Campus Y 2015 Annual Report

THE C A MP U S Y

Carolina’s Beating Heart 2 015 A N N U A L R E P O R T

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SOCIAL JUSTICE

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP

GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT

SOCIAL JUS TICE

powered by student passion, pulsing through the University, into North Carolina and beyond.

THE CAMPUS Y IS THE CENTER FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE AT UNCCHAPEL HILL. AS CAROLINA’S OLDEST AND LARGEST STUDENT SERVICE ORGANIZATION, KNOWN AS “THE CONSCIENCE OF THE UNIVERSITY,” ITS 2,000 STUDENTS AND 30 STUDENT COMMITTEES WORK TO ADVANCE SOCIAL JUSTICE, DRIVE SOCIAL INNOVATION AND SUPPORT POSITIVE CHANGE.

L E T T E R F RO M T H E 2 014 -15 CO-PRES ID EN TS

Encapsulating the important points of such a memorable year is a nearly impossible task.

From our earliest moments as Co-Presidents meeting the 2014-15 Global Gap Year Fellows, to our final efforts to organize the transition to a new Executive Board, working as part of this community has been a privilege. Yet looking back at the Campus Y’s accomplishments, there are several that stand out vividly in our minds during an amazing year.

Meeting Campus Y alumni from the 1960s during graduation weekend in 2014 was one such highlight. These individuals, many of them now past retirement age, recalled the importance of the Y during that decade, when it was a strong voice against segregation and a safe haven for UNC’s first black students.

With this understanding of the Campus Y’s legacy, we sought to bring a similar approach to advocacy in our current campus climate, focusing much of the year on building coalitions of support around key university and state issues. Organizing campus groups to attend the Historic Thousands on Jones Street (HKonJ) march in Raleigh, NC, demonstrated this commitment. We were especially proud to co-sponsor student buses for the event with the UNC NAACP.

While much of our advocacy work had a North Carolina focus, the work of our global committees and the newly formed Campus Y Global Circle pushed us to think critically about effective global engagement. The Global Circle instituted a new global speaker series and continued workshops to help prepare committees for their global projects, and launched a new fund for global engagement, providing overseas opportunities for summer experiences for four students.

Furthermore, this year marked the inaugural year of the Campus Y First Year Collaborative (FYC), an organization dedicated to fostering first year leadership. We were so encouraged by the dedication and passion FYC members showed from the get-go, as they coordinated projects like the Y Membership Haunted House, Holi Moli, and the End-of-Year Celebration.

So, reflecting on these moments, what is it that makes the Y special? For us, it’s a place that challenges us to be our best selves and to recognize our relationship and responsibility to our larger community, and it’s a place that has allowed us to build some of our closest relationships.

For the memories, values, and knowledge, we are incredibly grateful to the people who made this year one to remember. We are thankful for the amazing individuals who comprised the Y’s Executive Board, Cabinet, staff, and membership for their countless contributions to this community. Each of us contributed to the Y in our own unique and important way, and we are thankful for the time and thought each individual gave to the organization this year.

As we look towards the future, we are excited to see where the Y is headed next. While our campus, state, and nation are facing tumultuous times, we recognize the tremendous power of collective action in the pursuit of social justice. Through collaboration and community, we have made and will continue to make a positive impact on the world around us.

In solidarity,

Shauna and Dinesh Campus Y Co-Presidents, 2014-15

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L E T T E R F RO M T HE 2 015 -16 CO-PRES ID EN TS

Serving as Campus Y Co-Presidents has been an immense privilege. When writing our platform, our primary objectives were to imbue a more self-critical nature, connect the Y with larger social issues, and allocate our resources more efficiently. Throughout the year, these goals forced us into a constant dialogue about the essence and ethics of social justice, pushing and developing us like never before. However, we greeted these challenges head on, and feel energized by the conversations and relationships we had the fortune of cultivating over the course of the year. Our time as CoPresidents has had a great impact on both of us.

When we took up our roles, our first task was to select our Executive Board. We strived to create a board made up of people with diverse ideologies, representative of the populations for whom we advocate, and—most importantly—collectively committed to critical dialogue about social justice inside and outside the Y. From the outset, our approach was to set high expectations, but to allow the board members the agency to channel their creativity and passion into their positions, and use the Y as a platform to advocate for broader issues.

This mindset paid dividends. During the year, we saw the creation of The Arc, the Campus Y student blog; the Campus Y’s Alumni Homecoming Reunion; the development of Y Connect, an online database to connect Y students to opportunities beyond UNC; the performance of actor Mike Wiley’s powerful one-man play about Emmett Till; Reverend Barber’s intimate reflections as he encouraged Campus Y and UNC students to attend the North Carolina Moral Monday movement’s march, Historic Thousands on Jones Street (HKonJ); and much more.

As the years pass, while these individual accomplishments and events may fade from our memories, we hope that the culture we helped to foster will not. We sought to continue developing the Y into a place and community unafraid to engage with any issue on our campus; from the Real Silent Sam Coalition’s endeavors to contextualize this campus’s history, to the larger national narratives around race and free speech.

We also aligned with the UNC Board of Governors Democracy Coalition’s demands for more transparency and accountability regarding the actions of the UNC Board of Governors and the appointment of Margaret Spellings as UNC System President.

