Engage | 2013-14

TRAILS OF ENGAGEMENT » p 10

CARES PROGRAM » p 18

COMMUNITY GARDEN » p 22

CHENEY STRING ACADEMY » p 14

NGAGEETHE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT MAGAZINE OF EASTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY2013 -14

creative connection» p 6

CoNtACt Us

Engage Magazine, Eastern Washington University300 Showalter Hall, Cheney, WA 99004-2445Phone: 509.359.6489Website: www.ewu.edu/Engage

Engage, Eastern Washington University’s magazine of community engagement, is published annually

by EWU Marketing & Communications.

Dr. roDolfo ArévAlo, President

Friends,

During my tenure as president of Eastern Washington University, one of

my top priorities – aside from student success – has always been to make

sure Eastern remains connected to the communities it serves. Not only does

this enrich the educational experience for students and faculty, it helps a

community prosper by addressing critical needs.

This is why community engagement is one of the four key pillars of our

new strategic plan, and a key point of our fundraising campaign.

Community engagement can mean many things to many people, but

at EWU it means that our students, faculty and the university as a whole

are actively involved in meaningful projects that result in the betterment

of a community. This could be through research or collaborative projects,

internships, community service, partnerships or in the form of professional

programs offered as part of the ongoing education of the working public.

And that leads us to this new publication, Engage. It’s a chance for Eastern

to showcase some of the great – and often overlooked – ways the university

works to foster a culture of civic responsibility. One of the stories you will

notice is a profile of the director of our Office of Community Engagement.

It has always been a priority of mine to have a dedicated staff which can

focus every day on ways to make sure Eastern stays connected to the wider

community.

And as you see, Eastern is doing some fascinating things to stay engaged

with the public. I hope this inspires you to become involved in your

community!

N G A G EEtHE CoMMUNItY ENGAGEMENt MAGAZINE oF EAstERN WAsHINGtoN UNIVERsItY

2013-14 | Volume 1, No. 1

On the Cover: Spokane elementary school student Caitlyn Tracy takes in a poetry lesson as part

of EWU’s Triceratops Poetry Project.

ewu.edu/Engage

Contents

E NGAGE MAGAZINE stAFF

Teresa ConwayDirector of

Marketing & Communications

Molly AyersDirector of the Office of

Community Engagement

Libby Campbell, Teresa Conway, Courtney Dunham, Brian Lynn,

David MeanyContributing Writers

Kandi Carper, Brian LynnCopy Editors

Steve BatemanArt Direction/Graphic Design

Larry Conboy, Eric Galey,David Helberg, David Lane

Photography

« 1E NGAGE

seCtIons02 » Meet Molly Ayers

03 » Eastern Engaged: News of Note

13 » 26 Days of Kindness

24 » Engagement by the Numbers

6Creative ConnectionElementary school students learn the wonders of poetry from EWU faculty and graduate students.

10Trails of EngagementAn unconventional spring break is a lesson in leadership for Eastern students.

18EWU CARES TeamSocial Work students team up with the Spokane Fire Department to offer help to vulnerable citizens.

22Cultivating ChangeCampus Community Garden hopes to change hearts and minds.

14Cheney String AcademyEastern faculty take young students beyond the music.

ewu.edu/Engage

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Meet MoLLY AYeRs

Eastern Washington University’s commitment to

the community took on new meaning in 2012 when

it opened the Office of Community Engagement. Its

goal is to connect the campus to the wider community

through meaningful, reciprocal partnerships in order

to enrich student learning, address critical community

needs and foster a culture of civic responsibility and

community engagement.

Under the direction of Molly Ayers, who came to

Eastern in fall 2012 from Gonzaga University where

she was assistant director of the Center for Community

Action & Service Learning, EWU is widening its

by David Meany

impact in the community. Ayers was first introduced

to community-based education when she served as an

AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer, coordinating service-

learning projects at a Title 1 middle school in Seattle.

Ayers viewed the Eastern job as a chance to make

a difference. “I was drawn to the position because

of the opportunity to build a program that expands

transformative learning opportunities for students at

EWU while meeting critical needs in our community,”

said Ayers.

“I focused my energy this past year on grant writing,

building infrastructure and learning about the EWU

community and its many engagement efforts,” said

Ayers. “I am continually impressed by the level of

innovation and the sophistication of community-based

projects occurring across the colleges and in student

affairs. The EWU community truly lives up to the

challenge to start something big.”

One of our big initiatives is the Eagle Volunteers

Program.

The Eagle Volunteers Program provides opportunities

for EWU students to participate in one-time or ongoing

service projects where student leaders will be placed

within local non-profit agencies to recruit, train and

reflect with student volunteers. The Eagle Volunteers

Program is partnering with Communities in Schools

and the Cheney School District to provide mentors at

area elementary and middle schools.

New projects will help Eastern strengthen its

connections to the communities it serves – which is

just what the university envisioned when it opened the

Office of Community Engagement.

If you are interested in learning more about Eastern’s

community engagement programs, please contact us at

[email protected] or 509.359.6255.

