The Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Institute for Service-Learning staffing is funded by the endowment and grants from local foundations.

The Institute staff include a full-time Director, a half time Community Liaison, and a full-time Post Graduate Fellow, who are ably aided by student workers as well as the LaPlante Student Scholars.  Students have contributed importantly to the development of the Institute and its programs.

We provide faculty development and support in service-learning pedagogy, including research (and assessment), logistical support, and grant funding.  We work with student leaders to develop complex projects, including ongoing programs with KPS, health clinics, environmental organizations, and many others, in which hundreds of "K" students are involved every year.  And our  reciprocal partnerships with the community hinge on shared  project planning and purposes.

Alison Geist, MPH, Director.  Ms. Geist did her graduate and undergraduate work at the University of Michigan, where she later worked at the Institute for Social Research in the Center for Research on the Utilization of Scientific Knowledge.  At ISR she coordinated a study of Michigan’s Criminal Sexual Conduct Statute, and is author, with Jeanne Marsh and Nathan Caplan, of Rape and the Limits of Law Reform (Jossey-Bass, 1982).  Also at ISR, Ms. Geist also worked on a study of social problem definitions in the social sciences, an analysis of US mental health policy in the 1970s and 80s, and a study of Indochinese “boat people” in the US. 

She then lived in Morocco for about six years, first as a Peace Corps Volunteer working with her colleague and spouse, Gary S. Gregg,  in the villages of the High Atlas Mountains and pre-Sahara.  There she created an integrated rural development project focused on women’s and children’s health, and became Director of the Near East Foundation, which she established  there, and which continues today.  Ms. Geist later worked at Tufts –New England Medical Center at The Health Institute where she coordinated a multidisciplinary, five- university qualitative study of Ethnicity and Well-Being. 

She joined Kalamazoo College in 1997 first as its Director of Summer Programs.  Later, with faculty and community partners, she helped establish the Campus Community Partnership, which has become the endowed Underwood Stryker Institute for Service-Learning.

Teresa Denton, MSW, Community Liaison. Teresa Denton has been the Community Liaison with the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Institute for Service-Learning since the position was created five years ago. Before this she worked for four years with the Kalamazoo Public Schools (KPS) as coordinator for the district’s partnerships with Kalamazoo College and Western Michigan University.

Prior to her work with K-12 and higher education, Denton worked in the child welfare field in Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo. She received her Masters of Social Work (MSW) from the University of Michigan in 1986 and her undergraduate degree from Adrian College in 1984. While a student at Adrian College she participated in the Appalachian College Exchange Project, where she lived, attended college and worked in the Appalachian region. This service-learning experience as an undergraduate led her to seek a degree in social work. After receiving her MSW, Denton began her career in child welfare as an Adoption Specialist with D.A. Blodgett Services for Children and Families where she worked until she moved with her family to Kalamazoo fifteen years ago. 

Denton began her involvement with KPS in 1994 when her oldest child began kindergarten in the district. In addition to her employment with KPS she has been involved as a volunteer and advocate for the district, serving as the president of the Woodward’s Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) and on various other building and district committees.

Breigh Montgmery, K ’06, BA. Art History, Post Graduate Fellow.  Breigh Montgomery, K’06, is the Post Graduate Fellow for the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Institute for Service-Learning at Kalamazoo College.  Montgomery graduated with honors in the combined major of Art & Art History. 

Combining art and social justice, Montgomery coordinated the Empty Bowls Project for her Senior Individualized Project (SIP).  Empty Bowls is a project that uses art as a means to end world hunger and is intended to cross social, political, racial, religious, and age boundaries (www.emptybowls.net).  Montgomery taught bowl-making workshops to students at the Woodward School for Technology & Research and Kalamazoo Central High School, Kalamazoo College students, and members at Ministry with Community.  The bowls were then donated to an event where a simple meal of soup and bread was served in the bowls for a $10 minimum donation.  Proceeds were donated to Heifer International and Kalamazoo Loaves and Fishes.  Other community partners included the Kalamazoo Community Foundation, local restaurants, and Vandersalm’s Flowers.

During her Junior & Senior years at Kalamazoo College, Montgomery received a LaPlante Scholarship to coordinate one of the Institute for Service-Learning’s Civic Engagement Initiatives.  Montgomery led the Literacy Tutor Program at The Woodward School for Technology & Research – one of the Institute’s partnerships with the Kalamazoo Public Schools.  As a LaPlante Scholar, she trained, oriented, and scheduled 8-10 Kalamazoo College students each quarter to work as Literacy Tutors in K-3 classrooms.  Before accepting a leadership position, Montgomery worked as a Literacy Tutor at The Woodward School for Technology & Research for two years.