Office of Community Engagement - Rollins College

PUT YOUR

PASSION INTO

ACTION.

OFFICE OF COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Life is for Service

Educating yourself may begin with books, midterm papers, and cram sessions. But that is merely the first step in an amazing transformation.

At Rollins, the classroom is your first teacher; the world is your final exam.

In between spending your first night in a residence hall and walking across the stage at graduation are service experiences that can only be found in the Rollins community. Through these experiences—which may include providing citizens of Nepal with access to clean water or mentoring children of farmworkers just down the road from Rollins—you’ll forge a stronger bond with your classmates, a closer connection to the planet, and a more profound understanding of not only what you learn in the classroom, but what you can contribute to the world. You’ll learn that service isn’t just an opportunity—it’s a responsibility.

This is the promise of a Rollins education and the purpose of the Office of Community Engagement. Rollins is a place where you will cultivate lifelong passions for service and progress …

a place where you will find your purpose through action.

Community Engagement Courses

New to Rollins, courses are now being offered with the designation “CE” (Community Engagement). CE courses provide unique opportunities for students to put their education into action through service-learning and research with

Ian Wallace ’12

community organizations and leaders. Reflec-

Tampa, Florida Major: International Relations Minor: Asian Studies

tion is a critical piece of the course experience.

while working hands-on with terminally ill

• Has enrolled in two CE courses: the Rollins College Conference (RCC) class Poverty & Citizenship and an international economics course on fair trade

children in the popular course Death and Dying,

• Student coordinator of OCE’s Immersion Program

or they may write about how community-

• Has been involved in Student Government and X Club and completed study abroad in China

For instance, students may journal about ethics

based fieldwork with migrant farmworkers enhances classwork in Applied Anthropology.

Although Rollins has offered more than 160 service-enhanced courses over the last decade, this new curriculum designation makes it easy for students to integrate scholarship with the greater good.

Everyone should take at least one CE course.

Going through those experiences has so much impact on what you’re studying. When I’m talking to an artisan in Indonesia, it’s much more enriching than just reading about fair trade in a textbook. Now I know I can apply what I’m learning to the world. These are the educational experiences I will remember the most about college.”

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{ THE WORLD } is your final exam.

Rollins Immersion: Citizens Take Action

Rollins Immersion is a wildly popular version of

Lucas Hernandez ’13

the alternative spring break. Just as much fun as the typical spring break, immersion experiences

Rochester, New York Major: International Relations

are not limited to just a week in the spring and they offer something more lasting than a sunburn. The program offers more than a dozen weekend and weeklong experiences throughout the year, where students learn about the history and culture of new places and gain first-hand knowledge about social issues like poverty, education, and the environment. Recent trips took students to Guatemala to study organic coffee production, and to our nation’s capital to study urban poverty and healthcare. Immersions allow students to use their time off as time on, preparing them for a life of active citizenship.

• First college service experience: SPARC Day of Service at Fern Creek Elementary School during orientation • Traveled to Washington, D.C. for an alternative spring break focused on poverty, which involved working with children with disabilities and at a food bank • Led an alternative spring break to Miami focused on the diversity of immigration in the U.S.

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Participating in immersions has been one of the most transformative experiences of my life. You don’t just learn about crucial social issues, you learn about about conflict resolution and leadership. What I find most rewarding is learning new and profound things about myself and about my community relationships. I feel more in tune with myself and more empowered to lead and set an example.”

Pathways to College Becoming a college graduate begins with a dream, but for many students from underserved communities that dream never takes flight. The Pathways to College program brings children from public schools to the Rollins campus to give wing to their academic dreams, showing them what college

Kayli Ragsdale ’12 Austin, Texas Major: Political Science

life is really like, from watching a theater • Student intern for Pathways to College

performance to working on real robots in a science lab. Hundreds of children walk across campus with their Rollins guides,

• Serves on the executive board of JUMP • Plays on the varsity tennis team and was awarded the 2011 Arthur Ashe Leadership & Sportsmanship award

who not only show them secret spots for studying and where the crowds sit to cheer on the basketball team, but also where they might find themselves in a decade.