DirEctor of thE officE of commuNity ENGAGEmENt

mailto:[email protected]

ewu.edu/Engage

eAsteRn enGAGeDNEws of NotE

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HElpING VEts sMIlE

Eastern Washington University’s Dental Hygiene

Program donated services totaling more than $32,600

on its annual Smile for Veterans

Day in early March. Overall,

EWU’s dental hygiene students

treated 62 veterans at the

Riverpoint Dental Hygiene

Clinic.

For a $10 fee, veterans enrolled

at area colleges, who have no

other dental coverage, were

allowed to make appointments.

“This is a great way to give

back and thank our veterans for

serving our country,” said Rebecca Stolberg, director of

the EWU Dental Hygiene Program. “Eastern students

took the lead in this project, and offered as much dental

treatment as they could with the help of faculty, staff

and volunteer Spokane dentists.”

Smiles for Veterans is part of an annual community

service project for EWU dental hygiene students, who

help with cleanings, x-rays and complete dental exams.

A DAY oN, Not A DAY oFF

EWU students, staff, faculty and alumni took part

in Spokane’s Martin Luther King Jr. Unity March on

Monday, Jan. 21, in downtown Spokane. The group

showed off their Eagle Pride while joining in the annual

event celebrating civil rights.

EWU GREEks Do GooD

As part of Greek Week, EWU fraternities and sororities

perform community service, raise funds for local

charities, and participate in events like dodgeball,

paintball, volleyball and football. Here are some of the

positive outcomes from Greek Week 2013:

The number of students who

engaged in community service

projects on the Saturday morning of Greek Week.

3,500 Cans of food collected for the Cheney Food Bank.

80+ $3,345

Amount raised to help a local child, Sierra Higbee, in her fight against cancer.

ewu.edu/Engage

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performers due to the constraints of sending their

sounds over the high speed network. However, the

delay, or latency, was not enough to have a negative

influence on the performers.”

Two additional musicians, Ari Braggi, and Eythor

Gunnarson, also

p a r t i c i p a t e d

in the event,

but from even

further away, at

the University

of Reykjavík in

Iceland. They

performed Dyravisur, a folk song arrangement written

by drummer Einar Scheving.

This real-time musical cyber performance is part

of the unique MANOME project at Eastern, one

of the few universities in the country to actually

utilize this groundbreaking technology. MANOME,

the Metropolitan Area Network Optimized Music

Environment, allows musicians who are far apart from

each other a chance to perform together as if they

were in the same room. It is utilized for rehearsal or

education purposes, and this inspired EWU faculty

to team up with Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox

staff to do the same with the Jazz Dialogue Festival, to

showcase the power of this amazing technology and

what is being done at EWU. n

www.manomeproject.com

eAsteRn enGAGeD

CoNNECtING EWU JAZZ WItH tHE WoRlD

Eastern Washington University’s annual Jazz Dialogue

Festival hit a magnificent musical milestone this

year with a concert featuring musicians from around

the world performing together, in real time, over a

computer network.

Moments before featured musician Robin Eubanks

took the festival stage, 1,400 people watched as the

EWU Concert Jazz Ensemble led this trailblazing

experience, utilizing the high-speed network and

Internet2 at the stunning Martin Woldson Theater at

the Fox in downtown Spokane, Wash.

The Jan. 12 concert, “Jazz at the Speed of Light,”

featured the jazz ballad Body and Soul performed by

EWU Director of Jazz Studies Phillip Doyle (in Spokane)

and Charles “Chip” McNeill on piano inside a music

room at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

McNeill, the Jazz Division head at the University of

Illinois, could be seen via a theater-size screen on stage

and was thrilled to collaborate on the project.

“This new technology will revolutionize how

musicians and audiences will interact,” said Doyle, who

is also a saxophone lecturer at Eastern. “We weren’t

sure we’d pull it off, but that night, it couldn’t have gone

better. Playing jazz together over the Internet was as

smooth as silk.”

Doyle added, “There was an approximate 30

millisecond delayed interaction time between

ewu.edu/Engage « 5E NGAGE

FEEDING tHE HUNGRY

The 6th annual Eastern Washington University

Community Food Drive generated more than $15,000

in cash donations for area food banks and outreach

programs, bringing the six-year total raised to

$72,083.06. During the same period, more than 16-and-

a-quarter tons of food have been donated during the

community service event.

Of the total cash donations, almost $8,200 will go to

the Cheney Food Bank.

Director John Matthews said donations will go

a long way toward stocking the shelves to help the

approximately 400 families who rely on the Food

Bank. “Five-thousand dollars will give us the ability to

purchase about 10,000 pounds of food,” said Matthews.

“It makes a big impact and the need is only growing.”

Another $6,800 raised this year will go to the

Communities in Schools of Spokane County, which

sponsors such programs as the Friday Backpacks of

Food program. This money will provide 42 children

with a weekend backpack filled with food, and is part

of a nationwide effort to reduce the dropout rate and

give children a secure meal source on the weekends.

During the six-year run of the Food Drive, donations

have made it possible to sponsor 120 students in

the Friday Backpacks for Food program and filled

another 256 backpacks with school supplies, which

are distributed through Cheney Outreach.

“The generosity of the EWU community amazes me

every year,” said Nadine Arévalo, co-chair of the food

drive. “It’s a key initiative for the university to give

back to the community.”

Every year, various university teams have competed

to see who could collect the most food, raise the most

money and collect the most backpacks filled with

school supplies.

