C W M R On the Move spring 2005 Each day at R-MWC our students, staff, and faculty give of their time to help others. In fact 95 percent of our students volunteer in the community, performing more than 5,000 hours of service each year. In this special edition of On the Move, we take a look at some of their stories. A student Volunteer of the Year, Tarika Sethi, for instance, discusses how her life has been changed by her volunteer activities on campus and in the Lynchburg community. Our faculty members also talk about how helping to meet environmental challenges in Lynchburg creates a more sustainable community, and members of our staff tell why they think it’s important to give back to the community—and set an example for our students. Their stories are powerful, and varied. For clearly there are many needs to be met. In this issue we are pleased to describe how R-MWC volunteers—and the difference it makes. special edition R-MWC VoLUNTEERS
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MR On the Move
spring 2005
Each day at R-MWC our students, staff, and faculty give of their time to help others.In fact 95 percent of our students volunteer in the community, performing more than 5,000 hours of service each year.
In this special edition of On the Move, we take a look at some of their stories. A student Volunteer of the Year, Tarika Sethi, for instance, discusses how her life has been changed by her volunteer activities on campus and in the Lynchburg community.
Our faculty members also talk about how helping to meet environmental challenges in Lynchburg creates a more sustainable community, and members of our staff tell why they think it’s important to give back to the community—and set an example for our students.
Their stories are powerful, and varied. For clearly there are many needs to be met. In this issue we are pleased to describe how R-MWC volunteers—and the difference it makes.
special editionR-MWC VoLUNTEERS
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“I’m looking forward to volunteering this semester because I’ll be able to help people while also getting to know my new home better.”
As Robin’s comments indicate, the College’s new Davenport leadership program indeed includes volunteer work. In fact in each of their four years in the program, R-MWC women will serve in the community as a complement to their course work. In their senior year, they will even undertake a major community project.
R-MWC believes that volunteerism and leadership go hand in hand. “Our students in the leadership program are really looking forward to this volunteer component,” says Pegeen Griessmayer, the College’s volunteer
services coordinator who is assisting students in selecting their community service. “Observing an ethic of volunteerism is implicit in being a leader, and our students understand this. It’s something they also want to do for themselves as well as for others.”
What specific volunteer work will our students perform? This year they’ve chosen to focus on --, --, and --. [identify and discuss those when they are chosen on Friday Feb 25.] Students will be divided into groups to work on their respective projects, and they’ll be guided throughout by mentors who are well respected as leaders.
“Our community service will give us
the perfect opportunity to apply the seven “Cs” we studied last semester: consciousness of self, congruence, commitment, collaboration, common purpose, controversy with civility, and citizenship,” says Kate Descoteaux ’08. “I’m also excited about becoming more active in the Lynchburg community, as I am about forming new friendships with my peers in the Davenport program.”
“My group has decided to work with local children on Sunday nights to give them an activity to look forward to before the school week starts,” says Elishia Webster ’08. “I think it will be a fun way to give of my time and energy to others, and I also think volunteering will help my group to think of others around them, as good leaders should.”
“The volunteer component of the Susan F. Davenport Global Leadership Program
means a lot to me because I believe that to be a part of a community, you should perform service in any way you can,” says Robin Oyster ’08.
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Working for A Sustainable Community
Sustainable development: That which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
—The World Commission on Environment and Development
How well we achieve a balance between our economic and environmental goals will greatly determine the quality of life future generations enjoy. Yet how many of us are actively addressing the complex demands involved in creating sustainable development?
R-MWC Professor of Psychology Richard Barnes is one individual committed to working toward this goal in his own community. To that end, he has served on a citizen steering committee that guided the development of Lynchburg’s Comprehensive Plan and on a citizen’s monitoring committee that oversaw implementation of the plan. Last fall he was appointed to the city’s Planning Commission.
“I’ve always had an interest in sustainable development, and I’d love to see Lynchburg be able to reduce sprawl, promote infi ll development, and revitalize the inner city, ” Barnes says. “Lynchburg also has an opportunity to preserve its forested areas and green space while still generating tax revenues.”
Barnes, whose academic background is in environmental psychology, says his work in the community refl ects his long-time interests and concerns. “For years I’ve been intrigued by how people relate to their physical environment,” he says, noting that in college he took several courses in city planning. More recently he bought a hybrid car, a gas-electric Honda Civic that pollutes less than the typical car, and he is a faculty advisor to R-MWC’s Environmental Club.