In reflecting upon the year, we see clearly that the Y’s capacity for social change stems from its ability to harness a committed community to collectively push for a more just, fair world. It is in this community that the power of the Y lies, as it allows us to support each other when we engage with issues, and also allows us to challenge each other to instigate the critical self-reflection essential for growth. And it is in these dual tenets of engagement and self-reflection that the Y occupies a profound place in the hearts of the communities it empowers and in us, your Co-Presidents. For the lessons learned and the relationships forged, we are eternally grateful. We will carry them with us as we continue in our pursuit of a more equitable future.

Sincerely,

Juliana and Vishal Campus Y Co-Presidents, 2015-16

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L E TT E R F RO M T H E D IRECTOR

2015 has been a tumultuous year, marked in my mind not just by the adversity we have faced in our community, but by the resounding strength of our students’ reaction to it.

Widening income equality continued to make headlines throughout 2015. In response, our students stepped up their public service commitments, delivering more than 100,000 hours of critical services here in North Carolina on issues relating to public health, hunger, immigration, education, the environment, human rights, micro-finance and more.

Politically, we saw the reversal of a half-century of expansion in and protection for voting rights in this country.

Here in North Carolina, local polling places were closed, early voting programs curtailed, voter ID laws passed, all in the name of preventing a problem (voter fraud) that does not seem to exist.

Gerrymandering in NC was taken to extremes, and to court, with representatives choosing their voters rather than the voters choosing their representatives. Meanwhile, anti-immigrant fervor is being stoked to a fever pitch by political candidates from the lowest to the highest office in the country. And our students rallied around these issues, registering voters in record numbers, educating their peers about candidates and issues, hosting speakers on topics ranging from the school-to-prison pipeline to immigrant rights and free speech movements. Our students ran toward the problems not away from them.

Violence has been perhaps the hardest pill to swallow. Three Muslim students were gunned down in their apartment just a few miles from our campus in February of 2015. Nine parishioners were murdered in their pews while praying in Mother Emanual Church in Charleston, SC. Many of us asked ourselves: are we no longer a ‘civil society’? Are we unable to see each other, understand each other, and talk across differences? Unarmed black men and women died at the hands of police in too many communities to list here, sparking a Black Lives Matter movement that caught fire in our own student body. Our community struggled to process grief the best it could— emotionally, intellectually and in action.

The University community has also had a difficult twelve months. The president of the UNC system was forced into retirement and UNC’s Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity was unceremoniously removed from the Law School, sparking protests across campus. Former UNC Chancellor Bill Aycock and basketball coaching legend Dean Smith both died this year, and we recalled their deep and lasting commitments to free speech, equality and public service. With Bill Friday’s death just a couple of years before, it a little like the passing of the guard is complete. It made me ask myself: Is the next generation ready to take the fight for social justice forward?

From my vantage point at the Campus Y, I am happy to say that the answer, unequivocally, is YES!

I found hope this year in the reaction of our students to some of the most daunting challenges of our era. These are the battles that will frame our social and political discourse for decades to come. Our students are willing to confront power and poverty and privilege, to challenge their peers and the faculty. Throughout the year, they stood up time and time again – to organize a candlelight vigil in The Pit to honor the Muslim students who had been murdered; to demand that the University research and acknowledge its own history on race; to march on Raleigh for a living wage and health care expansion and voting rights and women’s reproductive rights; and to shine the bright light of day on transparency and accountability in political decision-taking.

On these issues and so many more, our students make me proud. Perhaps this is as it always has been at the Y and UNC—the students lead. I am fortunate to have a front row seat on a rocketship for social justice. And that is what sustains me and my leadership of the Campus Y. Our work is too important. The urgency is real.

Sincerely,

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Richard Harrill Director, Campus Y

TABLE OF CONTENTS The Conscience of the University Student Committees

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Y Passion Changes the World

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Y Passion Inspires Action

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Bonner Leaders

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Global Gap Fellows

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Social Innovation Incubator

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Campus Y Alumni

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Campus Y Financials

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Looking Ahead

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Giving Back

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changing

THE WORL D

T H E CO N S C IEN CE OF T HE UN IVERS IT Y The Campus Y is the Center for Social Justice at UNC-Chapel Hill. Since its establishment in 1860, the Campus Y has grown into one of UNC’s largest and most vibrant organizations. With an estimated 2,000 student volunteers each year, the Y houses 30 student social justice organizations, and runs the Bonner Leaders Program, the Global Gap Year Fellowship, and CUBE, UNC’s Social Innovation Incubator. With its unique leadership structure—students and staff working in tandem to provide support for programming and operations—the Y has provided leadership and professional skills development to thousands of Carolina students and alumni.

For 155 years, the Campus Y has provided a link between UNC and external communities through social justice activities and volunteer outreach. It has been labeled the “conscience of the university” by none other than former NC Governor and US Senator Terry Sanford, and has shaped the character of the campus for generations.

The Campus Y owes its origins to the YMCA and YWCA, which were established at UNCChapel Hill in 1860 and 1935 respectively. Their social gospel mission initiated campus services for UNC students, such as the Book Exchange and the intramural sports programs, and challenged students to reach out to the community. The YMCA and YWCA chapters joined forces to become the Campus Y in 1963, later severing ties with the national parent organizations. During the early decades of the Y’s history it effectively functioned as the student union, serving as a hub for student leadership and social activism and as the leader in student action addressing issues of integration, free speech, gender equality, workers’ rights, world hunger, apartheid, and armed conflict.

Since the 1970s, the Campus Y has worked for social justice as a recognized student organization and a department in the Division of Student Affairs. This year, an additional reporting line into the Chancellor’s Office for Innovation and Entrepreneurship is being considered. The organization has journeyed from its origins as a young men’s Christian fellowship group, to become a pluralistic, diverse institution that champions civil and human rights not just in North Carolina but around the world.

