Living out your values

"Service is love made visible.

If you love your friends, you will serve your friends.

If you love community, you will serve your community

If you love money, you will serve your money.

And if you only love yourself,  you will only serve yourself, and you will only have yourself"

-Stephen Colbert, Northwestern University Commencement Speech, 2011

At our staff meeting last Thursday, the Resident Assistants, Desk Manager, and Community Director of Suss got together to talk about our journey toward and through education. For me, this was an opportunity to share my beliefs about what service means. If service is love made visible, then we will always serve what we love. 

It was also an opportunity to talk about how we can serve. As undergraduates, we occupy a particular space--one fraught with opportunity, confusion, and dotted with individuals who are working to fully understand disciplines and them-selves. 

It is from this perspective that I look at service. Many hear that word and think of volunteering--going to a soup kitchen, for example, and working with those in need. That service has profound importance, but as students we can contribute even more. 

Our journey through UMBC is gifting us with skills and knowledge that others will never get the chance to have. If you're here to study biological sciences, then you are working to master the discipline of biology. Use that. If you are here to study mechanical engineering, how can social value be created through that process? Who's lives can be bettered, and how can you contribute to that?

Because that's what it comes down to. We're all here to allow people to become healthier and happier, to breathe more easily, to live more fully, and to love without restraint. If that's not the purpose, then why are we really here? Well,like every decision, coming here is a product of serving what we love. If we love money, then we are here to learn how to better serve our money.

But if we love others, if we are here to serve others, then we chose to go to college so that we may learn how to better serve others. And if that's true, then we are becoming better Biology students, better Engineering students, better Political Science students in order to better serve others through the skills that a degree symbolizes. The very process of getting that degree can be service, too. We can serve others through the very means of getting that education if only we choose to. Because service is not an act, it is a choice to be made every day. 

Creating Paths

This past week I was blessed with the opportunity to hear from a group of people; their personal stories on how they got to where they are in their educational career. More specifically, I heard about their challenges, victories, and if possible what they would change in their journey to an undergraduate degree. From the discussion we had one thing that became increasingly clear is that no two college journey's are the same, we all took different paths to get to where we are, and no path is lesser or greater.

Another thing that I was reminded of is that many students in the United States are not aware or unable to create the path that leads to college. In elementary schools in certain places, the idea of growing up to become whatever a child wants to be whether that be a teacher, artist, lawyer, or doctor is instilled at a young age. Students are taught that despite their circumstance they can overcome and become who they want to be, college is something attainable. Other schools however, students are not given this same hope and support, they in turn begin to see there situation over the opportunity of a college degree. This social change project provides us with the opportunity to show all students that upon graduation there are many paths a student could take work, military, etc, but the college path that is also attainable.

Equality Matters

The need to have at least a degree from a 4-year university is becoming more and more imperative to obtain a good paying job. 

This is why I am participating in The Apple Project. 

The process of getting into college is not equal for everyone. For some high-school students, going to college isn't an option due to costs, ineligibility, or legal issues. I think people need to be aware of this, especially those like me who were fortunate to have a rather easy time getting into college.I want to use my strengths to extend that privilege to those who don't have it.  

My Journey to Higher Education

I was born and raised in an Army family all the way--my parents met in the Army, and both of my older siblings joined the military right out of high school. For me, life after high school meant choosing between two options. I could choose to follow my family's path and join the military, or I could choose to take a step of faith and try out college life. I honestly don't think that I ever really considered joining the military; college seemed like the only real option that I had for my next step in life--so I took the plunge into the unknown.

Neither of my parents ever attended a University, although my Dad did take some community college courses when I was just starting high school. My Mom and Dad were both clueless to how the college process really worked--when to get applications in, how to apply for loans, what scholarships to apply for....all of these details were lost on them. My guidance counselor at school was completely useless. I can't think of a single piece of information that was given to me about the application process or any financial advice at all.

The lack of information that I had leading up to my application process is definitely something that I think should change, though I know that this is not the case for every student! By going out to RICA, we will be able to provide students with a basic knowledge of what it means to be a college student and what college life actually looks like.

I'm excited to be able talk to the students about what college life is like and to answer with firsthand experience what the application process looks like for students!

How Things Look from the Marketing Side

So, I'm on another side of things. I'm on the marketing team. Yes, my team and I may not be directly working with students from RICA, yet I do believe that we are equally as important as the rest of the people who will be serving. We are taking our time to educate SUS residents about this amazing possibility to serve and learn more about the issue of educational inequality that affects so many. Fliers, videos, bulletin boards, etc. are all important aspects that we will be covering in order to fully market the importance of: THE APPLE PROJECT. That's what we are calling it, and I'm excited for it.

