Stanford University Urban Studies &
Urban Summer Fellowship
Student perspectives of community-engaged learning and research across the United States
Reflections after 2 weeks of training for Breakthrough Greater Boston (Ngoc)
Woo … these past two weeks of training have been a whirlwind. It’s been comprised of name games, the most intense teaching boot camp ever created, and more butcher paper art than one could ever imagine. As exhausting as it has been, I know it will all be worth it on Wednesday morning when we finally get to see the smiling (or more likely very sleepy) faces of the students as they step off the bus while we maniacally cheer them on at 7:30am. It’s surreal to think about how the program will be starting in a matter of days. After all, we have spent the last two weeks imagining and dreaming up the most spectacular experience possible for the students. Now that it’s almost time to actually make it a reality for the kids … I’m, to be honest, a little anxious. Beyond the jitters about whether I will have my lesson ready, or how I will possibly begin to learn 130 something names, I can’t stop thinking about my role in BTGB’s mission to bring about education equity. On day one of training, we were told that the organization’s extends beyond academics – it is about social justice. In that way, we are all not merely here to just learn about teaching but to be role models and to inspire – to be “social change allies” as one of our readings put it. This raises a lot of questions for me as someone who is still very much figuring out what social justice even means. What right – more accurately – what privileges do I have that enable me to even be in this position? What does it mean for me as an Asian American to be doing this work coming from a different background than most of my students? What impact and harm can I have on my students? As I sort through these questions, I recall day two of training. We spent the day discussing systemic racism in order to ground ourselves in what is at stake this summer. We talked about Black Lives Matter, Flint Michigan, and the recent Orlando shooting. In doing so, the facilitator poignantly helped us begin to think about the injustices of the world and how we must all “do better” – do better to be aware of oppression, do better to check ourselves, do better to stay educated and educate, and do better to hold one another. While I am undeniably anxious about finally being with the students, the issue of educational inequity is too important to let my feelings hinder me from doing better. So this summer, I am making a promise to myself and to the kids to, despite my feelings, always strive to do better.
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My name is Nicole Jackson and I'm a rising senior majoring in Urban Studies. Having grown up so close to Washington D.C., I've always had an interest in the workings of politics and public policy in our nation’s capital. I believe that the Urban Studies will help me prepare for a career in public service.This fall I'll begin my Master's in Community Health and Prevention Research through the Medical School.
This summer I'm an Urban Studies Fellow at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm working in the Office of the Chief of Staff where I'll have the opportunity to support variety of health policy priorities at the federal level, including the Vice President's Cancer Moonshot Initiative, Open Enrollment under the Affordable Care Act, and community-based health initiatives led by the Office of the Surgeon General. I'm excited to spend a summer in policymaking in an administration dedicated to improving health outcomes and increasing health access to the United States' most vulnerable populations. This administration has made significant strides in expanding access to health coverage, lowering monthly premiums, providing essential services without cost-sharing to the consumer, and keeping health care insurers in-check. I'm so grateful for the opportunity and look forward to reading more about the journeys of my peers in their fellowship placements. Hello Urban Fellows and fellow bloggers!