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DISASTER RELIEF Extended Disaster Relief (EDR)

Coalition for Human Rights (CHR)

EDUCATION AND YOUTH Art + Life Best Buddies Big Buddy Carolina for Amani Carolina Kickoff Catalyst Conference Criminal Justice Awareness and Action Enrich ELL Helping Youth by Providing Enrichment (HYPE) Project Literacy Technology Without Borders

HUNGER AND HOMELESSNESS Carolina Hunger Education and Activism Project (CHEAP) Homeless Outreach Poverty Eradication (HOPE) Tar Heel TABLE

ELDERLY CARE Youth for Elderly Service (YES) ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE Students Working for Environmental Action and Transformation (SWEAT) HUMAN RIGHTS Carolina Advocating for Gender Equality (CAGE) Carolina Against Slavery and Trafficking (CAST)

IMMIGRATION Linking Immigrants to New Communities (LINC) Students United for Immigrant Equality (SUIE) INTERNATIONAL ISSUES/ DEVELOPMENT Advocates for Grassroots Developments in Uganda (AGRADU) Carolina Microfinance Initiative Nourish International Project Heal World Micro Market PUBLIC HEALTH Health Focus Rethink: Psychiatric Illness

We, the members of the Campus Y, resolve to: • Uphold the Campus Y’s legacy of social justice; • Honor the communities that enrich and strengthen our work; • Model a self-reflective ethic of service; • Respect diversity of thought and background;

CAMPUS Y STUDENT COMMITTEES Students at the Campus Y are agents of social change, transitioning their social justice ideas and programs into independent organizations capable of generating measurable local, national and international impact. Our students cultivate relationships within the university that criss-cross all disciplines, and nurture partnerships with community-based organizations beyond the university’s walls. In the process, they learn to see problems through the eyes of the communities with whom they work, gaining hands-on experience and developing the leadership skills they need to execute their vision for a better, more just society.

CAMPUS Y CHARTER “The Campus Y is a student movement rooted in a history of advocating grassroots social change at our university and in our wider society. We are humbled by and accountable to our honorific, ‘the conscience of the university,’ a responsibility earned by generations of Y students who championed justice and equality, even in unpopular circumstances. We strive to uphold this legacy, working alongside but also challenging university, government, and private institutions. We honor our community as a place where change can happen and a place that nurtures us with energy, knowledge, and a multiplicity of perspectives.”

• Recognize ourselves as students who are learning and growing; • Embrace the multiplicity of our approaches to social justice work; • Commit to honest, communicative, horizontal, and inclusive relationships; • Work with rather than for communities; and • Build and promote Y-wide coalitions to respond to social injustice.

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Y PA S S I ON C HAN GES T HE WORLD The Campus Y has been transforming the lives of students on campus for generations. What would the student experience at Carolina be without intramural athletics, new student orientation, the APPLES Service-Learning Center, Student Stores, and Carolina Kickoff? All of these familiar UNC institutions originally grew out of the Y. At the same time, our core commitment to social justice shapes everything we do, and reaches well beyond our campus walls. Our ambitious students tackle poverty, hunger and social inequality in the community by managing volunteer projects and launching “social enterprises” such as Seal the Seasons, Musical Empowerment, Nourish International, and the Community Empowerment Fund.

Collectively, these groups extend our impact to the borders of North Carolina and beyond. This is how Y passion changes the world.

Since the launch of our Strategic Plan in 2011, the Y has sought to affirm our position at the

IN 2014-2015, THE CAMPUS Y: • Launched new funding, capacity building, and communications platforms to support 30 social justice committees and 2,000 student volunteers; • Graduated the first cohort of Bonner Leaders; • Accepted the fifth class of Global Gap Year Fellows; • Spun out 10 social ventures from CUBE, a mix of nonprofit and for profit ventures, including Seal the Seasons, winner of the 2015 Emerging Issues prize; • Hosted Earl Martin Phalen as Social Entrepreneur in Residence; • Launched the Global Circle, Global Engagement Fund, and, in partnership with Duke, the Global Leadership Institute; • Collaborated with the Real Silent Sam Coalition to connect the UNC campus to national narratives around race and free speech; • Created a web site for UNC’s Social Innovation Initiative, connecting social entrepreneurship across Carolina’s campus; and • Celebrated staff achievements such as a Luce Scholarship, Bryan Service Award, and induction into Order of the Golden Fleece. core of the university’s public service mission by aligning our programming goals closely with UNC’s academic plan, diversity initiative, and roadmaps for global education, innovation and entrepreneurship. Signature campus-wide initiatives have since evolved out of the Y’s activities, including the Bonner Leaders Program, the Global Gap Year Fellowship, and CUBE, UNC’s Social Innovation Incubator All of these initiatives have demonstrated our highest social justice principles in action, while expanding access to our programs to students from all walks of life. They have helped us build effective programming partnerships with departments in the College of Arts and Sciences, and the graduate and professional schools. Despite years of state budget cuts, the Y has been able to grow these initiatives by attracting new investment from generous alumni like you.

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Y PA S S I ON I N S PIRES ACT ION The late UNC President Emeritus Bill Friday called the Campus Y the “nerve center” of Carolina because of the way the building hums around the clock, with students tackling local and global disparities in health, homelessness, hunger, and human rights. Our historic home in the heart of campus serves as an interdisciplinary hub for campus-wide collaboration.

