The Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Institute for Service-Learning (MJUSISL) at Kalamazoo College gathered a team of students, staff, and a community partner to give a panel presentation, “Students as Colleagues: A Fellowship in Learning,” at the Michigan Campus Compact Service-Learning and Civic Engagement Institute 2012 on January 30 in East Lansing.
Sophomore Civic Engagement Scholars Raven Fisher (Detroit) and Roxann Lawrence (Jamaica), with Kalamazoo Communities in Schools Program Director Artrella Cohn, discussed the powerful learning and community impact of the award-winning program they lead, Community Advocates for Parents and Students (CAPS), at Interfaith Homes in Kalamazoo.
CAPS is a grassroots, all-volunteer organization that provides tutoring opportunities to KPS students from kindergarten to adult.
Kalamazoo College junior Jaiza Fayyaz, K’13, plays a card game with students at the Croyden Avenue School (KRESA West Campus).
By Faiza Fayyaz ’13
Last fall, Professor of English Bruce Mills and a group of ten Kalamazoo College students led by K Civic Engagement Scholar Faiza Fayyaz ’13 began the Young Adults Program, a service-learning partnership that pairs K students with young adults on the autism spectrum from West Campus, a public school within the Kalamazoo Regional Educational Service Agency.
Through a series of weekly visits, West Campus students age 17 to 26 have developed close relationships with a group of trained K student mentors while developing tools to transition successfully to a more independent lifestyle. Taking the individual talents and needs of West Campus students into consideration, K students engage in art, recreational activities, and social and relationship-centered experiences that combine to help West Campus students develop socially appropriate interactions in different settings.
The collaboration allows for the personal growth of the West Campus by building skills that help them confidently transition to community involvement, as well as form meaningful relationships with each other. Operated through the College’s Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Institute for Service-Learning, the program empowers West Campus students through self-advocacy and greater independence, and provides K students with skills necessary for engaging young adults and others whose ways of knowing reflect a different perspective on the world. By enhancing how K students addresses autism and encouraging personal interactions across the cognitive spectrum, the West Campus Young Adult Program has positively influenced the entire campus community.
Amelia Katanski ’92, English, received the Outstanding Faculty award from Michigan Campus Compact (www.micampuscompact.org) at the Service-Learning and Civic Engagement Conference on January 30 in East Lansing.
Nominated by President Eileen B. Wilson-Oyelaran and the College’s Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Institute for Service-Learning, Katanski was honored for her commitments to local food, food justice, and sustainability and her dedication to engaged, student-centered learning.
She has been teaching a first-year seminar, “Cultivating Community” as a service-learning course since 2006. She is also faculty advisor to “Farms to K,” which she co-founded with students, staff, and community partners.
“Farms to K” advocates for a local purchasing policy at Kalamazoo College and works closely with other student-led Service-Learning programs, including community gardening initiatives and Migrant Rights Action.