EWU RECoGNIZED FoR CoMMUNItY sERVICE

Eastern Washington University has been named to the 2013 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor

Roll by the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS).

A total of 690 higher education institutions were named to this year’s Honor Roll. The

Honor Roll recognizes higher education institutions that reflect the values of exemplary

community service and achieve meaningful outcomes in their communities.

Combined, the Honor Roll awardees engaged 3.1 million students in community service

for a total of 118 million service hours. That’s $2.5 billion in value to communities across

the country.

Selection to the Honor Roll is recognition from the highest levels of the federal

government of Eastern’s commitment to service and civic engagement on campus and in our nation.

The entire Honor Roll is available at www.nationalservice.gov/honorroll.

NEws of NotE

ewu.edu/Engage

6 » E NGAGE

creative

In a classroom in northwest Spokane, third graders slowly clap their hands

to help count syllables as they work on cinquains, a style of poetry that follows

a structure based on syllable count.

connectionBy libby Campbell ’13

EWU creative writing graduate student Casey Patrick offers a poetry

lesson to third grade students at Spokane’s Westview Elementary.

ewu.edu/Engage

that’s okay. They get off on the sound. They get off on the rhyme. They get off on the beats – whatever.”

Once a week for four weeks, two Eastern graduate-student teachers visit a Spokane classroom for one hour. During the visits, third graders read and write various poetic forms.

During the final week, third graders are presented with a chapbook that contains one original poem by each student.

“They’re always really excited to see their

names in a book,” graduate student Casey Patrick said. “We tell them, ‘You’re published authors and you’re only eight years old!’”

The idea for Triceratops came to Ligon after he taught poetry to his own children’s classrooms when they reached third grade. The reaction he received from the students was invigorating.

Graduate-student teachers, whose focus is creative writing, circulate around the classroom answering questions and helping students find the right words for their poems.

Cinquains are just one type of poetic form these third-grade students have studied as part of the Triceratops Poetry Project.

Led by Writers in the Community, an internship that allows creative writing graduate students to teach writing in local settings, and Willow Springs, a publishing internship that produces EWU’s national literary journal, Triceratops aims to teach youth about poetry by having them read various poets and poetic forms, as well as by writing their own poems.

But they’re not reading Dr. Seuss or Shel Silverstein, they’re working with material by some of poetry’s heavy hitters – Mary Oliver, William Carlos Williams and Carl Sandburg, just to name a few.

“We’re not giving them children’s verse,” said Sam Ligon, associate professor of creative writing and editor of Willow Springs. “We’re giving them cool poems. Some of it’s over their heads, and

« 7E NGAGE

“We’re not giving them children’s verse…we’re giving them cool poems. Some of it’s over their heads, and that’s okay. ”

n Sam LigonAssociate professor of creative writing, editor of Willow Springs

8 » E NGAGE

“They were tapped into something. They had not lost their poetic sensibility. Though I had, in some ways, lost some of mine. Most people have that kind of systematically beaten out of them so that when you reach a certain age, you don’t have access to that anymore,” Ligon said. “There’s no sense that poetry’s uncool. Poetry’s in the air for these kids.”

Patrick served as poetry editor of Willow Springs and has participated as a teacher in the program. She also believes third grade is the perfect age to have students explore their poetic sides.

“Just from teaching older kids and adults, you can tell that there’s a point where they actually have

developed this fear which our culture has about poetry,” she said. “They don’t understand it, it’s too hard and they don’t want to do it. Third graders are still at that age where they’re willing to try. That’s when we want to be in there and be like, ‘Keep writing. You’re a good writer, keep doing this. Keep stretching your language like this.’”

Ligon and some of his graduate-student teachers piloted the program during the 2011-12 school year, working with six different classrooms in the Spokane area. Last year, the program expanded to 10 classrooms and they are working with 14 this year.

Four weeks may not seem like a long time, but students are still learning more about poetry than they would otherwise.

“It is hard sometimes with the time constraint,” Patrick said. “I wish we could cover more stuff, but I think we’re giving them at least a little taste of it; a little taste of creative writing and what that can do for them.”

The Triceratops Poetry Project is mutually beneficial to both the graduate students and the third graders. The grade-school students develop critical thinking, writing, reading and revision skills that meet Spokane Public Schools Power Standards, while also discovering their own writing voice. Graduate students get the pedagogical training they need – and much more.

“Everybody benefits from this in a huge way. My students get a lot, the third graders get a lot, the teachers who we work with love it, the parents like it. What’s not to like?” Ligon said. “What my students get is access to an electric connection to poetry that these eight year olds have that I want my students to go back to. I want them to be as invigorated by poetry as these eight year olds are.”

Support from Community Engagement at Eastern and administrators from Spokane Public Schools has helped get Triceratops up and running, and Ligon hopes to expand the project with help from Eastern’s Education Department.

“We’ve got student teachers here. If we can get help from them, and also help teach them how to teach poetry, that’s cool. It’s deeper community involvement,” he said.

Ligon has big plans for the future of the program. He would like to eventually collaborate with Get Lit!, Eastern’s annual literary festival, to hold a poetry reading for the kids, and ultimately he would like it to be a citywide project that reaches out and teaches poetry to as many third graders as possible.

