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Spring 2007

Academic Courses

• Cristina Alcalde’s Gender, Power, Violence course examined the interconnections between gender, power, and violence in different cultural settings, exploring how these forms of violence appear in the community through different community-based learning projects at agencies and programs, including the County Attorney’s Office, Williamson County Victim’s Services, Equality Texas, and The Caring Place.*



• Don Parks’ Business Capstone students in Strategic Management continue their ongoing partnership with The Caring Place to provide models and strategic planning information. This semester, students focused their research and recommendations on the viability of two concepts: The Caring Place’s active participation in the proposed Williamson County Community Resource Center, and the establishment of a homeless shelter for youth in Williamson County.



• Emily Niemeyer’s Quantitative Methods of Analysis course focused on the basic principles of analytical chemistry and how these principles apply to chemical problems, and illustrated such principles in elementary school classrooms in Hutto ISD. Students led classes and experiments dealing with acids, bases and ph balance, and harnessing electricity for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students.



• Sherry Adrian’s Survey of Exceptionalities course required students to volunteer with agencies that connect to children with special needs and/or to programs that elucidate gaps in services to public school students.



• Alicia Moore’s Schools, Society, and Diversity course required students to volunteer with agencies that connect to children with special needs and/or to programs that elucidate gaps in services to public school students.



• Laura Hobgood-Oster’s Environmental Studies Capstone students researched and weaved together the human history and history of the flora and fauna of the San Gabriel River. They created a proposal for a public information pedestal sign to be placed in a public area along the River for trail users.



• Alex Barron’s Introduction to Feminist Studies students explored activism by researching an individual or group that works to create social change, or by joining/creating a group that does activist work. These projects were designed to get students thinking about how individuals bring about social change, what kinds of activist work is being done throughout the world, and what can be learned from activists who have done or are doing grassroots work. Research areas, projects, and partnerships included institutionalizing activism in higher education, researching GENAustin and its mission, participating in the Williamson County Court Watch, examining how to effectively integrate activism into print media, creating a feminist “zine” and distributing it to local residents, and creating a proposal for a summer camp devoted to empowering girls of middle school age.



• Bruce Cain’s OperaTheater class presented whole acts from Don Giovanni to choral classes at local high schools, middle schools and retirement homes. In April 2007, the class presented The Story of a Silly Baby Mouse by Shostakovich and other selected opera scenes in a community tour to elementary schools and retirement homes. After all the performances, the company took time to answer questions any audience members had about opera performance.



• Tim O’Neil’s Texas Politics Internship course compares political theory and practical politics in a work environment in either the state capital or Williamson County government.



• Jacquie Muir-Broaddus’ Developmental Psychology and Educational Psychology courses encourage students to volunteer at appropriate community-based programs that allow them to observe the psychological concepts they are learning in real-life contexts. Students earn extra credit for their involvement in pre-approved civic engagement activities, and must also write a reflection piece about their experiences.



• Richard Osbaldiston’s Environmental Psychology included a major assignment toward identifying whether each student participant aligns values with action. Students were required to identify an issue they care about and develop a project designed to ameliorate the issue. Following the completion of the project, they reflected upon and evaluated the process of their own project, and the process of identifying environmental problems and solutions.



• Richard Osbaldiston’s Psychology Research Methods I class partnered with LifeSteps’ Williamson County Coalition on Underage Drinking (WCCUD) to study local adult attitudes toward underage drinking. The study was disseminated by the WCCUD from October 2006 – February 2007, receiving over 1,000 responses. Dr. Osbaldiston’s Psychology Research Methods II class analyzed survey responses, expanded different themes suggested by the data, and reported their findings to the WCCUD in March 2007.



• Sandi Nenga’s Childhood & Adolescence students informally observed peer interactions among children and youth from ages 4 to 17 while volunteering for Extended School Enrichment, the After-School Action Program, and the Clement Boys & Girls Club in Georgetown.



• Dan Hilliard’s Medical Sociology class partnered with the Williamson County & Cities Health District to study safe, walkable routes to school for students of Purl and Pickett Elementary in Georgetown. They evaluated the routes according to street width, speed, presence of sidewalks and shoulders, and other detailed criteria. Their findings were presented to community and school stakeholders in December 2006 and has since been used by a City of Georgetown-sponsored steering committee to make recommendations to the City for street improvements.



