IN THIS ISSUE:
*Events
*Volunteer Opportunities
*Internships, Jobs, and Beyond...
*In the Spotlight: Students Rally for Coalition Building
EVENTS
University of Chicago Blood Drive
Monday, November 23rd
10:00am – 4:00pm
Ida Noyes, Cloister Club Room
Co-hosted by University of Chicago's Interfaith Dialogue Club and the Faiths Act Fellows Amy and Rebecca, this blood drive will be a chance for the Hyde Park community to give back to those in need locally. RSVP at amy.mcnair@faithsactfellows.org
Summer Links Information Session
Monday, November 30th
6:00pm – 7:00pm
Ida Noyes First Floor Lounge, (1212 E. 59th Street)
Summer Links offers an intensive 10-week internships to 30 returning College and graduate students committed to public service, community building, and social change. Interns receive a $4 000 stipend and participate in weekly day-long and evening trainings about Chicago and social justice issues. For more information, please contact Student Intern Hallie Trauger at htrauger@uchicago.edu
What’s Next for Chicago
Tuesday, December 1
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Roosevelt University, Congress Lounge (430 South Michigan Avenue)
Despite losing the Olympic bid, how can Chicago harness all the energy put into the bid to create a better city for every? Join the conversation featuring University of Chicago American History professor Adam Green and other diverse perspectives coming together to envision possible futures for Chicago. This program is free and open to the public. Reservations are recommended and can be made online, by email, at events@prairie.org, or by calling 312.422.5580.
VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES
Monday, Nov. 23 and Tuesday, Nov. 24, Angelic Organics Learning Center will be preparing our fall fundraising appeal mailing, and we need help stuffing and stamping envelopes! If you're available and willing to help, please respond directly with Corrine Reynolds at 773-288-5462
Splash! Chicago seeks new members to join our Student and Schools Recruitment Team. If you are at all interested in education and its structures, working with kids, or preaching atop lunch tables, you should sign up! Please call us at 773-789-7347 OR email splashchicago@gmail.com if you want to join our Recruitment Team.
Tutors in all subjects are needed at Hyde Park High School and John Hope HS. Please contact John MacDougall at 312-853-3932 or jmacdoug@roosevelt.edu
Hyde Park-Kenwood Interfaith Council is seeking ushers, greeters, and collection counters for the annual Thanksgiving Day Worship Service – Rockefeller memorial Chapel, starting at 11:00am. For more information, contact Allan Lindrup via email to either uusj@sbcglobal.net or hpkifc@hotmail.com, or by phone to 773-642-8061.
A 7th grade teacher, Jenny Jankowski, at Tarkington Elementary school is seeking UofC students interested in mentoring her 7th graders. The school is located at 71st and Kedzie, and is Chicago's first “green school”. (There’s a special need for mentoring male students who could benefit from a positive role model.) To get involved, contact Jennifer Jankowski at JLJankowski@cps.edu
INTERNSHIPS, JOBS, AND BEYOND...
Heart of Chicago Writing Contest
Deadline: November 30, 2009
Students should describe how they view The Heart of Chicago in one of three categories: Poetry, Narrative Fiction, and Narrative Non-fiction. Any aspect of the city may be considered for subject matter. Submissions will be accepted via email to katesoto@uchicago.edu and for more information visit: chicagostudies.uchicago.edu/heartofchicago_writing.html
Check out the “The Blog That Works,” the Chicago Studies blog: https://blogs.uchicago.edu/chicagostudies/2009/11/from_cobb_hall_to_the_corn_fie.html If you are interested in being a blogger, contact Chicago Studies Program Coordinator Rachel Cromidas at cromidas@uchicago.edu
Humanities in Action
Due: January 23, 2010
The HIA summer fellowship programs bring together international groups of Fellows to study minority rights and human rights doctrines in democratic societies. Separate programs will take place for five weeks in Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, New York, and Warsaw. Students of all majors and academic disciplines are encouraged to apply. Full application materials are available at: http://www.humanityinaction.org/apply/usa
Applications for Teaching Artists through the Teaching Lab Collaborations (or TLC for short), have just gone live on-line here. For more information regarding job requirements and details, contact Jessica Hutchinson at jesshutchinson@uchicago.edu
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Students Rally for Coalition Building
Chelsie Sluyk, Staff Writer
Last Monday night, students from across the University filled the common meeting room of 5710 for a workshop on coalition building. A remarkably apt meeting place, the old brick Hyde Park home was itself the product of a coalition; the LGBTQ student groups and the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs joined together to petition the University for a gathering space for students to engage in community building and programming. On this night, undergraduates, graduate students, and staff spent the evening trading stories, discussing potential scenarios, and brainstorming successful techniques for bringing different activist groups together to achieve their goals.
“The Coalition Building workshop was a time to allow student activists the time to think critically on how and why they can form partnerships. The workshop was there to challenge activists to think about the work that they hope to be doing on/off campus with other students as well as with community organizations” said David Klein, Social Justice program intern and organizer of the event. While some participants came just to learn about social justice and see what was going on in the University’s activist community, many students came as representatives of their student organizations. Among those who attended were representatives from Southside Solidarity Network, ArtShould, Partnership for the Advancement of Refugee Rights, Green Campus Initiative, Feminist Majority, and many others. “It was great to see representation from so many different parts of the university and many different kinds of activists.” Klein said, “I think some great conversations were sparked by the event.”
Third-year Fundamentals major, Will Larson, co-director of ArtShould, a campus group focused on arts tutoring in Chicago Public Schools and building a connected and active arts community on campus, said of his reasons for participating in the event, “Since so many of our goals involve collaboration or coalition-building, I wanted to take what first-hand experience I've had of that process to this workshop, both to reflect on my knowledge and hear other perspectives.”
The workshop was facilitated by Alex Poeter, Director of Organizing for the Chicago Freedom School and long time advocate at the local youth-based social justice organization. Drawing from his 18 years of experience working in coalitions, he discussed the opportunities and unexpected challenges. Poeter was enthusiastic about having the chance to work with U of C students. “It seems like a lot of students are involved in coalitions or interested in getting more engaged,” Poeter said, “it is important for them to be as aware as possible through learning and being engaged with their communities, and to build long-term goals around that.”
Many of the students planned to put what they learned at this meeting into action. First year Masters student in the Social Service Administration Program, Veronica Mercado, is part of the Community Economic Development Organization, which is working with the Harris school toward the goal of “reinvesting in the community that surrounds Hyde Park and the University of Chicago.”
The Coalition Building Workshop is one of many events organized by the Social Justice program year round. They offer one workshop each quarter addressing a topic that students are interested in learning about. They also host bi-quarterly get-togethers as well as their annual event, the Student Activist Conference, a day-long event held in January. This winter’s conference will explore the topic of “working across difference,” challenging students to “think about what it means to work in a diverse community or to be working on intersectional issues,” Klein says.
Student Activism is a major part of the college experience for many University of Chicago students, and new resources and educational opportunities continue to emerge all the time. Reflecting on the time he has dedicated to positive, active engagement in the communities he belongs to over the past two and half years, ArtShould’s Will Larson concludes, “At times I think I've learned more about myself and other people through this work than through coursework, and it is definitely something I think is worth devoting a lot of my time to.”
To find out more about the Social Justice Program and its events, contact David Klein at djk@uchicago.edu
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