CAMPUS Y AT A GLANCE IN 2015:

During 2014-15, Y Co-Presidents Shauna Rust and Dinesh McCoy and their Executive Board launched critical programs to strengthen student social justice committees, support student innovation and entrepreneurship, and mobilize campus-wide activism. Their efforts will live on long after they graduate.

• 100,000 hours of community service

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• 30 student social justice committees; 10 dedicated to global service

Criminal Justice Workshops: First year Members at Large (FMALs) held a criminal justice education week, focused on discussions of race and the school-to-prison pipeline.

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HKonJ: The Y bussed 150 students and community members to Raleigh to participate in the Historic Thousands on Jones Street (HKonJ) rally, part of the Moral Monday and Forward Together movements in North Carolina.

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First Year Collaborative: A leadership development program for first years was launched to provide assistance to committees while cultivating future committee chairs and Executive Board leaders.

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Global Circle: Leading UNC in thinking critically about global service, the Y organized skills workshops and a speaker series to educate the Carolina community about the ethics of global activism.

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Global Leadership Institute (GLI): Former Global Gap Year Fellows, working in partnership with peers at Duke, launched GLI to educate UNC and Duke students on best practice for conducting international service projects.

• 2,000+ student volunteers • Cabinet officially supported Real Silent Sam Coalition • Contributed to UNC

Board of Governors Democracy Coalition • Established First Year Collaborative to engage first year students in leadership roles across the organization • Stood in solidarity with the Muslim Student Association after the violent deaths of three students • Launched Global Engagement Fund to expand international service experiences

• Added new committee, Art + Life, an after-school education program

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ME E T V I S H AL RED DY ‘ 16 Co-Chair HYPE, Co-President 2015-16 The summer before his senior year in high school in Cleveland, OH, Vishal walked down his grandmother’s street in Hyderabad, India, hoping to volunteer at a school for povertystricken youth. He left his first meeting at the school with an assignment to teach a group of students for an hour a day. Well intentioned but underprepared, he threw himself energetically into his work and came away with an acute awareness of the importance of training to complement his good intentions.

Vishal brought this perspective with him to UNC, where he signed up to be a volunteer with Helping Youth by Providing Enrichment (HYPE), a Campus Y social justice committee that provides social, cultural and educational experiences for children living in lowincome, public housing communities in Chapel Hill-Carrboro.

Vishal worked five hours a week with the same group of kids for more than a year, learning about the needs of the community and strengthening his own skills in after-school, non-formal education. He was elected co-chair of HYPE as a junior. HYPE presented Vishal with a chance to address the problem of his good intentions versus the need for adequate preparation. He and his co-chair, Tali DeGroot, embraced the idea of working with people rather than for them. They began sending HYPE tutors to community meetings and other community events at the Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association (RENA) community center to give them a more holistic perspective on the community.

When local politics presented a challenge to HYPE, Vishal improvised. At the end of spring 2014, HYPE was informed that it would no longer be able to provide tutoring at the South Estes Family Resource Center, where it had placed 100 volunteers. Undaunted, Hype leveraged community partnerships previously built by the Campus Y and the Bonner Leaders Program. Vishal helped HYPE reestablish services at an alternative location, and kept HYPE growing.

“By moving out of South Estes we actually ended up reaching more low income students than before,” says Vishal. “We also recruited 85 new tutors, which means we closed out the year at 120 total.” Vishal brought his creative problem-solving with him into his Campus Y Co-Presidency with Juliana Ritter. They are currently holding formal discussions with members of Cabinet and the Executive Board on social issues, local and global, making sure to include the voices of the communities the Campus Y seeks to serve. They have helped ramped up the Y’s profile so much that the Duke Chronicle recently listed the Campus Y as the number one thing that Duke should imitate about Carolina, thanks to our role “mak[ing] political and civic engagement a cornerstone of Carolina’s culture.”

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Y PA S S I ON D E L I V E RS COMMUN IT Y IMPACT The Carolina Bonner Leaders Program represents the best of UNC’s commitment to college access and public service. It leverages Federal Work Study funds to support those undergraduate students with high financial need who demonstrate a deep and binding commitment to community service.

Every fall, a diverse group of first years (nearly one-third are first-generation college students) are chosen through a competitive application process. They then follow a four-year development model that places them at one community partner organization for all four years, creating a deep and mutually beneficial partnership and allowing the Bonner to progresses from direct service, into project management and ultimately into public policy and community-based research. The significant service requirement—more than 250 hours per year—is complemented by mentoring and capacity-building, through weekly reflections, skills-building workshops, and critical issues seminars.

Through this program, students are engaging deeply and directly in communities with needs that they recognize and understand. Now in its fifth year, we have created a critical mass of dedicated public service advocates, supporting them as they engage and grow. As an interdisciplinary initiative involving both Student Affairs and Academic Affairs, the Bonner program is having a profound impact on student retention and graduation rates among its participants. The program is part of a nationwide network of more than 80 colleges and universities implementing this model, and with our culture of diversity, student agency, and our established network of community partnerships, the Campus Y is the ideal home for the Bonner program at UNC. We could not be prouder of our first graduating class of Bonner Leaders. They have gone on to become Fellows at Global Giving and the Emerson Hunger Fellowship; are working overseas with the US Peace Corps in Cambodia and the International Justice Mission in Bolivia; are pursuing Master’s degrees in Narrative Medicine and Social Work at Columbia University and UNC, and a PhD in Marketing at USC; and are launching successful social enterprises such as Seal the Seasons right here in Orange County.