My name is Zora Williams (yes I am named after the brilliant Zora Neale Hurston in case you were wondering) and I'm really excited to get to know everyone, even only virtually. One thing you should know about me is that I am a Chobani yogurt fanatic. If you talk to anyone who knows me they'll tell you how serious I am about my yogurt (especially the pineapple 2%). I am also a rising sophomore still trying to find my way towards a major. Some of the contenders include chemistry, political science, public policy and the one related to democracy with three words in it (still doing research obviously). During my first year , the one thing that has become clear to me is that I am interested in pursuing a law degree (and that I will minor in French lol). What type of law? LSAT Preparation? Where to attend school?- All great questions that I have yet to figure out. My first step to to answering these questions starts with this summer. I will be interning with the Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation A in Brooklyn New York where I am expected to take on a significant responsibility in the organization's Fair Housing project that was just launched last year. The aim of the project is to help tenants understand their displacement and mistreatment through the lens of housing discrimination. I will contribute to the education and enforcement aspects of the program including coordinating and facilitating Know Your Rights workshops, participating in meetings with local officials, and designing investigations into patterns of discrimination. I am really excited and humbled to be trusted with so many responsibilities that affect real people who depend on my effort. This will definitely be a first, and I'm a bit nervous of feeling unqualified and a little lost considering that I'll be (probably) the last intern to arrive, but my enthusiasm has yet to waver. My first day is Monday and I just can't wait to see what this summer will bring. Keeping in mind my path to clarifying my vision for law school, this internship will hopefully teach me about the intersection between law and service. Since all I know about law involves criminal trials I'm excited to explore my varieties of work offered in the law field and see which one best suits my career pursuits. Thank you all for staying tuned! I will be back with pictures and a week of my internship under my belt! Until next time. Zora P.S. Let me know if you're in NYC! I'm always finding fun things to do so feel free to reach out if you'd like to tag along on some adventures. Hi everybody, hope summer has started out great for all of you! My name is Helen Gambrah, and I’m a rising senior majoring in Human Biology with a concentration in Psychopathology. This summer I’m working at the Urban Justice Center with the Mental Health Project, assisting attorneys and social workers, as they advocate for the rights of the mentally ill. The Urban Justice Center was founded in 1981 and has been serving New York’s most vulnerable residents through legal work, community education programs, advocacy workshops and more. The center as a whole has eleven distinct projects ranging from international refugee assistance to representing street vendors. I have been there for two weeks, and I have really really enjoyed it. Not only are all the employees very dedicated and so willing to discuss their work, but they’re also very cognizant and inclusive in every aspect. It’s really an environment free of microaggressions and stereotyping and heteronormativity and much more. I think that’s something that can easily be underestimated but has been so integral to me having a great experience so far.
So I’m studying psychopathology and planning to be a doctor - why am I working at a legal office? Well, during my sophomore year, I got very involved with the Black Lives Matter activist movement on campus and was frequently attending events and reading to learn more about the issue. Once I familiarized myself with the key players in these movements, I realized that doctors were not as involved. Throughout this experience, I was constantly fighting an internal battle within myself. I really could not bear going into a line of work that did not directly serve these vulnerable communities or address these systemic issues. However, I love the brain and biology so much that I feel that I couldn’t abandon my dreams of being a doctor. Basically throughout my year, I struggled between foregoing medical school to working in the legal system to working for the government to doing social work and etc. Nevertheless, I decided to stay with medicine but was determined to find an avenue in the field that accommodates all my interests. This summer internship seems to do just the thing. I’m hoping to see how social justice and medicine integrate - mostly what’s a medical practitioner’s role in this field of work. I’m most looking forward to joining advocates and attorneys as they head to Rikers Island and the behavioral hospital to work with clients. Firsthand observation of how these mental illnesses affect people’s lives is the first step for me to find this connection, especially those who are homeless or formerly incarcerated. I hope there will be many more unique opportunities along the way. I’m also really excited to talk to different staff members and learn about their journey to the Urban Justice Center. Looking forward to hearing about the rest of everyone’s work and getting to know you all better! Helen Hi everyone! My name is Sarah Ribeiro-Broomhead, and I’m a rising sophomore considering Urban Studies (although I’m still interested in CSRE, and maybe Public Policy). I’m working in San Francisco this summer at Causa Justa :: Just Cause, which is a housing rights organization based in the Mission District. I’m actually from San Francisco, so apart from picking up all the perks of living here (short commute, free housing, friends to have lunch with), I’ve also been learning first-hand about the forces and faces behind the city I’ve watched change over the years.