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Rollins has a very holistic view of education, so what I learn in the classroom is only a small part of my whole education. I’m learning and growing as a person by spending time with children in the Pathways programs and helping to get other Rollins students involved. All of that is integral to my development and helps me to understand everything I’m learning in my classes about political science and civic activism.”

Forge a { STRONGER BOND }

SPARC

(Service Philanthropy Activism Rollins College)

The only program of its kind in the state of Florida, SPARC is a one-day service experience required of all incoming firstyear and transfer students. Service projects are connected to the content of Rollins College Conference coursework, creating a unique blend of real-world experience and academic understanding. SPARC is a high-energy, campuswide highlight of Rollins’ orientation programming with the goal of igniting a life of service and activism.

Annamarie Carlson ’14 Canal Winchester, Ohio Major: English • Volunteered at Mayflower Retirement Home with SPARC • Experience inspired her to join the executive board of JUMP, where she is a student coordinator • No stranger to service, she began volunteering at her local library when she was in elementary school and has logged more than 1,600 hours as assistant coordinator of its summer-reading program

SPARC truly sparked my interest in community engagement at Rollins. I realized that this was going to be more than just committing a few hours to service—it was the beginning of a lifestyle for me. In those few hours, I realized I was not just getting a textbook experience, but that service was going to be a part of who I am. Rollins’ mission statement says it values service and my very first day on campus confirmed that. I knew it was exactly the right place for me.”

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Upward Bound and Talent Search Getting to the next level academically is a struggle for many talented students whose parents did not attend college or whose finances put college out of reach. The federally funded programs Upward Bound and Talent Search are all about encouraging students in grades five through 12 through tutoring, SAT test prep, motivational speakers, and college tours in order to better prepare them for the challenges of college. Upward Bound and Talent Search programs have helped thousands of high

Carrie Glatting Orlando, Florida Pre-Collegiate Programs Coordinator • Enrolls and challenges 60 students in Upward Bound each year • Enrolls 800 students from area schools in Talent Search • Coordinates both paid teachers and Rollins students who tutor the high school students in academic subjects as well as on the finer points of becoming a college student, from filling out the application to figuring out which college and major will be the best fit

school students become college graduates and future leaders.

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Rollins students do so much to make these programs successful. Some have work-study positions to tutor in math or science or languages. Some are summer RAs, so they live in the residence halls with the Upward Bound students. Some are studying mental health counseling and offer career assessment to Upward Bound students, helping them figure out what path might work for them, so Rollins students are not only mentors, they’re also getting valuable work experience.”

Discover what it means to { BUILD A COMMUNITY }

Rollins Relief Thanks to streaming media, the world watched every horrifying moment of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, but a small group of Rollins students wanted to do more than just bear witness to the suffering.

They were inspired to help.

They traveled to New Orleans in the wake of the hurricane, founding a student-led campus-wide organization called Rollins Relief. Since then, nearly 270 students, faculty, and staff have served with the people of the region hit hardest

by Katrina, with 1 1,000 service hours dedicated to recovery and rebuilding. Participants paint, saw, hammer, and construct one

Sam Barns ’10 ’12MBA

house at a time with Habitat

Falmouth, Maine Major: Critical Media & Cultural Studies, MBA student

for Humanity and through hard work discover what it means to build a community.

• Has traveled twice to New Orleans with Rollins Relief to rebuild homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina • Has served as vice president and president of Rollins Relief • Travels yearly to Tanzania for service projects and plans to open an eco-lodge there when he graduates with his MBA

I wish we had some other word than ‘service’ for this kind of work. Service implies that we are giving something of ourselves away to other people.

The best service experiences I’ve had have always left me feeling like there was no way I could ever repay that place or those people for what they’ve given me.”

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JUMP (Join Us in Making Progress)

Amanda Wittebort ’13

The old phrase that a person learns best by

Kenosha, Wisconsin Major: Psychology

doing is the essence of the JUMP experience.

• JUMP Student Coordinator

JUMP, a student organization created to connect

• Feels special affinity for children’s programs like Give Kids the World and Children’s Home Society

volunteers with programs and initiatives in communities across Central Florida, provides opportunities for students to learn while serving

• Has organized events as children’s chair of JUMP

alongside others. Studying the politics of poverty takes on new resonance when students share stories with residents of a homeless shelter.