COMMUNITY PARTNERS: • Blue Ribbon Mentor- Advocate Program

•Chapel Hill-Carrboro Human Rights Center • Empowerment, Inc. • Hargraves Community Center • Farmer Foodshare • Marian Cheek Jackson Center for Saving and Making History • Orange Co. Family Resource Center • Rogers-Eubanks

Neighborhood Association (RENA) Community Center • Sacrificial Poets • Street Scene Teen Center • Student Coalition for Action in Literacy Education (SCALE) • TABLE, Inc. • Volunteers for Youth

BONNER LEADERS AT A GLANCE 2014-15 • 49 students • 14 students from out of state, the rest drawn from 18 North Carolina counties • 15 students were first in their family to attend college • 31 UNC Convenant Scholars • 9,800 volunteer hours in 2014-15 • 250 training and enrichment hours • Working with 13 community partner nonprofit organizations • Regular seminars on social capital, immigration, poverty, entrepreneurship, and social movements • First class of Bonners: 100% graduation, 100% now in jobs or at graduate school.

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ME E T BO N N ER LEAD ER DARON HOLMAN ‘ 15 Daron Holman’s passion for service was ignited during high school in Fayetteville, NC, where he often served dinners on Saturdays at food-bank kitchens. This experience led him to engage directly with people suffering from hunger, and to confront the stereotypes about people living in poverty.

During his Bonner career, Daron worked with two different community partners, first as an assistant for the Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association, which closed before his sophomore year, and then at the Marian Cheek Jackson Center in Chapel Hill’s Northside community. During his final year at UNC, he was a Bonner Senior Intern, working for the director of the Bonner program to restructure the curriculum, organize the Bonner Sophomore Exchange with Guilford College, and to represent the Bonner Program on the Campus Y Cabinet.

Daron graduated in ‘15 and is now working as a Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellow. The fellowship’s mission is to create leaders who are well-versed in grassroots anti-hunger and antipoverty initiatives. For the last half of 2015, Daron was in Seattle with United Way, researching anti-poverty strategies and making recommendations to its senior staff. For the first half of 2016, he is based in Washington, D.C. with The Urban Institute, fighting poverty and hunger through policy initiatives at the national level. “Without the Bonner program, I wouldn’t have been accepted to this fellowship,” says Daron. “Bonner let me see that I want to commit my life to combating poverty.” His future plans are to acquire an economics research position and pursue graduate school in economics and public policy.

The most important thing I learned about service from the Bonner program is that service work needs to be balanced with policy work. I’ve also learned from the people around me in the community during my Bonner service how to keep fighting for what you are passionate about ... I’m going to miss this program more than I could ever express in words, but I can’t wait to take what I’ve learned and give back and impart some wisdom to the next generation.

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Y PA S S I ON IS A PAS S PORT TO T HE WORLD Students at Carolina eagerly explore the world every chance they get: approximately one-third of UNC undergraduates study abroad before they graduate. Even greater numbers pursue global internships and project-based service trips, experiences they often bring back to their studies and integrate into their leadership opportunities in the community with the help of staff at the Campus Y and the Center for Global Initiatives.

Over the past five years, global programming at the Campus Y has taken flight, with an increasing emphasis on expanding opportunity for under-represented student populations.

The Global Gap Year Fellowship (GGYF)—now entering its fifth year—is a highly competitive nine-month fellowship managed by the Campus Y. High school students who have been accepted to UNC early action are eligible to defer enrollment for one year in order to undertake a self-designed program of volunteer service, and travel, abroad. GGYF was made possible by an anonymous gift of $1.5 million to the Campus Y, providing support for students who would not otherwise be able to afford this type of service experience.

Campus Y students also have global impact through the ongoing service and advocacy work of 10 Campus Y committees, such as Project Heal, AGRADU, World Micro Market, Nourish UNC, and more. This year the Y launched three new global programs to enhance global engagement by all students at UNC: the Global Circle (see p.5), the Global Leadership Institute (see p.5), and Global Engagement Fund, which disburses stipends of up to $2,500 to students who undertake a summer of international service, helping traditionally under-represented students engage in the world in a direct, hands-on way.

Through the Campus Y’s global programs, UNC students bring an international perspective back to their work right here in North Carolina. They develop career and language skills and gain realworld experience that serves them well through their college years and beyond.

GLOBAL GAP YEAR FELLOWS AT A GLANCE: • 26 Fellows: 19 on campus and 7 in the field • Requirements: approved proposal including minimum six months of service abroad, pre-departure orientation, blogging, regular communication with Campus Y coordinator • Countries visited: Argentina, Australia, Bali, Bolivia, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, Iceland, India, Italy, Kenya, Madagascar, Myanmar, Nepal, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Peru, Rwanda, Scotland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Togo • Types of service: teaching English, promoting sustainable agriculture, hospice care, orphanage child caretaking, teaching preschool, working with a youth service organization, assisting with a marine conservation organization, volunteering at organic farms, working at soup kitchens, helping build a YMCA, volunteering at youth camps, saving sea turtles, and educating young monks • Foreign language immersion in: Spanish, Chinese, Arabic and Hindi; several students have earned Critical Language Scholarships and Foreign Language and Area Studies Program awards.

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ME E T GLO BA L GAP Y EAR FELLOW GABY ALEM ÁN ‘19 During her gap year, Gaby Alemán from Charlotte, NC, spent eight months in Southeast Asia. In Galle, Sri Lanka, Gaby volunteered at an orphanage, where she took care of children—feeding, bathing, and sometimes helping them get to sleep. In Bali, where the economy depends heavily on tourism, she taught English to older students, giving them an edge in the local economy and a chance to improve their communities.

