Basic HTML Version
Campus Review
August 15, 2014
Page 6
Clayton State University’s AmeriCorps
students annually tutor more than 200
high school students at risk for academic
failure and/or dropping out, providing an
important resource to support the local
school district. According to Clayton State
AmeriCorps Program Coordinator Jen
Welch, 78 percent of the students tutored
show an increase in their overall grade
average and of those students, 72 percent
of students’ grades improved by five
points or more.
In addition to tutoring, Clayton State
AmeriCorps members conduct a Spring
Break College and Career camp for high
school students. Members participate in
local community service projects, recruit
community volunteers, and serve as one
of the most popular groups on the Clayton
State campus. This past year, Clayton
State members recruited 160 volunteers
who collectively served more than 1,000
hours at various community service proj-
ects including the Martin Luther King, Jr.
Day of Service, Make a Difference Day,
and a 5K Race benefiting Georgia's
Wounded Heroes.
Welch notes that the AmeriCorps program
is successful because Clayton State is a
service institution that focuses on being a
supportive community, both for its own
students, and for the surrounding commu-
nities.
While the AmeriCorps program is the
largest manifestation of students provid-
ing a supportive community, it is far from
the only one.
In the fall of 2013, DeLandra M. Hunter
and Marcia Bouyea-Hamlet, the director
and assistant director of Clayton State
University’s First-Year Advising &
Retention Center, took 13 Clayton State
freshmen volunteers to the Atlanta
Community Food Bank (ACFB) to cele-
brate Hunger Awareness Month.
Taking part were Clayton State students
McKayla Washington, Erica Joyce,
Amoni Etheridge, Toni Simmons, Latrese
Hubbard, Taylor Kendrick, Jasmine Bell,
Bianca Dent, Linh Le-Nguyen, Payal
Patel, Deanna Jackson, Miracle Brown
and Craig Roberts.
The ACFB experience helped engender as
sense of community service among the
students, says Jackson.
“I’ve been inspired to get more involved
in the community,” she says. “I’m sharing
my experience in hopes that others will
get inspired to volunteer because it truly
makes a difference in the community.”
Getting Involved in the Electoral Process
by John Shiffert
Clayton State University Lecturer in
Philosophy Dr. Benjamin Buckley is pas-
sionate on the subject of getting more
young people involved in voting and the
electoral process.
“I’d also like them to focus on smaller
and local elections, where your voice can
be heard,” he says.
That passion sparked an idea that
Buckley was able to put into practice last
fall as part of the Clayton State University
Foundations class (CSU1022) he taught to
a group of freshmen. As part of that class,
Buckley designed a community service
project for the class, a project to get stu-
dents working together to create a voter’s
guide for Clayton State students.
Buckley tasked his class to survey
Clayton State students to see what local
issues were important to them, and then
sent the students out – both literally and
virtually – to address those issues with
candidates, and to question the candi-
dates, in various cities around Clayton
County. Armed with both the interests of
Clayton State students, and the positions
of the candidates, the CSU1022 students
produced 500 voters’ guides that they dis-
tributed on Main Street in the James M.
Baker University Center prior to the 2013
elections.
“The guide included everything the stu-
dents found out about the local elections,”
says Buckley, who notes that his class
project not only benefitted the broader
Clayton State student body, but also the
class members themselves, giving them,
among other things, an education in local
politics. “Some of the students were new
to voter registration itself. There was a
significant learning curve for some of my
students, in terms of the mechanics of
local politics. This program gave them
some insight into how politics work at this
level.”
The program also was designed to pro-
vide his students with academic skills,
what Buckley describes as hands-on skills
– notably in critical thinking and research
-- that will help the students succeed and
be better prepared for college. So, in addi-
tion to learning about local politics,
Buckley’s students also learned some impor-
tant points about the educational process.
English major Siera Blasco likened the
research aspect of the project – trying to
contact and interview the candidates -- to
trying to find one’s way through a thicket.
“It was like trying to make a path, so it
would be easier to find our way,” she says
of the research involved.
Blasco’s assignment for the voters’ guide
was Morrow City Council candidate Hang
Tran, who would become the first
Vietnamese female elected official in
Georgia history.
“We were able to get important access to
her, to ask questions like, ‘what is the
cost?’” explains Blasco. “We asked her
what her stances were on the issues that
were important to our students.”
Process, cont’d., p. 16
Engagement, cont’d. from p. 5