Both Barnes and his wife Tina, director of R-MWC’s Learning Resources Center and Disability Services, welcome the many opportunities for community involvement they fi nd in Lynchburg. (Tina is also president of the board of directors of Camp Child, a summer camp for students with learning disabilities, and is active in United Way and other charitable groups.)
“We’re glad to be in Lynchburg because we’re able to be a part of the community,” Barnes says. “We’ve found that an advantage of being in a city this size is that you really can make a difference.”
Lynchburg’s Comprehensive Plan is intended to guide development in the city through 2020. It presents a vision of what the community could be in the future and identifi es steps required now to accomplish that vision.
Richard BarnesRichard Barnes
“I’ve always had an interest in sustainable development,
and I’d love to see Lynchburg be able to
reduce sprawl, promote infi ll development, and revitalize
the inner city.”—Richard Barnes
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Working for A Sustainable Community
“We wanted to engage the wider community in the enterprise of enhancing and protecting the environmental resources we have, so we just started inviting people to lunch.” —Daniel Bowman
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If there is one thing the members of the Greater Lynchburg Environmental Network (GLEN) have in common, it’s their love of nature.
But for many of the members, the organization is a chance to share another bond – Randolph-Macon Woman’s College.
What started several years ago as a simple lunch meeting between people interested in talking about ways to preserve Lynchburg’s natural resources is well on its way to becoming a more formal association. “The idea,” says Professor of Psychology Richard Barnes,
“is to have GLEN be a way to coordinate efforts of all the various environmental groups in town. One of the most useful functions GLEN can serve is to facilitate communication among them.”
That’s just what Daniel Bowman envisioned when he helped create the group along with friend David
Robertson. “We wanted to engage the wider community in the enterprise of enhancing and protecting the environmental resources we have,” Bowman says. “So we just started inviting people to lunch.”
And the group grew. Today, more than 12 people sit on the steering committee, and the group draws members from more than 30 area environmental organizations. About five of the steering committee members have ties to R-MWC. Other members of the group come from various environmental organ izat ions and gover nment agencies.
For the College, GLEN has afforded several faculty members from different disciplines the chance to work together outside of the campus. “You get a larger sense of what this community is,” says Laura-Gray Street, assistant professor of English. “It’s just fascinating the way you can get people together, and the sparks start happening, and the creative juices get flowing.”
Coming Together to Protect the Environment
Fighting the Global Scourge of AIDS Diana Andanut ’05, an R-MWC international student from Romania, is one of the young people devoted to stemming the tide of AIDS. As founder of the campus chapter of the Student Global AIDS Campaign, she is working at the local and national level to educate Americans about AIDS and to help halt the epidemic.
“One of the reasons I am so committed is because I am from Eastern Europe, where the rate of infection is the highest in the world at this time,” Diana says. “I can relate personally—I would hate to go back home and see my country devastated. The more I learn about AIDS, the more I also discover that the extent of the danger is not being fully reported. In some African countries, for instance, whole generations are being wiped out, and millions of orphans are left to fend for themselves.”Diana views education as being paramount. “I truly believe education is one of the ways to end this disease,” she says. “But even here on campus, knowledge of AIDS is not what it should be, and in the greater Lynchburg high schools, it’s worse. HIV is connected to sex, and sex is taboo. We’ve also got to dispel the myth that only people of certain classes get AIDS.”
As a result, Diana’s chapter sponsored a lecture this month on the social, political, and medical aspects of China’s HIV/AIDS crisis, bringing to campus Bates Gill, the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center of Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., and Sarah Palmer, staff scientist and manager of the Virology Core in the HIV Drug Resistance Program of the National Cancer Institute. Diana and her chapter members have also developed a presentation on AIDS that they are working to take into local high schools.
Political advocacy is another approach. This month Diana and a group of 65 R-MWC students will take part in a national Student March Against AIDS in Washington, D.C. Next month she and her chapter will host a visit by members of Hope’s Voice, another national group committed to preventing AIDS, and the main chapter of the Student Global AIDS Campaign as they tour campuses across the country.
