Stanford University Urban Studies &
Urban Summer Fellowship
Student perspectives of community-engaged learning and research across the United States
This week at the Department of Health and Human Services, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the first four cases of mosquito-borne local transmission in Florida. This is an important public health challenge for the country, but has implications for urban communities in particular, which include the following:
One thing that remains frustrating about working at the federal level is that we rely on Congress to appropriate funds. In January President Obama asked for $1.9 million to prevent the Zika virus. Now, Zika has reached the continental US and Congress is on recess through September. The window to receive funding passed and we're in mosquito season. One inspiring thing about being in government is to see all of the talent and the dedication that people have to making an impact. I admire this about the teams I work with and consider this to be one of the meaningful and rewarding parts of the fellowship-- seeing just how impactful the government can be when it effectively works to serve people. Nicole J.
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Only two weeks left at the Urban Justice Center, and it’s over :( :(. I’m a bit conflicted about the experience so far. Because of the two-week lull of almost no work, I feel like I missed out on opportunities to learn or be exposed to more about the work. The good news is that there is a lot planned for the next two weeks, including a Jails Action Coalition meeting, trip to Rikers, a grant writing workshop, and a Brooklyn DOC conference with a re-entry advocate. I’m excited for all these experiences but with only two weeks, I don’t think it will be enough time to really take it in and discuss with staff. Furthermore, I don’t feel that I’ve built really strong relationships with the staff there. Not to be mistaken, my fellow coworkers are the greatest and make the work atmosphere the absolute ideal for me. Nevertheless, working with so many attorneys, social workers, and advocates who have so much knowledge about the intersection between the mental health and the criminal justice system, I regret not getting to pick their brains more or developing a deeper relationship with any of them. Hopefully, I can make up a little for the lost time in two weeks, but it’s a stretch.
Despite my relative disappointment and shock in how fast the summer went by, I am getting a little bit of clarity about what my future career could look like integrating all my interests. That was really a priority for me this summer so I’m glad that I’m starting to get an idea about what will make me happy while in the workforce. I’m still doing some research and shaping it, so I won’t reveal just yet, but I’m really excited to not be so confused and undecided anymore. Just like every week before, I’m still absolutely loving living in New York. I’ve really tricked myself into thinking this is paradise but forgetting about the insufferable cold that I know I will hate. Waiting to see if something remarkable happens in the next two weeks that can convince me to ignore the cold and move out here for good. Stay tuned! Always, Helen It’s become a quasi-theme in these blog posts for me to talk about how I need to mark out some time in my calendar to think about my life. Unfortunately, I can’t say I’ve seriously dedicated time to thinking about that so far this week, and I’m starting to think that the task has become so mentally daunting that it’s hard to even begin. It’s so much easier to just push it off to a later date, which reminds me that on the flip side, work is getting fairly busy which is good, but that means I’ve had to push deadlines on that front as well. It’s become quite a skill of mine—to push things off until I really need to think about them. Goes along with my general philosophy of “everything works out” and so far it hasn’t backfired yet. In fact, when you push things off till the last minute like me, lucky gems sometimes just find their way to you, whereas if you had planned everything out from the get-go, you can miss things along the way.