Gaby’s gap year changed her. She says it taught her to think for herself. Traveling across the world, Gaby found herself in control of her own decisions and accountable for any mistakes. With this new sense of maturity, she discovered how adaptable she could be. With an increased sense of confidence, Gaby learned to live in a constant state of gratitude and never became homesick.

She arrived at UNC determined not to take her college experience for granted after meeting so many people abroad who would do anything for a Carolina education. She knows she’ll have fun, but she couldn’t be more excited to study. She thinks more people should take gap years so that they can enter college with the same, more mature outlook.

Gaby has admired how former Global Gap Year Fellows have taken advantage of so many opportunities UNC has to offer. She has noticed how they find funding to study abroad in the summers. She has seen the way “Gappers” take interest in international students, trying to learn everything they can from them. She has seen how they flourish at Carolina and she is excited to join their highly-motivated ranks. And as she works toward a career in the tourism industry in Latin America, she carries some great memories of her gap year with her.

Such as the time she was in Sri Lanka, on her last teaching day. She and two other volunteers had been making colored powder packets all week, so that the children could have their own celebration of Holi, the ancient Hindu religious festival also known as the festival of colors or the festival of sharing love. It had been raining all week, but on this day it cleared up. The sky was blue and deep. The air smelled like rain. Gaby, her co-volunteers, and the children put on white t-shirts and loud music, and they ran around decorating each other in vibrantly colored powder. After a while, they walked down to the nearby beach for a swim, and, as it had been raining so much, they were met with a huge rainbow over the sea. It was one of the most magical moments of her life, she says, and now she takes it with her wherever she goes.

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Y PA S S I ON S O LV ES S OCIAL PROBLEMS The Campus Y launched CUBE, UNC’s Social Innovation Incubator, in 2012. A critical component to the Campus Y’s social justice mission, CUBE is dedicated to incubating scalable solutions to social, environmental and economic challenges. Our model provides UNC students, faculty and staff with the resources and the support that they need to turn their best entrepreneurial ideas for social improvement into reality.

Since its creation, we have successfully launched 14 ventures dedicated to improving the social good. These companies—a mix of non-profits and for-profits—are working on issues as varied as improving access to clean water through on-the-spot testing, offering safe late-night transportation on campus, mitigating the lack of access to healthy, affordable food in our community and designing vocational training for young adults with autism.

CUBE has four elements to its programing:

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Space: The third floor of the Campus Y building has been transformed into a dedicated co-working space, available to our social entrepreneurs 24/7.

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Capacity Building: To solve complex problems, you need a diverse skillset and an entrepreneurial mindset – and to run a business you need the nuts and bolts. The Campus Y provides workshops on everything from design thinking and perfecting your pitch, to business planning, leadership and teamwork, project management, grant writing, accounting, fundraising, legal incorporation and liability, partnership agreements, intellectual property and digital marketing.

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Mentoring: As well as informal mentoring from Y staff and partners throughout the year, the Y also brings to campus a nationally renowned UNC Social Entrepreneur in Residence (SEiR), who provides thought-leadership and strategic planning acumen, to coach our social ventures and to help our university forge new partnerships, refine programming, and ensure the sustainability of CUBE.

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Connections: We work closely with the departments of Computer Science, Public Policy, Communications, Economics (Minor in Entrepreneurship) in the College of Arts and Sciences; UNC’s Community Development Law Clinic; Duke Law Startup Ventures Clinic; the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and Center for Sustainable Enterprises at Kenan-Flagler Business School; and UNC’s School of Education; School of Social Work; and Gillings School of Global Public Health. The success of programs such as CUBE and Launching the Venture earned UNC-Chapel Hill the 2015 Deshpande Symposium Award for The Entrepreneurial University. And in recognition of its important role at Carolina, the Y received support this year from the Kenan Charitable Trust to scale social entrepreneurship at UNC and forge a premier model in US higher education.

CUBE AT A GLANCE: • 10 startups addressing food security, public education, public health, environment, access to technology, and arts funding • 14 successful ventures launched to-date • Disbursed $50,000 in seed funding over two years • Workshops on business planning, organizational messaging, risk reduction, entrepreneurial accounting, communication strategy, and marketing • Entrepreneurial expertise provided during one-on-one mentoring for startup teams and training for a campus-wide audience • Earl Martin Phalen, nationally renowned education entrepreneur, served as UNC’s Social Entrepreneur-in-Residence in 2015

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M E E T S OC I A L E NT REPREN EUR PAT RIC K MAT EER Bonner Leader and Co-founder of CUBE venture, Seal the Seasons Born and raised in Chapel Hill, Patrick Mateer thought he knew his community pretty well. As one of the Campus Y’s Bonner Leaders at UNC, he started working with the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Human Rights Center, where he soon realized that his community was more complex than he had realized.

Although raised in a modest household himself, Patrick was struck by the extent of poverty in his apparently affluent town. A gardening enthusiast, he was especially concerned about the problem of food insecurity. His first idea was to create a garden at the Human Rights Center.

During his second year as Bonner Leader, Patrick got hands-on experience in addressing the problem of food insecurity as a program coordinator and trainer with local nonprofit Farmer Foodshare. He began to look at the problem of hunger from a broader perspective.

I came to CUBE with an idea, and CUBE helped me to turn it into reality. Thanks to the Y’s partnerships across campus, we were able to get hands-on advice from the business school, the law school and from mentors who have had experience running their own startups, on everything from business plans, to understanding partnership agreements to the art of the elevator pitch. Thanks to CUBE I quickly went from understanding very little to running a business.