Her R-MWC chapter also supports a controversial proposal suggesting that the United States forgive massive amounts of third-world debt. “Countries who have
“I’ve discovered a lot about myself through all of my R-MWC activities, ...I’ve learned how to lead others, to assume responsibility, and to manage time. I’m a very different person now than I was when I arrived here.” —Diana Andanut ’05
Changing Others’ Lives—and Maybe Your Own
taken loans from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are spending more than half their incomes to pay back these loans with interest,” Diana argues. “We’re saying that if their debts are not forgiven, they’ll never have the resources to put into AIDS prevention, education, and their country’s basic infrastructure.”
Diana’s dedication to the fi ght against AIDS is in keeping with her level of commitment elsewhere on campus. Academically, she boasts a 3.918 GPA while pursuing a double major in international studies and German studies. Her many academic honors include being named to the national honor society of Omicron Delta Kappa and the National Dean’s List. She was chosen as R-MWC Volunteer of the Year for 2003-04 and received
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the College’s President’s Award for Globalization in 2004.
On campus Diana serves as head resident of Moore Hall, and she has been active in many campus clubs. In February she was one of the organizers of “Pathways to Understanding II: Media Images of Islam and America at Home and Abroad,” a seminar sponsored by UMMAH, a campus group dedicated to educating non-Muslims about Muslims. She has also served as secretary of the Pan World International Club, senator
Changing Others’ Lives—and Maybe Your Own
of Student Government, a Gold Key guide, and a Program to Achieve Scholastic Success tutor. During summers she has been an intern at a public relations fi rm and the Romanian Embassy in Washington, D.C.
“I’ve discovered a lot about myself through all of my R-MWC activities,” Diana says. “I’ve learned how to lead others, to assume responsibility, and to manage time. I’m a very different person now than I was when I arrived here.”
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As a marine biologist in a field typically under-represented by women and minorities, I am committed to increasing awareness of the sciences among minority children. Early exposure to science can spark an interest in kids and inspire them to pursue a career as a scientist.
One of the ways I hope to achieve this is by teaching and mentoring at-risk minority children in the Lynchburg community at the College Hill Neighborhood School and the Jubilee Family Development Center. Both serve as educational and recreational havens for inner-city children.
As a volunteer at the Jubilee Center, I teach biology to 100 children in the second to sixth grades as part of the annual summer Science Camp, along with Peggy Schimmoeller, associate professor of education, and Peter Sheldon, associate professor of physics. Science Camp is a week-long program whose daily lessons are dedicated to different topics in science, such as the solar system, geology, wind power, chemistry and nutrition, and biology.
Each year my R-MWC biology students and I host “The Wonderful World of Slugs” at the Jubilee Center, during which we teach the children about gastropod mollusks—sea slugs and terrestrial slugs—and their importance in the environment. I spend the first part of the program teaching them all about slugs that live in the ocean, and I compare them to terrestrial slugs that live in their own backyards.
In addition to slug biology, I enjoy teaching the children all about marine life and piquing their interests in swimming and snorkeling in the ocean. Of course, the conversation always turns to sharks! After an indoor lesson, I take them outside for a field trip around the Jubilee Center to collect and examine local mollusk species. With collecting jars and magnifying glasses in hand, the children and I search under rocks and logs and in the Jubilee Center garden for slug species that my summer research students and I have been documenting from the Virginia Piedmont area.
My volunteer work at the center is a rewarding experience because it gives me an opportunity to have fun with science. The students are always enthusiastic and eager to participate in hands-on experiments and learn about the organisms that inhabit the world around them. Their fascination and surprise when they discover slugs and snails for the first time keeps me coming back to the Jubilee Center every summer!
Why I Volunteer at the Jubilee Center
By Deirdre Gonsalves-Jackson
Assistant Professor of Biology
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Seven days a week, from morning till night, meals are served at Lynchburg’s Daily Bread. Aiding the process along are volunteers of all stripes from the greater Lynchburg community—including R-MWC’s own senior management staff.
On March 4, for instance, the College’s Senior Staff spent a day at Daily Bread, helping to prepare, cook, and serve meals to the homeless and other needy members of the Lynchburg community. And they were happy to do so.
“Volunteering is an important part of life at R-MWC, because it allows us to give back a little something to the community beyond the red brick wall,” says Vice President for Enrollment Connie Gores. “When I am an active citizen in the community in which I live, I am also more effective in my professional life.”
“By volunteering I gain a better understanding of issues our students face and of some of the broader issues in the Lynchburg community,” Gores adds. “It’s important that we are citizens of R-MWC and citizens of Lynchburg, just as we are active citizens of the world.” Gores also notes that she and her family have volunteered at Daily Bread in the past.