Causa Justa :: Just Cause is a non-profit housing rights organization that works to both provide services around housing rights as well as to address the underlying causes of the gentrification of and displacement in both San Francisco and Oakland. Just for some scope on the magnitude of gentrification, between 1990 and 2011, the proportion of African Americans in all Oakland neighborhoods decreased by nearly 40 percent, and in San Francisco, the number of Latino households in the Mission decreased by 1,400, while the number of White households increased by 2,900. Causa Justa :: Just Cause is definitely what one would call a multifaceted organization; through rights-based services, policy campaigns, civic engagement, and direct action, CJJC works to fight gentrification, but also to empower, educate, and politicize its members. I’ve been working in CJJC’s Housing Rights Clinic in the Mission this week. So far I’ve supported a lot of work with translation and compiling documents. I’ve been trained in reception, which involves informing clients of their rights, helping them fill out forms and pre-written letters to their landlords, etc. At some point I might help with client intake. I’ve also been out-and-about- my first day, we went to a rally outside City Hall and to a budget meeting to discuss city priorities, along with other Housing Rights Coalition member organizations. Today we helped host a community meeting with Supervisor David Campos and other organizations for the 57 people displaced by the fire in the Mission that happened this past Saturday. I’m most excited to get a work plan and actually start to envision the larger projects I’ll be working on. This week my boss and coworkers have been overloaded with work related to the fire, so hopefully I’ll be able to sit down with someone and hash something out next week. This week I mostly supported where I was needed, which not only aligns with my idea of what my role as an ally is in this movement, but has also allowed me to learn the legal proceedings of evictions and the key policies that are in play, and freshen up my Spanish. That being said, I’m excited to see what kind of campaign work I’ll be able to plug into. On a larger scale, I’m really hoping this summer will help shape how I envision my future, as an organizer or a lawyer or just a human looking to build equity and community into the world around her… Pictures of my workplace! Hi everybody! My name is John Zhao and I am excited to share with my experience this summer interning at Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN)! I am a second generation Chinese American. I grew up in Cupertino, a community in the South Bay Area consisting of middle/upper class, East and South Asian immigrant families. (Oh, and it’s also the home of Apple, I guess!)
I am a rising junior majoring in Environmental Systems Engineering and considering a minor in either Urban Studies or Comparative Studies of Race and Ethnicity. I am passionate about sustainability and social justice, so I am glad that I can pursue work at the intersection of both my passions: environmental justice. I am still not sure what type of work I want to pursue after my time at Stanford, but this summer will be a valuable opportunity for me to consider whether community organizing is right for me. Enough about me, I’d love to share more about the organization I’m working with! Asian Pacific Environmental Network is an environmental justice organization located in the East Bay Area focused on issues impacting low-income immigrant and refugee API communities. APEN originated as a direct result of the 1st National People of Color Leadership Summit held in 1991, widely regarded as a landmark moment in the early moments of the environmental justice (EJ) movement in the United States. It was apparent that not enough API folks were organizing around environmental injustices like black and Latinx folks were at the time. The hope was to create a network (hence the name) connecting all the different organizations and activities working on EJ, but it turned out there wasn’t even enough substance to create a network! Thus, APEN started its own work organizing communities in the Bay Area. APEN’s main program areas are policy, civic engagement, and community organizing. I am working largely with the state policy team this summer. I will be developing training curriculum for the Asian Pacific American Climate Coalition (APACC), a coalition that APEN initiated recently to mobilize a progressive API voting bloc with an environmental justice platform. Moreover, I will be doing research to prepare the APEN team and APACC members for a lobby day in Sacramento. In addition to interning at APEN and participating in the Urban Studies Fellowship, I am part of the Seeding Change Fellowship (officially the National Fellowship Program for Asian American Organizing and Civic Engagement). I have the opportunity to build community and politically educate myself with other fellows who are also doing organizing work with Asian American organizations. Simply put, I have the opportunity to politicize myself with other API activists and connect myself