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Patrick’s insights and passion inspired the idea of flash freezing local produce, and distributing it in food deserts. He and a small team from the Gillings School of Global Public Health pitched the idea to CUBE and were accepted as a venture. They called their startup Seal the Seasons.

His work in CUBE and the Bonner Program helped Patrick earn a scholarship to Watson University, a highly competitive semester-long program in Boulder, CO, for student innovators, leaders, and entrepreneurs, designed to enable them to focus intensively on building their ventures. Patrick also earned a Phillips award, allowing him to travel to South America to look at food insecurity on an international scale.

These experiences—and the skills workshops and mentorship he received in CUBE—have helped to take Patrick from a young person aware of a persistent social problem, to a student with an idea, to a college graduate running a going business concern that currently employs three people. Patrick and his team have won almost $100,000 in award money for their great idea and hard work, including $50,000 from the Institute for Emerging Issues.

Seal the Seasons is now changing the food system in North Carolina by bringing healthy food into lower income communities sustainably, and selling it for an affordable price. Through their purchases, Seal the Seasons’ customers support local farms and help build a food system that promotes health for more and more people. Patrick is making the community a better, less nutrition-starved place through social entrepreneurship.

Y PA S S I ON L AS TS A LIFET IME Students from all walks of life come to the Y seeking an opportunity to get involved. There’s something infectious about the Y’s culture that gives everyone who comes through the door a distinct sense of purpose, and a belief that they can change the world for the better.

The building positively hums with students working on their creative ideas for social change.

Campus Y teams hone their solutions through the exchange of ideas with their peers, through mentorship by the Y staff and visiting experts and through skills-building workshops. The experience of being an individual in this hive of problem-solvers leaves its mark—on both identity and relationships. As the saying goes, “The Y changes you as you change the world.” Its imprint is permanent.

Our alumni travel far and wide, contributing their passion and experience to addressing global problems. They live creative lives of purpose, and they trace the roots of their drive back to that iconic building in the heart of UNC’s north campus and the community culture it has so patiently nurtured for 155 years.

My participation and Co-Presidency at the Campus Y in the early 2000s was one of the defining experiences of my life. It inspired and empowered me to found Last Mile Health, which saves lives by training and equipping healthcare workers in the world’s most remote villages. With CUBE, their Social Innovation Incubator, now in full swing, the Campus Y has become a launching pad for a variety of exciting initiatives targeted at improving the quality of life in North Carolina and the world.

RAJ PANJABI ’02 Founder, Last Mile Health Former Campus Y Co-President Chemistry Major UNC Medical School graduate 2007

The Campus Y was effectively my primary residence at UNC—I hardly left the place, and it gave me some of my best memories of college. But the greater effect on my life came afterwards. In many ways, the Y set the course for the rest of my career. The Y tells students ‘If you’re passionate about something, here’s a platform to work from, see what you can create.’ It’s a perfect training ground for entrepreneurship.

ALEC GUETTEL ’91 Co-founder/Chairman, Sungevity Founder, Axiom Law Co-Founder, Imprint Campus Y Co-chair, Student Environmental Action Coalition (SEAC), now a national nonprofit

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I miss my job at the Y. I miss being a student at the Y. Those were good times, during which I became more passionate about different causes and empowered to believe that justice is something I could pursue for the rest of my life. Even more, the Y taught me to look beyond my own cause as a Latina in the United States, and to look at the other issues affecting my peers and communities around the world. My job as the global programs coordinator is what encouraged me to get on a plane and begin living abroad to explore these issues first hand. All in all, I am so grateful for that pink little building’s existence on UNC’s campus.

I hope it continues to inspire other fellow Tar Heels as much as it continues to inspire me even as I am all the way across the Pacific Ocean in Thailand.

JAKELIN BONILLA ’12 Luce Scholar, Thailand Former Campus Y Staff, Global Programs Coordinator Bonner Senor Intern, 2011-12 Founder, Campus Y Committee Linking Immigrants to New Communities (LINC)

While at UNC, the Campus Y completely transformed me and my life trajectory. The Y was a home for me: it was where I formed lasting friendships, where I studied and worked late in my free time, where I had an outlet to apply what I was learning in the classroom to the world around me. My experiences as committee member, co-chair, and co-president inspired me to start a faithbased transitional employment bakery in Chapel Hill and pursue a Master’s degree in Social Work. Without the opportunities the Campus Y provided, there is no possible way I would have the skills, confidence, and ability to start and run my social enterprise, Made With Love Bakery. I cannot emphasize enough just how vital the Y has been in helping me become who I am today.

ALLISON NORMAN ‘12 Founder, Made with Love Bakery Former Campus Y Co-President, SWEAT Co-Chair, and Cabinet Member Psychology Major Master’s in Social Work from UNC ‘14

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C A M P U S Y F I N AN CIAL S CAMPUS Y REVENUE FY2015

University Donations Endowments Grants Federal Fundraising

Total Revenue $676,599

University Funding

$ 233,005

Private and Corporate Donations

$

Endowments

$ 102,652

UNC Grants

$

3,000

Federal Work-Study Funding

$

95,050

Student and Program Fundraising

$ 195,608

Total

$ 676,599

47,284

While the Campus Y receives approximately one third of its operating budget from the University for office salaries, the Y receives no financial support from the University for programming. The Bonner Leaders Program is funded mostly by the Federal Work Study program. The Global Gap Year Fellowship is sustainably funded by an anonymous endowment. CUBE is supported by Campus Y fundraising efforts, endowments, and private and corporate donations. Because much of the social justice work undertaken by our students is political in nature, it must be funded by sources not affiliated with the state of North Carolina. Student fundraising efforts account for the majority of their annual operating budgets.