“We’re trying to help them tap into what they already know how to do, which is use their poetic sensibility to make sense of the world. This is what we always do with art,” Ligon said. “We’re trying to look at the world, and we’re trying to figure out what it means. We’re trying to give them a vehicle through which they can do that.” n

“Everybody benefits from this in a huge way. My students get a lot, the third graders get a lot, the teachers who we work with love it, the parents like it. What’s not to like?”

n Sam LigonAssociate professor of creative writing, editor of Willow Springs

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Rose_______

Rose oh look at it

the petals grow so

slow watch it move smell

it off the summer breeze

blow the petals off oh

such a flower.

by Mia Lake

Cottonwood________

The fire burns I

hear cackling as the

wood gets burned, the river’s

water smells fresh

like ocean breeze the

memories float around

I see trees, the

taste like

a bite in

a memory

cake. The cottonwood

trees say to me, remember

cottonwood as

I’m asleep in

a tent I

hear the animals

I dream cottonwood

feelings.

by Ariana Hutchinson

Every Night________

Every night

I creep

down to the

ocean I feel the

sand it feels like a thousand

nails I drink the

water from the

sea it tastes like

fire burning to

ashes I hear the

waves thrashing I smell the

air it smells so fresh

I see the sunset it’s so

I go back

to bed and the next night

I do it again.

by Zara Hill

ewu.edu/Engage

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trails of engagement

When final exams wrap up at the

end of winter quarter, students

across the country often relieve

stress and celebrate nicer weather

with the college ritual of spring

break – an adventure to an exotic

beach or relaxing at home with

friends and family. For 11 Eastern

Washington University students,

however, the 2013 spring break was

spent swinging axes and heaving

shovels of dirt in Moab, Utah.

You might say students were digging in for a

hard-labor lesson in leadership and community

engagement. The trip was part of a collaborative

pilot program between the Academic Success

Center (ACS), EPIC Adventures and the Office

of Community Engagement. It combined the

intangibles of leadership and abstract ideals of

community with the concrete resources and

support that has become the hallmark of the

university’s Academic Success Center. The

underlying motive was to increase student

retention by increasing the undergraduates’

connection to the larger community – both

within EWU and to the surrounding world.

Retention at any college largely depends

on student success – in and outside of the

classroom. Good grades, leadership skills and

connection to a community all contribute to

a student’s overall achievement and desire to

by Brian Lynn ’98

« 11E NGAGE

persevere and graduate. For junior Vu Nguyen, the

experience proved fruitful.

“Normally for spring break, I would just head home

and go hiking or camping, but on this trip I also had

the chance to meet new people and give something

back,” said the therapeutic recreation major, who also

participates in activities and events for AmeriCorps

and Special Olympics. “It usually takes me awhile to

get to know people, but they threw us all together and

I was surprised how quickly I bonded with everyone.

And then once we had a common goal, we all really

bonded and worked together to achieve success.”

The unconventional spring break engaged the

students in a service-learning experience that

included cutting bike trails and building campground

fences on Bureau of Land Management property near

Moab, as well as time working to clean the banks of the

Colorado River.

“The trail work was a blast. Being able to make the

campground more aesthetic was big, too. It was an

eye-opening experience to see how enthusiastic the

other people I was working with were. It really made

me want to be a part of it,” said Nguyen, who has kept

in contact with several of the other students that

participated in the event.

The 11 students and four chaperones – two from EPIC

Adventures, EWU’s outdoors education and skills-

building program, and two advisors from the Academic

Success Center – built a mile of bike trail over two days

and spent another 90 volunteer hours repairing fences

throughout the Bureau’s Lower Onion Campground.

In total, the team worked 16.5 hours and amassed 240

man-hours of volunteer time, which equated to more

than $3,500 in labor costs.

“It took two days of hard labor to build approximately

one mile of bike trail. It was rugged terrain and the

work consisted of building a huge rock ramp and

bench-cutting into vertical walls in several places,”

said Molly Orheim, a retention specialist with the

Academic Success Center, noting that course goals

went far beyond physical labor. “We wanted to provide

an opportunity that would immerse students in an out-

of-state experience that would provide a meaningful

service-learning experience; an opportunity to

improve leadership skills, enhance their knowledge

and understanding of the geological, geographical,

historical and cultural perspectives of a community

in need, and increase community engagement while

strengthening the ASC community.”

While the idea of a service-learning spring break

originated within the Academic Service Center and

Office of Community Engagement, EPIC Adventures

helped develop the less tangible curriculum

surrounding leadership. With decades of experience

planning off-site adventures, EPIC assisted with trip

EWU students and their advisors pose for a picture during their “working” spring break in Moab, Utah.

ewu.edu/Engage

planning and risk management, but also incorporated

leadership programming.

“We provide effective leadership training to develop

our own trip leaders, and after a lot of discussion,

decided to add a practical leadership component to

the trip where each of the students, working in pairs,

would be leaders for the day for the entire group,” said

EPIC’s Kevin Klim.

The field leadership team, which consisted of Klim

and Orheim, as well as fellow retention specialist

Summer Hess and EPIC student staffer Zach Turner,

took on a greater role than mere chaperones. They led

preparatory classes on leadership before the group

left Cheney, and they modeled effective leadership

behavior for the three days of the trip. Then they

handed the reigns over to the students and let each

team take a turn leading the group.