Light in a Cave, Part 3

Katie Cano

EVERYTHING IS COMING TOGETHER WITH THE SOCIAL CHANGE PROJECT.

Finally, I feel like everyone can see that things are finally coming together. We have picked a date, and we are starting to delve into the interests of each student that we are going to be helping. By Friday, we should have it mostly put together. We’ll only be working with the Regional Institute for Children and Adolescents (RICA) now though, which I am still really excited about.

The game plan is that the students of RICA will come here for a day–tour the school, experience what classes are like, eat lunch here, and meet people from student organizations and student life.

Then the students of UMBC will go to RICA and work on preparing further for college.My goal is to have everyone who helps with this project love RICA at least a quarter of the amount that I do. I just hope that everyone gets to connect with at least one child and see the value in working with kids who are high risk. These kids are so smart, talented, and strong; I hope the students of UMBC get a taste of that strong spirit in these kids when they visit RICA.

I volunteer at RICA on Mondays and I was telling the seniors about coming to UMBC to tour. They were really excited to come here. The feeling is mutual all over UMBC.

Predictors

What if I told you I knew how you were going to perform in life?
All you have to do is answer a few questions about yourself:

1. What is your gender? Is it different from your biological sex?
2. Are you heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, asexual, etc.?
3. What is your race?
4. How much money did your parents make when you were growing up?
5. What was the highest level of education your parents completed?
6. Do you live in a two parent household?

Like a choose-your-own-adventure book, statistics would show that different answers to any of these questions can predict how economically well-off you'll be later. According to a study by The Williams Institute, women in same-sex relationships tend to make more money than heterosexual women, while homosexual males tend to make less than heterosexual males. Income across different racial groups also varies disturbingly, with Asian-Americans making an average of $68,636 annually while African Americans made an average of $33,321 (US Census Bureau, 2013).

The interesting thing is that across all categorizations of people, the main indicator of economic success is education. 

In a society where de jure segregation of virtually any institution or facility is illegal, it is the socially constructed de facto inequalities that merit the most attention. Especially in higher education, there is a a paradoxical situation in which institutions will literally bend over backwards to increase enrollment of underrepresented groups - some very controversial examples include race/gender quotas, special scholarships, targeted support programs - and yet it still has not worked to normalize enrollment across categories. 

One of the easiest categorizations is obviously race, which has been the subject of much media hype for decades:

It's impossible to not notice the downward trend in the orange bars, representing one word: INEQUALITY. True, these statistics come from following one group of students in Philadelphia over many years. However, similar trends are seen across America. In a society that strives for political correctness and equality, why does there exist so much disparity? These are not issues that can be shut out and placed in a corner in hopes that they will remedy themselves, because that's the Pandora's box that we will inherit when it comes to be our turn to essentially rule the world. 

At Susquehanna Hall in UMBC, we are striving to break the patterns that allow for predictions of educational success based on categorization. We envision a society in which answers to questions 1-6 above have neither statistical nor realistic impact on how high a child can achieve. A person's life is truly a choose-your-own-adventure, except it is not an adventure in which the options are already written ante factum. If we are truly to progress as a society, we must change society. This is our contribution to the hopes we all have for a brighter tomorrow, and we hope that you'll join us!

Light in a Cave, Part 2

by Katie Cano

In case you didn’t catch part 1, Susquehanna Hall’s staff is currently starting their social justice project about equal opportunity in education. We are planning on educating the residents about educationally opportunities in the U.S. and then taking them to Digital Harbor High School and the Regional Institute for Children and Adolescents–Baltimore (RICA), to help those students achieve their dreams of college. We are also planning on bringing many of these students to UMBC to show them what college is really like.

In my following blogs about this project, I will be addressing our process, struggles, achievements, and reflections about this project.

We’ve actually already had our first setback, but we’re continuing to move forward. Thurgood Marshall High School is a high school in Baltimore City that has many students that could use some help, and that’s who we wanted to work with. Unfortunately, we could never get in contact with them. So we continue to move forward.

Digital Harbor High School, another school in Baltimore City also has a large population of students who are struggling to make it through their education and into college. Students are plagued with cultural differences, language barriers, problems at home, drug use, and remedial skills that make it hard to keep up in their current classes. They also have many teachers, staff members, and parents who are very supportive of their students and are more likely to partner with us. So we have switched our efforts to Digital Harbor.

In addition, we had our first meeting with RICA this was extremely supportive and excited about working with us and helping their students. We decided that working with the seniors and juniors of the schools would be a great option. We could help them apply for community college, study for placement tests, practice note-taking skills, and talk about the reality of college.

Throughout this entire affair there may be setbacks. However, the important thing is to remain calm, keep pushing through, remember to be supportive of each other, and keep our goal in mind.