December
12 , 2003
Preston
Smith Opens Doors to Students and Faculty for Weissman Center’s
Community-Based Learning Program
|
Photo: Fred LeBlanc
Preston
Smith
|
Preston
Smith, associate professor of politics, has taken on a new position
at Mount Holyoke as associate director of the Weissman Center,
where he directs the Community-Based Learning (CBL) program. For
Smith, who has been involved with CBL since 1996, the job is a
welcome opportunity to bring together his passion and commitment
for Mount Holyoke and for local urban communities such as Holyoke.
Smith believes strongly that college students should learn about
“effective civic engagement beyond the campus,” and
he sees CBL as a way for students and faculty to become involved
in the greater community. He traces the recognition of civic engagement
back to the College’s founder, Mary Lyon. “Students
come here with a certain predilection to engage in service. You
don’t have to sell that to students,” Smith said. “The
faculty is also civic-minded and open to new ways of teaching.”
Smith sees CBL as a reciprocal arrangement between local communities
and the College. “We want to emphasize that communities have
their own knowledge bases, different from the College’s but
equally valid,” Smith said. “Service can imply a one-way
relationship.” Smith explained that CBL is founded on the
idea that students can learn effectively by applying the concepts
and skills acquired in the classroom in the outside world. Students
can teach subjects learned in college courses to public schoolchildren,
for example, or they can work in the field assessing and applying
theories learned in the classroom. Students can also conduct field
research on subjects such as housing or economic development and
see how their findings compare with classroom models. “Students
generally like CBL classes because they can apply their knowledge
in a concrete way,” Smith said. “There is a tangibility
in a CBL course that you don’t usually have in a straight
academic class.”
Smith believes that good preparation is crucial so that both students
and host organizations benefit from the CBL program. “The
more a community organization gains from a CBL experience, the
more invested it is in the relationship with the class and the
more a student gets from it,” Smith said. To this end, he
is sponsoring a faculty-community seminar on Puerto Rican studies
for Mount Holyoke and Five College faculty who teach CBL classes
with community partners in Holyoke. “The idea for this seminar
came from Irma Medina who is an FP and works at the Care Center
in Holyoke,” Smith said. “Irma felt faculty could prepare
their students better to work in Holyoke if they knew more about
Puerto Rican history, culture, and politics on the island and
the mainland, since many of the CBL classes engage the Puerto
Rican community in Holyoke.” UMass professor Agustin Lao;
Isolda Ortega-Bustamante, agency director of Community Education
Project; and Smith are facilitating the seminar with assistance
from Medina and Kim Cameron-Dominguez FP.
Smith has also planned two workshops for CBL students. The first
will take place early next semester and will introduce basic concepts
of CBL, such as what a community is and what it means to work
in a community, and what skills and knowledge a student needs
for effective community work. The second workshop will be later
in the semester, providing a forum for students to discuss problems
and issues that arise in their fieldwork. Smith is well aware
that CBL faculty bear enormous responsibility in monitoring their
students’ work. “From our experience, this is one of
the more difficult things to do,” Smith noted. “The
workshops should take some of the burden off the faculty to help
their students throughout the course.”
To further alleviate the faculty workload, Smith is developing
a mentor program to train students experienced in CBL to provide
support and guidance for newer CBL students. He plans to have
this in place by next year.
Smith also seeks to strengthen CBL by integrating it better into
the College and beyond. While MHC presently has several programs
offering off-campus opportunities for students, including CAUSE
and internships, Smith would like see these better coordinated.
“I want us to have a better idea of where we overlap and
could collaborate,” Smith said. “I want faculty advisers
to be able to direct interested students to a range of choices
depending on each student’s needs.”
Smith sees an expanded role for Five College and Holyoke Community
College coordination through the Holyoke Planning Network, a college-community
partnership, in assessing the needs of local organizations and
in helping them forge productive relationships with CBL students.
He wants participating schools to coordinate their efforts so
that they can provide longer coverage on CBL projects. “Community
problems can’t be addressed in 13 weeks,” Smith said.
Ideally there will be continuity throughout the year, with different
classes picking up where others left off. “We’re beginning
to see the revitalization of Main Street in Holyoke, for example,”
Smith noted. “It’s an opportunity to participate in
development without displacement of the mostly low-income, Puerto
Rican population. We want to see if we can avoid the negative
effects of gentrification. This is an opportunity for the democratic
sharing between people of different racial, ethnic, and class
backgrounds. It’s exciting for students to be involved.”
Smith is not only working to make the existing CBL program more
effective, he also aims to expand its reach. With increased support
for faculty, he would like to add to the number of CBL courses
on campus and to make the program “a valued and regular part
of the curriculum.” He hopes to establish a CBL curriculum
that would include a first-year seminar using the city of Holyoke
as a case study in urban politics. The seminar would familiarize
students with materials such as census data and social science
literature. It would also take students into the Holyoke community
for discrete learning activities. Ideally, this seminar would
be followed by a methods course such as those offered in sociology,
anthropology, or psychology. Having taken these two foundation
courses, students would be well prepared for a variety of CBL
electives in which they could apply their knowledge and experience
in community learning activities.
Smith feels that this kind of planning is consistent with the
Plan for Mount Holyoke 2010’s focus on the curriculum. “A
more viable and substantive community-based learning program will
increase the opportunities for students and faculty to make civic
engagement a part of a Mount Holyoke education,” Smith said.
he
un
he
counter is
2,250
|