• Ed Kain’s Sociology Research Methods course completed a project started by last year’s class that sought to understand parent perceptions of a local school, and to learn about parents’ overall satisfaction with the campus. Dr. Kain’s students created a survey instrument in Fall 2005 that was disseminated by the school’s faculty and administration in the spring. The data collected was analyzed by this semester’s students, and for her final project, one student in the class prepared an executive summary of the data and a final survey report, including recommendations of improvements the school could reasonably make based on parents’ comments.



• Abby Dings’ Spanish Intermediate Oral & Written Expression course required that students spend a minimum of 10 hours in the community using Spanish. Activities include tutoring students in GISD’s Migrant Education Program, volunteering as teachers for adult ESL classes at The Caring Place, working with parents served by the non-profit agency Any Baby Can (ABC) and serving as translators for the Coats for Kids and Texas Mission of Mercy events at the Dell Diamond in November.



• Southwestern’s Department of Theatre collaborated with the Theatre Department at McNeil High School in Round Rock to bring a Los Angeles-based Theatre for Social Justice Company called Fringe Benefits to Round Rock and Georgetown to develop a play about racism in public high schools. A group of Southwestern and McNeil high school students, faculty, and staff worked together to develop a thirty minute play on this topic. The play, As Seen On TV, toured in April, and parodied common media messages that reinforce cultural stereotypes and augment racial difference (as well as fear that accompanies awareness of differences). This project was led by Theatre Professor Kathleen Juhl, and resulted in the establishment of a new student organization that plans to use art to counter racism.



• Cristina Alcalde’s Latinos in the U.S.: One or Many Cultures? first year seminar students presented the many challenges Latinos face in American culture to 8th grade students at Benold Middle School. Discussion topics included immigration, racism, family, and gender.



• Daniel Castro’s Another Way of Seeing: Visions and Revisions of Realities first year seminar hosted a community-wide screening and discussion about the film “Brokeback Mountain.” Students and members of the Georgetown community of all different ages, backgrounds and beliefs gathered in a community space off-campus in order to watch the film and then engage in meaningful dialogue about the issues that the film addressed and ways in which it was applicable to individual’s lives and the life of the community.



• Emily Northrop’s Lights Out first year seminar examined changes in our ways of utilizing and harnessing energy and considering the possibility that there are finite resources on the earth. This discussion culminated in an interactive exchange between students and prominent members of the Georgetown community wherein these community leaders shared how their particular industries made use of energy. They also shared how global trends of energy use would affect Georgetown.



• Laura Hobgood-Oster’s (Religion) and Jimmy Smith’s (Kinesiology) Going to the Dogs first year seminar explored the complex relationship between dogs and humans, and required students to volunteer at a local animal shelter to better understand our society’s policies toward these animals.



• Latin American Art Lectures, presented by Laura Lindenberger. Professor Lindenberger presented two lectures, “Los Tres Grandes and the Mexican Revolution” and “Contemporary Latino Art,” to public audiences at Georgetown Public Library, Stonehaven Senior Center, and Georgetown and Richarte High Schools. The lectures were organized by Kim Smith in Art History and Suzy Pukys in Volunteer Resources & Community-based Learning, with support from Texas Humanities Foundation.



• Education students and the GISD Bridges Program. Beginning with sophomore Ashly Hernandez, Education students seeking to fulfill their intercultural requirement worked with students in the GISD Bridges Program, which has been housed at Southwestern since Fall 2005. Bridges Program students are disabled adults ages 18-22 transitioning from school to work who meet weekday morning for class at Southwestern. Ashly and other students began meeting with the Bridges class each week to provide unique enrichments and fellowship (as students of the same age). Ashly’s work with this program helped to inspire the re-establishment of the campus organization Best Buddies, which will work primarily with students in the Bridges Program.



• EcoVillage: Green Living at Southwestern Ben Johnson, Aubrey Weeks, Ansa Copeland, Matt Glenn, Alex Rutledge, other members of SEAK (Students for Environmental Activism and Knowledge), and the Environmental Studies Program mobilized to begin several eco-friendly campus initiatives. Such initiatives include proposals for green architecture, a permaculture garden, and the Talloires Declaration.