“R-MWC students, faculty, and staff are highly involved in the Lynchburg community doing volunteer service,” says Dean of Students Sarah Swager. “As an example, in just two months from December 2004 through January 2005, we are aware of more than 250 students who volunteered more than 650 hours in the local community—doing everything from preparing meals for the homeless to tutoring in the local schools and serving as Big Sisters to community children.”
“Those numbers also don’t reflect their total time spent volunteering, as we know that many students don’t necessarily inform us about all the service they perform,” Swager says. “Because we support our students doing service in the community, we on Senior Staff wanted to make real our commitment by volunteering our own time at Daily Bread.”
R-MWC Senior Staff Lends A Hand
LY N C H B U R G D A I LY B R E A D
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“All my volunteer experience at R-MWC has helped me to become a better leader, and it’s changed my outlook on life,” says Tarika Sethi ’04, a former campus Volunteer of the Year. “I view everything outside the box now. If I see a problem, I try to determine the underlying cause and ask myself if I can step forward and assist.”
Her R-MWC experience in this regard was in fact instrumental in Tarika’s applying to go to Kenya as a Peace Corps volunteer. “People make assumptions about the root of Africa’s problems, but I want to go and see for myself if I can fi nd ways to implement change,” she says.
Tarika, who expects to leave for Kenya later this spring, views her upcoming assignment as an extension of the varied volunteer work she enjoyed in college. “Although I haven’t yet volunteered abroad, I’ve always wanted to see if I could help people in a different country,” she says. “Now, after R-MWC, I feel I have all the tools I need to make my dream—and that of others—come true.”
In Africa, Tarika will be an HIV/AIDS specialist and health agent, charged with teaching individuals basic health care and AIDS prevention. After the Peace Corps she hopes to attend George Washington University and acquire a Ph.D. in either sociology or forensic anthropology.
Wherever her career takes her, she’ll continue to volunteer. “For me, it’s a necessity of life,” she says. “It’s a gift to see the smiles of the people you are able to help—and a great satisfaction to know that you’ve truly made a difference in someone’s life.”
At Commencement last spring, Tarika received the Mary Jean Wellford ’48 Volunteer Leadership Award, which recognizes a graduating senior who shows great promise of future leadership. To read more about the award, see sidebar this page.
2004 volunteer of the year
Tarika SethiTarika SethiTarika Sethi
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Lindner Award Honors Volunteers
One dedicated R-MWC student this year will receive the Mary Jean Wellford ’48 Volunteer Leadership Award, established to recognize a graduating senior who shows great promise of future leadership.
The two previous recipients of the award, which carries an honorarium of $1,500, were Meredith Coticchio ’03 and Tarika Sethi ’04 (this page).
Established by Thaddeus A. Lindner in honor of his wife Mary Jean, the award is to be used for assistance in paying graduate school tuition, repaying student loans, contributing to favored non-profi t organizations, or in other appropriate ways.
Recipients are women who set an example for leadership through volunteer efforts that aid the College in such areas as admissions, alumnae relations, special events, development, and other external relations. A student’s encouragement of others to provide such service is also a criterion.
This year’s award winner will be announced at Commencement.
2004 volunteer of the year
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Athletes Go All-Out to Help Community
over 30 R-MWC students volunteering at the event. The clinic offered basketball, kickboxing, swimming and other sports, as well as nutrition advice.
Other recent volunteer activities have included: • Participating in a basketball tournament at the Lynchburg Jubilee Center, where R-MWC athletes coached, offi ciated at games, and gave presentations to the Lynchburg girls in attendance. Basketball Head Coach Melissa Wiggins also spoke to parents about how to instill sportsmanship in their children, and how to help them avoid drugs; • Co-sponsoring a four-mile race; • Reading to students in local schools; • Assisting at a local triathlon, and • Sponsoring a girls’ softball clinic.
Not to be outdone, the Student Athlete Advisory Committee later this year plans a food drive in conjunction with other colleges to help supply the local Lynchburg food bank.
R-MWC’s athletes have always had an ethic of service to the community, but 2005 may well go down as a record-breaking year. All of the College’s sports teams are now active in community outreach projects, and R-MWC’s Student Athlete Advisory Committee is taking on ever-new projects.
“We try to do as much as possible, with each team taking on at least one activity per year,” says Valerie Cushman, chair of the Physical Education Department and the College’s athletic director. “Once the students get into it, they come back saying they really like doing what they can to help out.”