“On the third night, we had our first ‘circle’ where the

participants provided feedback to the field leadership

team so that we could model accepting feedback and

also help them identify strategies for providing effective

feedback,” said Klim. “That night, after circle, the first

student team took over, only to give up leadership

the next night after the next circle where leadership

duties would be passed to the next team.”

With a diverse student group from varied

backgrounds working together in a labor-intense

setting removed from the EWU campus, potential

conflict was always possible. “Most of these students

had never met each other, they came from a variety of

majors and ranged in age from freshmen to seniors,”

said Hess. “But they had common tasks to complete,

and they did so with a sense of purpose. It was a very

positive experience that broke down barriers between

people and went a long way toward community

building and friendship – which, at the end of the day

all aid in student retention.”

Heading the group for a day gave each pair of

students the chance to experience the responsibility of

leadership, and the consequences and repercussions

of decision making. Alternating the leadership and

support roles gave the entire group the chance to

understand how best to give and receive feedback,

both during the workday at the end of the day around

the campfire.

“Student teams were given considerable latitude to

make mistakes, as long as the risks to the group were

acceptable to the field leadership team,” said Klim.

“Making these mistakes and receiving feedback from

their peers that was both positive and constructive was

a profound experience.”

It’s an experience that cultivates a well-rounded

student who is more likely to succeed in class and

graduate. Beyond graduation, the skills and experiences

gained on the trails of Moab, Utah, will serve the

students as they enter the workforce and deal with,

and become, managers. n

12 » E NGAGE

Taking a break after repairing fences on BLM campgrounds.

« 13E NGAGE

RAISED $1826

Inspired by NBC News reporter Ann Curry’s call for 26 acts of kindness in memory of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. The 26 Days of Kindness initiative, coordinated by EWU’s Office of Community Engagement, has brought together faculty, staff, students, and alumni in random acts of kindness.

orchestrated 39 total events

community agencies16benEfiting

63 % of the ACTS were Food related

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@Ann Curryseventeen Hundred &fifty cookies handed out

170 Bears for Sally’s House

Collected 50 Soup can Labels

=10 people =10 labels=10 Bears

appreciation Awareness Donation Drives Fundraiser

DONATED to CHENEY OUTREACH Center

DONATED to SUPPORT SPOKANE COUNTY AREA SCHOOLS

Community Service

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12» E NGAGE

:Cheney String

AcademyBy Libby Campbell ’13

« 15E NGAGE

Judging by the ease in which her bow glides

over her cello strings, you would never know

that Paige King, a sixth-grade student at Cheney

Middle School, picked up the instrument for the

first time only nine months ago.

“My dad played it, so I thought I’d be able to get

some good advice from him,” she said.

Every Wednesday, Paige practices with the

Cheney String Academy at Cheney Middle School

with other cellists, violinists and violists. Two

Eastern Washington University professors –

Dr. John Marshall, who teaches cello, and

Dr. Julia Salerno, who teaches violin and viola,

lead the program.

Stringed instruments used to be offered in

the Cheney School District until it was cut for

budgetary reasons in the 1980s. “There were

students in Cheney who wanted to learn strings.

An opportunity was not available to them, so that

is why I started this program,” said Marshall.

The forerunner to the Cheney String Academy

was created in 2005 at the Robert Reid School

on Eastern’s campus. It began with just a couple

students, but grew once the program relocated

to Salnave Elementary. When strings were

reintroduced to the Cheney School District in

the fall of 2012, Marshall’s academy relocated

to the middle school.

Eastern music professors take young students beyond the music

another eastern influence

Marshall implements methods of teaching

developed by a Japanese violinist named Shinichi

Suzuki.

“The Suzuki method is a style of teaching

that I studied when I began cello at age six,”

said Marshall. “The student is learning music

by memory and by ear, so as to develop critical

listening skills. Dr. Suzuki compared studying an

instrument to learning a language. So that is why

in the Cheney String Academy we do most of the

teaching by ear. However, we are also using note

reading techniques when we are teaching the

students orchestral pieces.”

Suzuki’s methods and Far East influences are

also apparent at the beginning and ending of

each class, when students make eye contact

with a fellow musician and bow to one another.

“That’s the way of signaling the beginning

and the end of the class. Just like if you’re in

karate, you have to bow. There is a lot of Eastern

influence,” Marshall said.

The Cheney String Academy isn’t restricted

only to students. Parents are encouraged to play

alongside their children, another trait modeled

after Suzuki’s practices.

“If the parent does not play an instrument, the

parent of the child is expected to learn along with

the child,” Marshall said of Suzuki’s expectations.

“I don’t require that, but as we started, many

parents said they also wanted to learn and asked

if they could join in, too. It’s important for the

parent to know what their child is learning and

what they’re going through.” Left: Middle-school students Riley Loughery and

Jane Emehiser take part in the Cheney String Academy.

ewu.edu/Engage

16

“It’s just like learning a language. It has to be

something you are doing as part of your life

every day. The more you play your instrument,

the more you learn.”

Playing an instrument can have benefits

far beyond just learning how to play.