• Sean Kissinger’s Tennis Clinic. For his Business Entrepreneurship independent study, senior philosophy major Sean Kissinger developed a business plan for an on-going tennis clinic for kids ages 7-12 at no cost. He piloted the clinic on May 5, 2007 with the support of his tennis coach, tennis team, and other interested constituencies at Southwestern and in the community. Forty kids came to the 5-hour clinic, and Sean will pass on his business plan to a successor and will work toward earning 501(c)3 status for this project.



• Four for Peace Nadia Alareksoussi, Amanda Espinosa, Hannah Adkinson, and Eva Graham. Four for Peace documents these four students’ experience at an anti-war protest in Washington, D.C. The piece includes their reflections and the diverse perspectives of protesters both for and against the war in Iraq.



• Family Days Service Experience with Habitat for Humanity. Alumni Relations, Habitat for Humanity, and the Office of Volunteer Resources & Community-based Learning partnered to provide a service experience for Southwestern families at Habitat’s Old Mill Village, a major building project of twenty homes in Georgetown.



• Men’s Basketball and Annie Purl Elementary. With encouragement from Head Basketball Coach Bill Raleigh, members of the Men's Basketball Team mentored at Annie Purl through the first semester, and the full team ran activities for kids at two Annie Purl programs, the WatchDOG kickoff in the fall and the Mega Party Fundraising Celebration in the Spring. “We will definitely be involved in some capacity next year,” said Coach Raleigh. “It was a tremendous experience for our players. The positive feedback that they received from teachers, parents and especially the kids made it all worthwhile. A great hidden benefit was the team got a good look at what parenthood is about and I think it opened up some eyes on how tough it is.”



• SU Native Community Education. Working with advisor Ben Nava and his family, members of SU Native – Paul MacCammond, Alex Rutledge, and Rob Atkinson – raised awareness about Native American culture and practices by presenting to students in Georgetown ISD and by organizing the third annual SU Native Pow-Wow in April 2007, a forum in which Native Americans across Texas gather together for dancing, drumming, and fellowship.



Paideia

• Max Taub’s Sophomore Cohort created a documentary to discover and assess public needs in Georgetown through interviews with concerned students, faculty, civic leaders, and professionals who work in the non-profit arena. The cohort plans to share this film with other Paideia Scholars and the campus community to help communicate social and public service issues in Georgetown and Williamson County.



• Michael Kamen’s Sophomore Cohort worked toward creating a Southwestern scholarship for a local high school student.



• Emily Northrop’s Sophomore Cohort developed three satirical “infomercials” encouraging students to think more intentionally about they use resources on campus, such as electricity, water, fuel (driving to class), and paper/printing. They plan to air these pieces on the Southwestern channel



• Mark Bottorff’s Sophomore Cohort investigated family planning and advocacy work done by Planned Parenthood (pro-choice) and the Pregnancy Help Center (anti-abortion). Some Paideia Scholars participated in a fundraising walk for the Pregnancy Help Center.



• Don Park’s Sophomore Cohort volunteered/developed programs for the Boys & Girls Club of Georgetown.



• Hal Haskell’s Sophomore Cohort developed proposals for cultivating an organic garden on campus or erecting a monument for veterans of the Iraq war.



• Glenda Carl’s Sophomore Cohort organized the showing of the film, Stolen, on March 27 about international child labor, prostitution, and military service for children ages 5-17



• Michael Kamen’s Junior Cohort received a grant from the San Gabriel River Trail/3M funds to research and document the history of the Shell House, located just off the San Gabriel Trail in Georgetown. They plan to put an informational kiosk on the trail to honor the family home.

Other Events and Highlights

• Carnegie Community Engagement Classification
• Civic Engagement/Green Hall (collaboration with Residence Life)
• MLK Backpack Project for GISD Homeless Education Program
• Presentation at National Conference for Civic Engagement in Austin
• “The Rundown on Georgetown” with Farley Snell
• HIV/AIDS Awareness Fair and Hope’s Voice Speaker (collaboration with Alex Barron and Nadia Alareksoussi)
• SAAC’s “Pirates on the Playground”
• 2006-07 Civic Engagement Award to Ben Johnson
• logistical support for Destination Service and the Care Fair
• Presentations to student organizations on the “Ethics of Civic Engagement”