The fall sports athletes got the ball rolling this year when they spent a day clearing a woodsy half-mile trail that borders the back edge of campus. As a result, students and neighborhood residents are now enjoying access to the trail for the fi rst time in many years.
R-MWC athletes this year also hosted the local annual Girls and Women in Sports Clinic. In a coordinated effort with other regional colleges, the Girls Scouts, and the Virginia Amateur Sports Group, R-MWC welcomed 40 girls ages 6-12 in a day-long clinic, with
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Remembering the Holocaust’s Lessons
Jewish Civilians Rounded up in the Warsaw Ghetto, 1943
Are today’s students in danger of forgetting the legacy of the Holocaust? R-MWC Associate Professor of History Gerry Sherayko is committed to ensuring that they do not.
Sherayko serves on the board of the Holocaust Education Foundation of Central Virginia, a group formed to raise awareness of the Holocaust among students and the general public. “The Holocaust was one of the most important events in 20th-century history, and we need to learn all we can about it now from the remaining survivors and witnesses,” he says.
One such witness is Anna Rosmus, whom Sherayko arranged to bring to Lynchburg College last year. Rosmus as a teenager discovered her German
hometown’s hidden Nazi past and has been shunned for daring to expose it in her essays and her book, Wintergreen: Suppressed Murders. In Lynchburg Rosmus spoke to the community and met with many R-MWC and Lynchburg College students. Sherayko found her to be an inspirational speaker, and he shows the movie made about her life, The Nasty Girl, in his R-MWC classes.
This year the Holocaust foundation has invited Gerda Weissmann Klein to speak and hopes to set a date for the event in the fall. Klein is the author of a memoir, All But My Life, a moving story of survival under the Third Reich. She and her late husband Kurt also founded the Gerda and Kurt Klein Foundation, dedicated to eliminating bigotry.
Sherayko says his work with the
foundation dovetails with his own interests and beliefs. “It’s important to me personally to teach the history of the Holocaust,” he notes. “It’s a major component of my classes, and every spring I go with my 20th-century German history class to the Holocaust Museum in Washington.” Three years ago he and Professor of German Studies Linda Thomas also taught a summer study seminar, “Coming to Terms with the Past,” which took them and their students to Berlin and Prague.
“If I could, I’d take all my students to Europe, but working to bring Holocaust survivors and experts on the Holocaust to speak to the Lynchburg community is the next best thing,” Sherayko says. “I’m just happy that I can contribute to the community—and to our greater understanding of the Holocaust.”
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in their fi rst-year English and environmental studies classes. Warren has used connections she made through GLEN to create student internships and service-oriented class projects in the community.
In addition, GLEN has allowed faculty members from Sweet Briar and Lynchburg Colleges and R-MWC to meet, brainstorm, and even work together. Warren works with Lynchburg College on a local stream monitoring project, and students from both colleges collect and compile data from area streams for the City of Lynchburg as assignments for their environmental studies classes.
“I like to get students out past the Red Brick Wall,” Warren says. “It’s a way to get students involved in their community.” Having colleges involved in an organization such as GLEN makes sense because of the people and resources available,” she notes. “One of the best resources we have is our student body,” she says. “They are enthusiastic and purposeful, and they gain so much from these opportunities.”
Faculty members also see the need to give back to the community. Randolph-Macon Woman’s College as a community is shaped by the place it’s in,” Street says. “We have a red brick wall along Rivermont Avenue, but that’s an artifi cial boundary. We don’t come here and live as this discrete organism. The roots of who we are as a college are all around us.”
GLEN is seeking to encourage more inter-college coordination on community environmental issues and recently organized a College Partners dinner meeting at R-MWC with faculty from Sweet Briar and Lynchburg Colleges.
The group is also planning to become incorporated in the near future. Bowman and the other members hope to eventually hire staff and begin fundraising. The dream is to be able to provide mini-grants to environmental groups. Already, they are moving forward with plans to remove a tank car left in the James River during a 1985 fl ood.
“We don’t just get together and talk and get excited and then go back to our lives,” Street says. “Things seem to happen with this group.”
For more information on GLEN, visit www.glenetwork.org.
sustainable community: Coming Together to Protect the Environmentcontinued from page 5
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R-MWC
VoLUNTEERS: closing shot
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Non-Profi t Org.US Post agePAIDPermit No. 6Lynchburg, VA