“There are studies after studies that show how

music helps the academics. When you’re learning

music you are also learning about rhythm, which

incorporates math. You are learning the history

of the composers and the history of the time

when that music was composed,” Marshall said.

Suzuki’s method of teaching also emphasizes

more than just learning how to play an

instrument – it has an underlying principle that

focuses on creating a well-rounded person.

“Dr. Suzuki’s intention was not to teach great

string players, his intention was to cultivate

human beings,” said Marshall. “To make them

appreciate art, to make them better people.

That is the bigger picture.”

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Below: Dr. Julia Salerno, who teaches violin and viola at EWU, shares her knowledge with students in the Cheney String Academy.

Opposite page: Dr. John Marshall, professor of cello at EWU, originally started the String Academy in 2005 on the Eastern campus.

a win-win for all students

In addition to weekly group practices, students in

the Cheney String Academy also receive weekly

one-on-one instruction from Eastern music

students.

“This is an opportunity for the Eastern

students to work with this age group, to see how

these kind of classes are organized and how they

function. The Eastern students get hands-on

training,” Marshall said.

Eastern students also help Cheney String

Academy musicians practice their solo material

for winter and spring recitals. To prepare for her

spring recital, Paige practiced four days a week,

playing through each song twice.

“The students are told they should only

practice on the days they eat or breathe; to make

this a part of their everyday life,” Marshall said.

« 17E NGAGE

adversity, inclusion and the future

Another Cheney String Academy student, Riley

Loughery, a sixth-grader who has played violin

for the past three years – though it was not her

first choice of instrument – has learned to handle

the challenges of learning to play and care for

a musical instrument.

“I wanted to play cello, but there were violin

spots open. The violin has worked out very well

for me,” she said. “It can be a little frustrating

to play a string instrument. Any instrument,

but especially an instrument you have to tune.

But, it’s worth it.”

Paige and Riley plan to play their instruments

regularly, at least through high school. Both

girls feel that the Cheney String Academy serves

as an important activity for students who want

to be involved and accepted by their peers.

“I think it’s important because no one gets

left out,” Paige said. “If you want to do an

extracurricular activity, in sports there’s always

someone who’s sitting on the sidelines. In

orchestra, everyone can play.”

Now that the Cheney School District has

reintroduced strings into the curriculum,

Marshall sees the program expanding over the

next few years. “I can’t tell you how thrilled I

am that strings have been brought back into

the grade schools and middle schools,” he said.

The future of the Cheney String Academy

appears to be taking on the form of an orchestra

growing in both participants and tempo – and

that’s a welcome sound to the ears of instructors,

parents, Eastern students and grade-school

pupils throughout the Cheney area. n

ewu.edu/Engage

Firefighters already know that they couldn’t save lives and make a difference in countless others without teamwork. Now that team includes students in Eastern Washington University’s School of Social Work program, who have become heroes themselves to some of the community’s most vulnerable.

Each year the Spokane Fire Department responds to hundreds of non-emergency calls made to 911 from people looking for some kind of help. It costs $400 an hour to send a truck out. Those numbers have increased over the years,

especially from chronic callers – people who repeatedly dial 911– largely because they don’t know who or what other help is out there. That feeling of helplessness often extended to the firefighters themselves, whose duty is to respond to every call, only to find out upon arrival that sometimes the need falls outside of their training. The frustration began to shift into a community resolution in 2007 when an EWU social work student asked Lisa Parise, MSW and director of field education and training, if he could do his practicum at the fire department.

By Courtney Dunham

Social Work StudentS offer bridge of help for moSt vulnerable

18» E NGAGE

« 19E NGAGE

“My student wanted to work with the firefighters to help people through a traumatic experience. They already had therapists to do that, so what I heard the Fire Department saying was that they needed someone to do assessments and act as a liaison to services that could solve these issues instead of just put a temporary BandAid on it,” Parise said. “What he needed was social workers, who can listen to what they’re saying. Their whole job is to connect clients to community services.”

The timing of Parise’s outreach was impeccable

for Spokane Assistant Fire Chief Brian Schaeffer, who had recently spent a lot of time on a case. He responded to a 911 call from an elderly couple living alone. The husband had fallen out of bed and couldn’t get up, nor could his wife help him. It was the fifth or sixth time that officers had been called there in just a few days. Schaeffer said that there was only one phone up on the wall with most of the numbers too small to read, except for 911. He also noticed that they had very little food in the refrigerator. He sat down with the couple for more than four hours to see how he could help.

ewu.edu/Engage

20» E NGAGE

“All they cared about was wanting to stay together,” he said. “More than anything else that they may have needed, they kept saying that they didn’t want to live apart.”

Schaeffer worked for days researching options and agencies that could help the couple.

“There were no smart phones then, so I kept searching the yellow pages for answers on how I could help them,” he said. “Needless to say, I became very frustrated.”

Already dealing with a recent downsize in his department, the call from Parise offered a solution to a need that had continued to grow throughout Schaeffer’s career.

“We train firefighters to do so many things, but social work has never been a discipline that has traditionally been part of any curriculum,” said Schaeffer. “Quite frankly, social work is a profession and a completely different discipline that the fire service has been lacking for years in our delivery model.”