• Among many other experiences, has dressed up as a Christmas princess for the Give Kids the World holiday parade, part of a program where critically ill children enjoy a family vacation in Orlando, free of charge

Cramming for a test about the environmental impact of garbage is one thing, but it’s something else to join a hundred friends in filling bags with junk washed up on the coastline. Each JUMP event is open not only to students, but to faculty, staff, family, and friends, making it a true community experience.

It only takes one event to get a student—or faculty member—hooked. Our events are about small moments that you take away with you, such as the child you bond with at Give Kids the World Village, or the wall you build at Habitat for Humanity. Being a part of JUMP, I feel so much more connected to Rollins now, and I try to think every day about at least one thing I can do to make someone else’s life better.”

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Contribute to { THE WORLD }

Making Lives Better

Perhaps no other organization on the Rollins campus is more perfectly named than Making Lives Better, which is in the business of doing just that. Two Rollins students, who both call Nepal home, decided three years ago that they wanted to do something to help the underserved

Raghabendra KC ’13

in their home country and at the same time

Kathmandu, Nepal Major: Economics & Mathematics

share the wonders of Nepal with their Rollins friends. Thus was born Making Lives Better, which provides basic medical care at health camps in the impoverished Doti district. Rollins students have traveled there two years in a row

• With friend and fellow Cornell scholar and Nepali Adi Mahara ’12, KC has inspired dozens of Rollins students, faculty, and staff to support health camps, freshwater project Mission Aqua, school renovations, and a program that provides backpacks and school supplies to local children in rural regions of Nepal

with medical supplies as well as books, com-

• Has succeeded in adding four additional Making Lives Better chapters at other colleges here and abroad

puters, and sports equipment for local schools.

• Teams up with local organizations, such as Impact Nepal, to manage the logistics from half a world away

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More than two-thirds of my country lives below the poverty line. Had I been born just two houses down the road, I could not have afforded any education, let alone going to a college in America.

This experience helps me get the fullest out of all that I have, it helps me push myself and make the most out of everything. I feel blessed to have all that I have and to be involved in such an amazing venture with such amazing people.”

“So often, immersion experiences are an opportunity for unlearning, in that students begin to challenge what they thought they knew and understood.

Students begin to understand things from a new perspective, begin to ask new questions. When you’re taken out of your comfort zone, that’s when the real learning takes place. After you’ve spent your spring break building a new porch for a house destroyed by a hurricane, what you thought you knew isn’t the only thing you know anymore.”

—Meredith Hein Assistant Director of Community Engagement

Presidential Award Winner for Community Service Rollins has received the following recognition for it's community engagement initiatives:

• Presidential Award, 2010 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll | Rollins was one of six colleges and universities nationally out of more than 600 to receive this award, which is the highest federal recognition a college or university can receive for its commitment to community service.

• Recognition from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) | Rollins consistently performs above average in number of students who participate in community service, living learning communities, class discussion, and student/faculty collaborative research.

• 2008 Community Engagement Classification by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching | Less than 5% of colleges and universities nationwide have achieved this prestigious academic classification.

• Top Engaged Campus Award by Florida Campus Compact | Rollins faculty received recognition for excellence in service-learning for four consecutive years.

• Orange County Public Schools Partners in Education Award

• Winter Park Chamber of Commerce Community Organization of the Year

“Our goal is for students to be equipped to take on the greatest social, civic, and environmental challenges of our time and contribute in meaningful ways through global action and progress.”

—Micki Meyer, Director of Community Engagement

Rollins College educates students for global citizenship and responsible leadership. The Office of Community Engagement (OCE) fosters, encourages, and promotes student, faculty, and staff involvement within local and global communities. Through service-learning courses, community-based research, leadership development, community service, and innovative immersion programs and resources, OCE is deeply committed to fostering a lifelong commitment to personal and social responsibility in every member of the Rollins Community.

Rollins College Office of Community Engagement 1000 Holt Avenue - 2789 Winter Park, FL 32789 Phone: 407.691.1250 • Fax: 407.975.6455 Visit us: 2nd floor of Mills Memorial Building Email: OCE@rollins.edu Facebook: “Rollins College Office of Community Engagement” Twitter: twitter.com/rollins_oce

rollins.edu/communityengagement

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