CAMPUS Y EXPENSES FY2015

Programming

Programming

$ 393,701

Overhead

Overhead

$ 233,964

Fundraising

Fundraising

$

Total

$ 627,665

4,241

Total Expenses $627,665

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LOO KI N G AHEAD Over the past five years, the Campus Y has made significant headway engaging first generation college students, youth from lower income backgrounds and students of color in all areas of our global and domestic programming. New initiatives such as the Bonner Leaders Program, the Global Gap Year Fellowship and CUBE are drawing diverse student perspectives into the Y, enriching all that we do for social justice and social innovation.

As we prepare to take our work forward in the next five years, we intend to forge greater collaboration within the Y between these three initiatives, and our 30+ standing Y committees.

Together this portfolio of activity forms a highly interactive, experiential learning model, one that is physically at the center of campus and philosophically at the core of how students in the 21st century are learning. Our combination of academic and applied learning has made the Campus Y arguably the most distinguished social justice and social innovation model in US higher education.

Yet we also believe we can strengthen our programming model even more in the years ahead by:

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Enhancing the links between faculty and student civic engagement; Facilitating the interplay between domestic and global service programming models; Connecting service activities outside of the classroom with formal service-learning; Exploring the relationship between civic and political engagement, advocacy and entrepreneurship; and Tying this to the development of careers of purpose.

Toward these ends, we anticipate growing our cross-campus partnerships in the year ahead, enhancing the links between departments in the College of Arts and Sciences, the Graduate and professional schools and Student Affairs in order to advance UNC’s culture of public service and experiential learning.

To do so, it is important to stabilize our core operations, to expand the capacity building we provide our students and to attract the resources our students, their service and advocacy projects, volunteer committees and social ventures need to succeed.

By expanding the reach of the Campus Y in this way, we have the opportunity to transform the lives and future careers of our students, while driving measurable social change in our community.

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INVEST IN LASTING CHANGE Just as you, our generous alumni, were critical to the restoration of the YMCA Building in 2007, you are the cornerstone of our capital campaign to endow and stabilize our social justice programming and operations. An endowment today is more important than ever. 1) There has been a spike in local poverty since the Great Recession. The student response to it has been amazing—students volunteer more than 100,000 hours a year in the community. Their work is increasingly sophisticated and ambitious and critical to meeting local human needs. And this requires more resources. 2) Support from the University for staffing and operations at the Y—the counseling, advising, mentoring, capacity buidling—has not kept pace with the incredible growth in student programming. We have the same number of staff that we had 50 years ago. 3) The Y is recruiting and training more diverse volunteers from across Carolina—lower income students, first generation college students, and students of color. Supporting these students, engaging them in our committees and social ventures, is an organizational priority.

Some of our most innovative programming has come from our sustaining donors. We ask you to consider making the Campus Y a part of your regular, long-term giving to support social justice, unparalleled student passion, dynamic leadership, experiential learning, community partnerships, innovative solutions, and real-world impact.

Make an investment in lasting change

OUR C AMPUS Y S TUDEN TS

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Y PA S S I ON G IVES BAC K – T H A N K YO U F OR S UPPORT IN G T HE C AMPUS Y! Susan Acito Carol Alan Alexandra Almeter American Endowment Foundation Judith Anapol Richard Andrews Imani Augustus Ayco Charitable Foundation Alison Bouwmeester Lisa Bailey Martin Beasley James Bell Victor E. Bell Jr. & Jane M. Bell Family Foundation Chad Benesh Eunice Benton Ward Bondurant Natalie Borrego Burcu Bozkurt Sarah Browning Natalie Burke Christina Cheng James Clark Glenn Cole Belinda Cooper Barbara Coughlin William Denton Connie Eble Palmer Edwards Ernst & Young Matching Gifts Nora Esthimer Travis Faircloth Family Foundation Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund Leslie Finch Stuart Gansky Tyson Hammer Allison Hilliard Rebecca Hockfield Daron Holman Catherine Inabnit Melissa Jackson Richard Johanson Charles Jeffress Brittani Jones Zachary Kaplan

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Thomas Kenan Catherine King William Kleysteuber Thomas Lambeth Lydia Latta Lorenzo Lewis Joseph Loughran Erica Ludi Richard Lupton Julie Lytle Jennifer Mason Janet Mason Thomas Mayo Dinesh McCoy Ronald McCoy Lisa McDonald Lora McKinney James Medford R. Michaels Bonny Moellenbrock Christian Payne Adrienne Peters Myles Presler Graham Rights Sharon Ringwalt Rodgers Family Foundation Marrisa Rose Craig Savage Edward Schaaf William Schmidt Sarah Schuyler Schwab Fund for Charitable Giving Victoria Seiple James Semans Pauline Shook Katherine Slaughter Jerry Smith Sara Sterman Sarah Stewart Karthik Sundaram Michael Tarrant Mackenzie Thomas John Thomas Judy Thorne Susan Thornton

Evelyn Toliver Kathleen Travis Lydia Vandenbergh Martha Vetter Anne Viola Madhulika Vulimiri James Wann Morgan Welch Alexzine Whitted Gordon Wilbourn Jack Witty E. Woodbury R. Worley Seema Zeya Caroline Zullo

THE CAMPUS Y UNC-Chapel Hill Campus Box 5115 Chapel Hill, NC 27599-5115 http://campus-y.unc.edu/