What I mean by a lucky gem is as follows. I went on a rafting trip with my co-workers today and it was amazing! We have a social event once every few weeks and I’ve come to appreciate how important outside-of-office team bonding really is. Makes the team’s dynamics that much smoother and everyone gets to take a well-deserved rest day. Well, not so much rest today because I had to wake up at 7 in the morning for the trip and slept at 2 in the morning, but that’s a story for another day. What’s important is that though we did have a few altercations with people egging others on with uncalled for splashing (not gonna point fingers at anyone) and we may have gotten caught in a few too many thick branches and my farmer’s tan got a lot worse, we were able to paddle concertedly once in a while. Yeah, I know that sounds lame, so rafting might not be the best team activity to build confidence and trust, but it is a pretty good activity if you wanna test how you work together through thorn-entangled and water-gun shooting struggles. On the way back with two of my co-workers, we organically started a conversation about Stanford and how to pick the right classes to take. (Also confirmed that study abroad is indeed a great experience, so I will definitely be going abroad before I graduate!) Something one of them said that stuck with me is that figuring out what you don’t like during your internships is just as important as figuring out what you are interested in. And thinking about things this way makes the task a little less daunting, that I don’t have to arrive at an answer right away, but rather can do a little process of elimination to narrow down my choices. It’s a difficult process because being open to new experiences is so important, even if I have to wake up at 7 in the morning and bake in 105-degree heat for 4 hours. Glenn :) One of the things I love most about summer is that there’s finally time to read. And not just more scholarly articles or research papers, but random $2 sci-fi novels and buried gems from the local used bookstore. I’m a chronically slow reader, so there’s never any time during the school year to just bust out a novel every here and there - leisurely reading usually only comes during holiday breaks and the summer months. A few weeks ago I picked a $1 fiction book from the shelves of a used bookstore in Midtown because the cover art was really cool (don’t tell me you’ve never picked out a book for that way before), and you know what? It wasn’t very good. But I don’t care! Because it was $1! And I got to read it for fun! I worked my way through half another fantasy book before folding it up for good ($1 quality only sustains you for so long), and I’ve dug my way through about half a book of essays about the state of education in America. And now, I’m launching into what has been a minor life mission since I was in middle school: I’m finally reading The Lord of the Rings.
And sure, all the fantasy and fiction and light reading has been great, but the real value of rediscovering my love of reading this summer has come through the news. I’m a Polisci major, which means that every 4 years the news begins to fill to the brim with far more interesting content than I could ever hope to get through. I read the news for about an hour and a half a day, and it still always feels like I’m catching up. My sister makes fun of me for it. “What??” she exclaimed over the phone to me once. “You’re in New York and you’re holed up in your room reading the news all day?” Well, yeah. Because through work, I’ve been immersed in a topic that I know relatively little about, and my effort to catch up on that knowledge is driving my ongoing interest in current events and the election. I know, I should be visiting the Statue of Liberty and walking the Highline and doing all the other New Yorky things, but I just can’t seem to stay away from the news lately. That different, for me, and not entirely unwelcome. In fact, being informed is oddly enjoyable. Hell I might even make a habit out of it. - Carter It is unbelievable that half of the summer has already gone by. I have learned so much from my students and they have pushed me to grow in all sorts of ways. In particular, the classroom management aspect of teaching has challenged me.
Without a doubt, trying to keep 12 teenagers constantly engaged and focused is the hardest thing I have ever taken on. Each student has such unique needs, experiences, and interests. To try to meet each of them where they are has been a daily conundrum. What’s more, sometimes the last thing the students want is to have to think about linear equations when it’s 80 degrees outside and they’re with all of their friends. Despite the in-class challenges, I have had so many great out of class moments with my students this week. On Wednesday, we hosted a Family Night where I got to meet my students’ families. It was invigorating seeing the families excited about Breakthrough and really heartwarming to hear how proud the parents are of their kids. We also got to visit a major Boston company today (Friday) where the kids were super excited to hear about potential careers – or perhaps it was excitement about the huge cookies and pizza in the room … likely both! Regardless, they were buzzing with energy during our visit and began to ask some very important questions about college and forging a career path. In moments like these, I am reminded that the relationships I form with these students are the most important and meaningful part of teaching. This is what matters. It underlies my ability to teach my students and support them on their path. Seeing how eager they were to one day be working in a job they love, it inspired me to keep pushing through the challenges of teaching. It completely gives me the persistence and motivation to overcome the hard moments. Until next week, Ngoc One thing that I find particularly inspirational is that there are many young people working in government at the federal level who have found meaningful careers
Hello my lovelies!