After countless hours of research to set up an unprecedented program, the EWU School of Social Work and the Spokane Fire Department established the Community Assistance Response (CARES) Team to address the needs of the elderly and other vulnerable individuals and families who experience crises and turn to 911 for help. Because these callers lacked the information and support needed to survive beyond the crisis, a bridge to more appropriate services was needed. The student CARES Team works with callers, family members, friends, neighbors and

community agencies to help clients find alternatives to calling 911.

Parise and Schaeffer partnered to create a program that could better serve the community’s needs. Schaeffer asked two EWU students to research any possible programs across the country to address the increase in non-emergency calls. There was nothing like it. They did find other firefighters across the nation, though, who were just as frustrated as Schaeffer.

“It is so hard for us to leave a social situation,” Schaeffer said. “We want to be able to say that we’re connecting them with a social worker.”

So Parise and her students went to work, and the program began to really take off after the first year. The fire department worked with EWU to write a grant to fund a part-time paid position to oversee the students in their practicum. They needed a person with two years post MSW, and Parise said they found the ideal person in Patty Gregory.

Gregory, who recently retired as the MSW CARES manager, typically oversaw an average of eight to 10 students during their practicum. The students begin by spending 48 hours at a fire department, so they can go out on calls to get a real feel for what the firefighters do. The fire department then refers people who have called 911 more often than they probably should have, Gregory said.

The students do a home assessment to see if there are other community agencies, social service support or family networks that they can help connect them to, as an alternative to calling 911. In its early stages,

EWU Social Work student Lisa Miles-Sudbury takes notes on the scene as part of the CARES team.

« 21E NGAGE

the CARES Team primarily focused on the elderly. After getting a good handle on their needs, Parise said they’ve seen a big shift in the past year and a half toward helping people with mental illness. That means that the team is now responding to a wide variety of needs.

“We can never predict what kind of calls or referrals that we’re going to get. I think it started out as just the little old lady who was falling. We went into the home and did an assessment. We looked to see if they had grab bars in the bathroom. Do they have appropriate equipment in their bedroom to make that transition out of bed,” Gregory said. “We’ve gotten much more complex referrals these past couple of years, ranging from someone who’s intoxicated and needs help with rehab or detox to a patient with mental illness who’s gone off their meds.

“We then get mental health agencies involved, so we can help stabilize that person. There are folks who need support from a variety of agencies and not just a one entry, problem solved kind of a thing.” Gregory said. “It’s more much complex, and we try to wrap services around that person, so we can stabilize them in a variety of ways, including getting their family involved to let them know that their family member is in crisis and needs their support.”

The continued mission of the program is to help clients make a connection, which will allow them to live more independently.

Adina Eichorist, CARES Team member and MSW student, said most of the time their clients aren’t even aware of the services that they may qualify for.

“Once we present them with the literature and information or actually call a social worker at another agency and connect them, they’re quite happy to know that there’s something else out there,” she said.

The positive feedback extends to the crews in the field too, Schaeffer said.

“I had initial reservations about bringing in a civilian culture where we have an organization based on 130 years of tradition,” he said. “Once the CARES Team was implemented, they spent a lot of time with our firefighters listening, learning and developing that relationship. Now they are an equivalent and relied upon part of our team.”

Other fire departments in the country have taken notice, especially after hearing Schaeffer speak about the program and its positive effects at a conference

in Las Vegas last year. Several cities, such as Bellevue, the Tri-Cities and one in Utah, are now modeling their programs after CARES. The only requirement is that there must be a post two-year MSW program nearby.

The positive ripple effects are coming back to the students themselves. Not only are they helping the fire department and community with their efforts, they’re also gaining valuable experience and professional connections with a wide variety of agencies and hospitals throughout the area.

“We’re seeing that our students are getting hired much easier too,” Parise said.

Perhaps no greater benefit is the one bestowed on social cases that Schaeffer once agonized over. Although he still reviews every case, he now revels in the improvements that have occurred. He recalled a Seattle man who could not get a hold of his mother after repeated attempts. The elderly woman was living on her own and had not been showing up for appointments either. The CARES Team intervened and found that her house was severely in need of repair and posed numerous obstacles from hoarding. One reason why she wasn’t getting out anymore was because she needed ramp access for her walker and lived on the 7th floor of her building. Management had previously denied her requests to move to the first floor – that is, until the CARES Team got involved. They helped her move and hired someone to clean her home and to better organize it.

As for that couple who wanted nothing more than to stay together? They were helped by Meals-on-Wheels and a variety of other elder services that they didn’t know about before. And they’re still together. n

EWU Social Work students Alexi Bolen and Miguel Zuniga reaching out to those in need.

ewu.edu/Engage

22» E NGAGE

cultivating change

As part of Eastern Washington University’s promotion of sustainable communities, a student-initiated community garden was created on campus four years ago. Current faculty advisors Dr. Robin O’Quinn, from the Biology Department, and Dr. Laurie Morley, from the Physical Education, Health and Recreation Department, help maintain consistency from year to year and act as student liaisons. The pair aspire to educate students outside of a classroom setting on the benefits of health and wellness, as well as the impact on society when it comes to growing and consuming your own food. Both have lofty goals of incorporating the garden into daily operations of campus and the Cheney community as a whole, while also spreading the

educational curriculum to K-12 educators throughout the region.