with other Bay Area organizers, which is awesome! I already had a week-long orientation with the Seeding Change program and bonded with so many amazing fellows and role models. I am looking forward to immersing myself in environmental justice work, connecting with the API activist community, and challenging myself in new ways this summer. And I am honored to share my thoughts and reflections with you as I go on this journey. Welcome! Hey everyone! My name is Carter, and I’m a rising senior working out in New York this summer for a small mental health non-profit called The Jed Foundation (JED). They focus on reducing rates of suicide and substance abuse at colleges across the country, and generally try to promote good mental health care on campuses. It’s funny actually, the only reason I even managed to find JED in the first place - and therefore a reason to come all the way out here - is because of Wikipedia. Yeah, seriously. I had no idea what I wanted to do this summer, so instead of trying to think my way into an epiphany, I figured I would at least decide where I wanted to work first. My friend had just been telling me about how great New York is, so one day during a particularly boring lecture, I literally googled “nonprofits in New York,” just as means of killing time. And, naturally, the first link was to a Wikipedia article that listed all the hundreds nonprofits in the entire city. So I started scrolling and randomly clicking on ones that sounded even remotely interesting. The thing is, The Jed Foundation is often abbreviated to just JED, and the all-caps font stuck out when I was scrolling down the page - so I clicked on it, read the description, and a few months later, here I am. I know, seriously. Now this all naturally left me feeling more than a little anxious before my trip out here. After all, I was a kid who had never visited anywhere west of Idaho in my life, had never worked for a nonprofit, and found my organization in a public encyclopedia. But, as things turned out, all that worrying was for nothing. Because it’s awesome out here! My work for JED in particular, has been downright incredible. For being a small nonprofit, the staff moves through content at a breakneck pace, and weekdays are absolutely stuffed with work. I’m personally working with a team that runs a kind of strategic consultation service for universities to instruct them on how to establish good mental health services, and they have so far put me to work on a little of everything. I’ve helped to revise and edit the initial diagnostic survey that schools take to participate in the program, observed and participated in meetings to decide the content of our advising, written documents that will be incorporated into the program, and done absolute heaps of research. It’s exhausting and emotionally demanding (what with the overarching focus on suicide) and absolutely incredible. Oh, and the rest of the team - all 12 of them - are so chill and so unbelievably nice. We have access to the building’s roof, and my boss constantly tells me to go relax in the sun because I’ve been working too much. Which of course just gets me thinking, maybe these folks should come out to California before summer is out - I think they’d like it. I’m really looking forward to hearing about all of your programs, and the stories you’ll have to share about them as the weeks go on! Also, see the attached picture of me following my boss’s instructions. Hi there! I’m Glenn and this is literally the first sentence of my first ever blog post! Now that we’ve got that out of the way as well as my prior technical difficulties in getting to this point, I was gonna say that the rest of the blog post should be a breeze. The only problem is that it’s not written yet…kind of like my future! (should’ve warned you about my proclivity for cringe-worthy analogies and cringe-worthy words like cringe-worthy haha) But I am actually fairly uncertain about what I am going to do with my life, and while I don’t need the reassurance everyone keeps giving me (“it’s alright, you’re only a freshman”), I’d like to take this summer to hone in on my interests. So yes, I just finished freshman year (saying that I’m a rising sophomore just feels weird), and I will be working at SIRUM (Supporting Initiatives to Redistribute Unused Medicine) this summer. Super excited! A little bit about the non-profit: SIRUM saves lives by recovering medicine that would have otherwise been destroyed. The team is working to get $5 billion worth of wasted drugs annually to all 50 million working-age adults in the U.S. who, due to high costs, do not punctually fill their prescriptions. Specifically, SIRUM redistributes the unused medicine donated by licensed individuals, hospitals, and pharmacies to select safety-net clinics and pharmacies, working closely with them to ensure that they only receive medications meeting their patients’ needs. SIRUM thus strengthens the quality and breadth of services at such providers and ensures that they can meet demand by offering a safe and stable source of low-cost medicine. By doing so, it hopes to increase access to reliable, unexpired, and free