Changing the World

A student-run peer leadership program shows major community initiative.

By Karina Antenucci

One of the many unique qualities of Agnes Scott College students is their high level of participation in community service. Over the years, JLP Prince, director of community, civic and global engagement in the Gué Pardue Hudson Center for Leadership and Service, has seen this firsthand. They noticed that event attendance was always higher when students invited their own networks to participate, and then an idea sparked: What if the students themselves led service events?

With the help of Brittney Scurry, a graduate student from the University of West Georgia, Prince developed the format and curriculum to bring the Impact Peer Leaders program to life in the 2017-2018 academic year.

“To my knowledge, it is one of the only programs like it in the nation,” says Prince. “One of the biggest ways that it is different from other leadership programs is that it is truly focused on social issues and service to the broader metro Atlanta community. While all service programs are absolutely wonderful and several come out of my office, this one takes a student’s passion for a social issue and turns it into action.”

The Impact Peer Leader program run and led by students, serves as one of the student-leader arms for the Center for Leadership and Service.

“The program engages Agnes Scott students who are dedicated to community engagement and making a difference in the world,” Prince says.

Participants, called Impact Peer Leaders, have the opportunity to gain experience in designing and implementing social justice programs and service experiences for their peers, each focusing on a social issue that is close to their hearts.

To apply, students must have a 2.5 cumulative GPA and be in good academic status, have a demonstrated commitment to and interest in serving one or more social issues and submit an application. Last year, 20 students applied for the 12 available peer leader spots.

Accepted students must commit to the program for one academic year—with the option to continue on until graduation. The requirements include attending monthly service leader trainings, which cover everything from creating a program budget to advertising an event effectively, and planning and executing a minimum of six events over the course of the year.

Two of the peer leaders serve as the director and assistant director of the Impact Peer Leaders program. The director is a senior who runs the program; the assistant director is a junior who shadows the director and will take the program reins the following year.

“My directors meet one-on-one with each Impact Peer Leader every month to discuss how planning is going and help them think through their events,” explains Prince, who serves as an adviser and takes care of logistics like reserving spaces, managing the budget and applications as well as booking transportation.

The peer leaders collectively focus on learning about and supporting a range of social issues.

“I have a preset list that we need to cover. For example, someone is always focusing on hunger issues and the environment, but beyond that, it’s really up to the students what topic they choose,” says Prince, who helps the peer leaders find community partners that make sense for their chosen topic.

Each year, more than 100 Agnes Scott community members participate in the Impact Peer Leader-organized Rise Against Hunger meal packing event, during which they package more than 20,000 meals in two hours. These meals support schools, medical clinics and disaster relief efforts globally.

Scotties take part in the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Leadership and Service project organized by Impact Peer Leaders at re:loom, a local organization that employs and empowers homeless and low-income individuals through weaving beautifully designed products out of recycled materials. Students assisted re:loom by sorting, cutting and preparing fabric for weaving.

Past and present Impact Peer Leaders have selected topics such as maternal health, accessibility for individuals with disabilities, historic preservation, environmental racism, racial justice, water accessibility, human trafficking, public health and nutrition, as well as gender-based violence.

One community partner that the center has a long-term relationship with is Tapestri, an organization supporting foreign-born victims of human trafficking and domestic violence. Impact Peer Leader Tatiana Nigh ’20 has worked with Tapestri for several years. Through this partnership, this year’s Team Global Challenge involved working with the organization to develop products and communication methods to provide anti-trafficking information to agricultural workers in southern Georgia.

“Agnes Scott has always looked outside the box and really heard us when we said there is not enough out there to address this specific problem. They jumped to action to put students to work to help in this area,” says Maja Hasic, who is the human trafficking program director at Tapestri.

JLP Prince, Agnes Scott’s director of community, civic and global engagement, talks with Maja Hasic, human trafficking program director at Tapestri. Tapestri is one of the college’s Impact Peer Leader program’s local community partners.

Photo by Tom Meyer

The Impact Peer Leaders program also partners with Break Away, a national nonprofit that works as a resource, trainer and convener of higher education institutions and community organizations in efforts to support high-quality, community-based learning programs. Headquartered in nearby Avondale Estates, the organization provides workshops that help set the foundation for leadership positions and programming for the year ahead, including preparing students to lead “alternative breaks,” or Impact Service Experiences. These alternative breaks are spring and fall trips that focus on service. This past spring, the student leaders traveled to Florida to work with Immokalee Friendship House, which provides temporary housing to migrant farm workers and their families.

“We believe that alternative breaks can be a vehicle to have powerful conversations about the role of justice and community in our lives. We work with students to help develop their educational curricula, create opportunities for reflection and work with their community partners more effectively. We’re giving them tools that they’ll be using the rest of the year as they’re putting their plans into action,” explains Meghan Foley, membership director at Break Away.

With all the thoughtful training and key partnerships that it brings, the result of the leadership program is clear: “We’ve seen significant increases in students participating in service events on campus because of this group of student leaders,” notes Prince. Making an impact, indeed.