“One goal is to expand this concept beyond biology,” said Morley, who points to the structured curriculum in EWU’s Science for Gardeners class. “It’s really about extending the message of making responsible decisions when it comes to what you eat, eating local, and changing the hearts and minds of what young people are eating.”

For the past four years, the garden was located at corner of Elm and Washington streets next to the University Recreation Center, but moved this past June to property behind the Red Barn. While the garden has undergone a rebirth and is in a second infancy, donations and hard work have helped keep the

by Brian Lynn ’98

Biology professor Robin O’Quinn works in EWU’s Community Garden.

« 23E NGAGE

cultivating changeendeavor going and the hope to increase yields that will have a larger impact on the immediate community.

“We had a late start this year, but because we have relationships with local nurseries, such as Blue Moon Nursery, who donated all the planting material, and the work of the EWU grounds’ crew, who put water in and have been just great to work with, we’ve been able to make all this work,” said O’Quinn, gesturing to the tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, broccoli and assorted herbs growing in multiple raised beds. “In the future, we hope to have higher productivity and to produce greens for Dining Services or perhaps have a campus kitchen. There are people in Cheney who go hungry, and there are older people who don’t get out and shop or eat healthy, and that’s something we could potentially help change.”

In addition to supplementing the university with local fare and feeding those in need, the two advisors hope to expand the program beyond biology by offering courses that take the student to the next step in the process – preparing and serving healthy dishes from the cultivated offerings. They’re also working on outreach to increase participation – currently 15 to 20 active students plant, tend and harvest the crop – and spread the concept.

“Much of this is modeled after the ‘Life Lab’ at UC Santa Cruz,” said Morley, who took a sabbatical last year and studied at the institute. “We’ve been working with the WSU Extension Office to help spread the message and to help educate K-12 teachers in the community so that they can start their own school garden and begin the education much earlier.

“We’ve met with principals and teachers throughout Cheney and Spokane, and they’re interested, but need help implementing it all,” she continued. “And that’s something we can provide through continuing education programs and certification courses or having our students work with schools and individual teachers.”

O’Quinn also touts the popular trend toward buying local and growing your own food – and how small changes in traditional suburban thinking can have big impacts when taken in totality. “I’d like people to start to think differently, and to start to incorporate food-source plants into their landscapes.

This concept of separate plots for farming is an ancient idea; it doesn’t have to be garden rows versus landscape plants – you can have both,” she said, noting the holistic benefits of including native and food plants into an area, such as increased pollinators and other organisms whose value extends ecosystem wide. “As a society, we’re wasting a lot of space. Unless you have a sheep, you don’t need a grass lawn.”

Cultural changes that the two professors are hoping to nurture often start with small ideas on a local level, growing until they demand attention and become accepted practice. In Cheney, that seed of change is being cultivated among EWU students in a small garden behind the Red Barn.

“It’s really about extending the message of making responsible decisions when it comes to what you eat, eating local, and changing the hearts and minds of what young people are eating.”

ewu.edu/Engage

24

AcADEmic sErVicE-LEArNiNG

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43fA c u Lt y A N D s tA f f s E rV E D o N

internships hours in community-based organizations.

boards for various organizations in the inland northwest.

service-learning students1,036

hours at sites statewide21,996contributed

»›

ewu.edu/about/community-engagement/ewu-engaged.xml

e w u c o m m u n i t y e n g a g e m e n t w e b s i t e

f a c u l t y m e m b e r s t a u g h t

61s e r v i c e l e a r n i n g c o u r s e s

33

enGAGeMent

first robotics

148 students completed 23,456

RESEARCH AND CREATIVE WORKS SYMPOSIUM

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by thE NumbErs • 2012 -2013

co-curricuLAr sErVicE& outrEAch ProGrAms

1,852 students Contributed 15,143 hours of serviCe to the local community through programs such as Athletics, Biology outreach to Turnbull, Love Your Vets Day, SAIL (Student Activities Involvement and Leadership) and the 26 Days of Kindness.

60,595 houRs3,036 ewu students contributed a total of

of serviCe to the loCal Community.

the estimated net worth of student service hours totaled

$1,374,900.55 iNDEPENDENt sEctor EstimAtEs AN hour of VoLuNtEEr sErVicE iN wAshiNGtoN stAtE to bE worth $22.69

ewu.edu/Engage

Plunging with Purpose

Eastern Washington University300 Showalter Hall Cheney, WA 99004-2445

E NGAGE MAGAZINE

The Eastern Washington University football team won the award as the top fundraising school at the annual Polar Plunge at Liberty Lake, Wash., this past winter.

A group of about 20 players helped raise approximately $700 for Special Olympics, and were led by linebacker Ronnie Hamlin and offensive guard Steven Forgette.

The Polar Plunge required participants to jump into the frigid waters of Liberty Lake and wade out about 20 yards. It is a fundraising effort organized by law enforcement agencies throughout the state benefiting Special Olympics Washington.

“I appreciate our student-athletes and staff helping the community, and this is just another great example,” praised EWU athletic director Bill Chaves. “Our commitment to Special Olympics has been well-documented and I can only see it growing in the years ahead.”

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