My post from last week mentioned doing some outreach for the New York City Jails Action Coalition. While I did not get a chance to do a lot of outreach, I did assist some of my coworkers with the project. There was a rally and a hearing on July 26 after all of the outreach was completed. It was a public hearing with the Department of Corrections in New York City to talk about the continuous issue of sexual assault an rape in jails and New York State Prisons. It was amazing seeing somany people come out to support those individuals who have been victims of sexual assault in New York State Prisons. However, it was difficult to listen to some of the testimonies that were told in the room. It was definitely clear that there needs to be more effort to remove rapist from prison. On a lighter note, I finally received my assistant attorney's pass, which will grant me the opportunity to visit Rikers Island, New York City's main jail complex, and interview some of the incarcerated individuals there. I should be going sometime in the next two weeks, and I'll be sure to let you all know about my experience. Until next time, Kaila Collective Impact Policy
This summit was a convening of people who do work at the national, state, county, and city (local) level to improve outcomes for youth. There were reps from: Children's Cabinets, Maine state senate, Fairfax County Dept. of Family Services, Milwaukee County Dept. of Health and Human Services, HUD, NYC Office of the Mayor, Baltimore Office of the Mayor, Nat'l Association of State Budget Officers, Philadelphia Mayor's Office of Education... the list goes on (50+ organizations!). It was an all-star lineup and I was honored to join on behalf of the Urban Institute (Urban was the only think tank there besides Brookings, I believe). At the summit, we had panels on partnership, data & evidence, and funding. We also broke out into focus sessions to work more directly with each other in conversation. And, we had some sweet Speed Dating for Vertical Policy Alignment. I didn't meet my future husband but I did get to do some reconnaissance on Promise Neighborhood Next Generation indicators to incorporate into my memo (& general thinking). The summit proved rejuvenating and reflective. I was excited to share the room with so many people doing the type of work I either want to do or find captivating. Major ups to the Forum for putting this on! A little moment for me: when I opened up the packet of materials, the first thing on top was a briefing of the report "Transforming Government, Transforming Communities" which I had edited and organized during my time at the Department of Education. It was super duper gratifying to see this work paying off! This week at The Community Foundation has been quite busy. As I have come to about the halfway point of my time here in Boulder, I have found myself working hard to make sure that all of the projects that I am responsible for are finished in a timely manner and to the best of my abilities.
So what exactly have I been working on? This last week I have spent a lot of time working on the business plan for ELPASO, the program under The Community Foundation that will transition to being its own independent nonprofit. That has required me to articulate clearly the issues that the program seeks to address, the resources and services that it provides, and how these resources and services will ultimately contribute to the closing of the achievement gap. Additionally, I have been working on securing funding for the organization by applying for a rather large grant. By securing this funding, we would be contributing to the organization’s financial stability during the first year of operations. Lastly, I spent time this week doing some on the ground work in Lafayette, visiting Latino parents and becoming acquainted with Latino parent leaders in the community. Overall, most of the work that I have been doing this summer has been completely new to me. I had never been to a Board Meeting like the one I attended last week, and I had never had to think through a business plan for an organization. While these tasks seemed intimidating at first, I have quickly become comfortable with them. I have realized how readily available help is. The office that I work in is overflowing with kind people that hold a wealth of knowledge that they are willing to share. The combination of the substantive and meaningful work that I am tasked with, and the talents of the people that I get to work with have made my time at The Community Foundation thus far very valuable on both a professional and personal level. With all of that said, this long week of work merits a weekend off. I am excited to be driving down to Santa Fe for the weekend to spend time with friends and family. Luis This week Causa Justa’s office was closed for their summer holiday break, so I did my work remotely. This allowed me a little more space to think. One thing about working at Causa Justa, and I expect a other community organizations where there are a lot of moving pieces, is that things can be really fast-paced and tiring. I especially appreciate this blog space for its ability to slow the day-to-day down a bit.
I’ve been thinking about a lot during my internship is how I fit into social and racial justice movements. I know I wrote about it a bit last week: how I see Causa Justa’s development of member-leaders and member-organizers as an ideal model for centering those affected by social and racial injustices in a given movement, and how I feel that ideally that’s not a space I would want to take up or want to be needed in. I think working in racial justice movements, as a white/mixed, middle-class ally, has been great for my political development, for sure. I think it’s been really important for me to grapple with my own privilege- this past year and this past summer especially. I think a next step for me would be to check out other local organizations that work on building allies to racial justice movements in white communities and white-dominated movements, like the Catalyst Project or Challenging White Supremacy. I think volunteering with either at the end of the summer would be a great way to continue to develop my thinking around allyship. One thing I really believe is that folks of color and low-income folks shouldn’t have to educate others on social and racial justice issues, so it would make sense not to just offer my own help to any given movement as an ally, but also help to thoughtfully bring others into the fold as well to build a larger conscientious ally base. |
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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