Students Have Meaningful Impact on Community

Four walls, rows of desks or tables, a chalkboard: These represent a traditional classroom. Mary Baldwin students are encouraged in learning beyond the classroom walls by considering community service at area shelters, arts centers, and non-profit organizations.

"It's exciting to be on campus as students become more engaged and concerned about the larger human community," said Assistant Professor of Communication Bruce Dorries, co-chair of the college's Community Service Learning Task Force. Dorries' own interest in community service heightened while he was in graduate school at the University of Missouri-Columbia, where he wrote his doctoral dissertation about how volunteers at a local soup kitchen communicated about service activities. Dorries also co-authored Service-Learning in Communication Studies, a book on integrating volunteerism into academic courses.

As part of Mary Baldwin's momentum toward one of the major goals of the college's 10-year strategic plan, titled Composing Our Future, people on campus are increasingly reaching out through community service. The activity is included explicitly in the Mary Baldwin College Advantage - a series of 10 experiences that will lead students to personal transformation - and it also helps create community connections, mentors and internships, and joint activities that are the foundation of several other initiatives in the plan. Community service and citizenship have been part of a Mary Baldwin College education since the 19th century. Freshmen are required to volunteer several hours as part of an Introduction to College course, and campus chapters of service organizations such as Circle K and Habitat for Humanity have historically been strong. Also, many professors include service activities in their classes. The college's 10-year strategic plan places renewed emphasis in two areas of the community service initiative: encouraging every student to participate in meaningful community service as part of her Mary Baldwin College tenure and creating a central office or point of contact to coordinate community service efforts campus-wide.

"There are enough individual and group community service efforts on campus now that the college is at a point where it needs to coordinate those activities," Professor Roderic Owen said. The college hopes to create a community service center, which would field calls from interested organizations looking for volunteers, keep track of service hours, handle promotion and fundraising to support community service, and ensure that groups are not duplicating efforts.

In a report completed last year, the task force estimated that members of the college participate in 13,000 hours of community service annually. But college officials say there is always room for strengthening community ties and increasing volunteer time.

Bryanne Moore '05 is one of many students who attest to the transformative experience of volunteer work. During May Term 2004, Moore and her classmates worked for several weeks with the City of Staunton Department of Recreation and Parks and the Department of Horticulture as a requirement for Sociology 208: Community Service and Society with Assistant Professor of Sociology Carrie Usher. Staunton City Council plans to recognize the students' work at an upcoming meeting, Usher said.

"I will look at my volunteering efforts in a different way now," Moore said. "I realized that my actions continue to make a difference beyond the few hours that I'm actually out there working."

In addition to courses that focus on service, students also take their own initiative or partner with national service organizations. Susannah Baskervill, a 2004 graduate, made local headlines when she turned a scholarly project - the college's Margarett Kable Russell Award - into a grassroots effort. Baskervill worked with students in a local after-school program to teach gardening and botany basics. Together, they planted a vegetable garden in the heart of Staunton.

Meeta Desai '07 volunteered with Circle K during her first year on campus. She supports efforts to incorporate community service learning into the general curriculum.

"I think students should be required to volunteer before they graduate because it's a great experience," Desai said. "Above all, you might make a difference in someone else's life."

"A lot of times, community service goes beyond the good feeling you get from being benevolent," said Nebula Li '07, also a member of the campus chapter of Circle K. "You really see results."
A few other examples of recent MBC community service:

• Freshman Betsy Shortt asked her friends to volunteer with her at the Valley Mission, a homeless shelter in Staunton, instead of giving her a birthday party and gifts
• Students in Bruce Dorries' public speaking class taught students at a nearby elementary school about the importance of wetland conservation as part of a program with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, a division of the USDA. Students in Dorries' media writing class will write press releases this semester for LEARN (Learn English and Writing Now), a Waynesboro-based education organization