medication for everyone, especially those living under the most vulnerable conditions and for whom this may be their only option. Find out more about SIRUM’s amazing work here! I start the fellowship this coming Monday, so what I’ll be doing is still somewhat up in the air. The current plan is that I will be engaged in the following work to varying degrees: filling supplies, customizing materials (pharmacy bag with SIRUM logo), helping with marketing and media, developing an improved donation kit for nurses, and lastly, traveling to Oregon to help streamline operations at SIRUM’s recently opened pharmacy (I like to travel and have never been to Oregon, so I’m especially excited about this project!). Seeing as I have already written too many words to hold your attention, I should start wrapping things up. Maybe I've lost it already haha Remember how I said I’m basically still a clueless freshman? (SHOUTOUT to all of you still undecided btw :)) Well, it’s not completely true because I do have a few things in mind like philosophy and religious studies, public health, and cognitive neuroscience. Not very easy to see how these things connect, huh. That’s why I chose to use this summer to explore with the only personally mandated requirement be that what I do is service-related. Because whatever I choose to do in the future will likely come down to public service, and SIRUM is a great place for me to give and grow at the same time. Anyway, hope to ramble less and have more clarity as this summer goes on—looking forward to sharing more and thanks for reading! Give and grow…that’s a good motto ;) Glenn Hi everyone! My name is Emma Poplack and I am writing from St. Louis, Missouri, where I am about to begin working for St. Patrick Center.
St. Patrick Center is a non-profit organization that works to end homelessness in the greater St. Louis region. The center utilizes a multi-faceted approach in its work, offering more than 25 programs for its clients. These programs are clustered around four main categories: employment, health, housing, and education. Some example programs include a cafe at the center run by clients, an overnight women's shelter, a fast-track GED program, and more. I am going to be working with the Chief Program Director of the organization. One of the many things that I will be working on with him is a project to evaluate the various programs offered by the center. We will be researching and presenting about each program's efficiency and effectiveness in order to keep St. Patrick Center on track to be one step closer to its goal. To start, I'll be working directly with the clients, doing "intakes" and riding along with the mobile outreach center. My hope is that by working directly with the people I will be serving, I can get a better grasp on the work in general. As I continue through the summer, I may shift away from the program evaluation project and follow something else that has captured my interest. I am so excited to begin working at St. Patrick Center. I know little about the issue of homelessness (and I don't know the city of St. Louis that well either!) so I think this will be an incredible learning opportunity for me. I am looking forward to be working in a non-profit setting learning from people who are passionate about and engaged with the issue. Right now, my next step is to keep reading through some research and information about the issue of homelessness and how organizations like St. Patrick Center have tried to eradicate it. Hopefully I'll learn quickly! Until next time, Emma Hey guys and gals!
My name is Makaila (please call me Kaila) Farrell, and I am really excited to get to know you all over the course of the summer! I am a rising sophomore currently interested in double majoring in Mechanical Engineering and African and African American Studies, so if any of you reading this blog have experience with either of these two majors please feel free to lend any advice you may have. I am currently trying to figure out ways in which I can intersect my love for engineering as well as my passion for talking about the black experience and social justice. I have not had much luck at the moment. Hopefully my internship at the Urban Justice Center, a non profit organization that works to serve New York City’s most vulnerable residents, will spark some ideas (or maybe even a new found interest in law). Aside from that I enjoy dancing, singing (in the shower of course), binge watching Supernatural and The Vampire Diaries on Netflix (if any of you want to talk about these shows or get together to watch them sometime, please hit me up) and eating food! I eat all things unhealthy, so if you are in New York this summer and want to get some great ice cream or cookies, I’m your girl! Again, looking forward to getting to know you all this summer! Kaila |
AuthorThis blog is authored by Stanford University students engaged in summer fellowships through the Cardinal Quarter and the Program on Urban Studies. All writings and thoughts belong to the Fellows and do not represent the opinion of the sponsoring programs. Archives
September 2018
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