic-minded students by providing substantive community service opportunities through community partnerships based on mutual trust and respect. If you have questions - how to get involved as a student or how to connect to students as a community organization - please contact us.
University Community Service Center
5525 S. Ellis Ave., Suite 160
Chicago IL, 60637
Tel: 773.753.4483
Fax: 773.834.1160
ucsc.uchicago.edu
