Category: Center News

Dear Students,

Editor’s Note: Editor’s Note: This post was originally featured on the Donelan Office of Community-Based Learning blog on May 22, 2020. You can read the original post on the Donelan CBL blog.

On March 11^th, the Holy Cross community received the news that, because of the global pandemic of COVID-19, the College would be moving all learning online, in-person events and activities would be canceled, and that essentially everyone had to vacate campus as quickly as possible. This decision was made so as to minimize physical contact between people in order to slow the spread of coronavirus. For the Donelan Office of Community-Based Learning, this decision had particular implications, as contact is at the core of every single thing we do: contact with community partners and a variety of Worcester community members, contact with faculty and their courses, and contact with a variety of other community engagement programs on campus.

Our leadership program, the Community-Based Learning Intern Program, also felt the drastic impact of the College’s decision. This is because, again, a highlight of the CBL Intern program is the contact the Interns have with our community partners, with our courses, with our office space, and with each other. An example of this is how the 16 Interns utilize the Donelan Office space itself. If you have ever passed by the Donelan Office when walking along the hallway of Smith 3, you likely glanced into the Donelan Office and saw two, three, four, or five people in there at a time, eating cookies, getting work done, and laughing so much that at least one person had tears in their eyes. The Interns would fill the office to the brim, not only with themselves and their stuff, but with their hearts and minds, with their ideas and emotions, with their leadership. This contact, certainly, has not been possible in the past ten weeks as we have been in dispersion, away from campus.

Despite losing the physical space of the office and the ability to be in physical contact with so many, the CBL Interns have persisted in their leadership, helping to continue the work of community-based learning. Their leadership has proven that the work that we do is really about connection more so than about contact. Sure, the physical contact can help with making connections, but connection can be made in dispersion, too.

When we moved online, the Interns hardly missed a beat. They helped to move the CBL Intern selection process online, interviewing Intern candidates on Zoom and meeting as a group for several hours to make the very difficult decision about who would be selected for the 2020-2021 CBL Intern cohort. They held virtual in-class reflection sessions, assisting many CBL students with reflecting on how the move to remote learning was impacting their CBL experience. They wrote blog after blog sharing their thoughts about how they were continuing to be in communication with their community partners, what they missed about in-person CBL and being on campus, how their learnings from CBL have assisted them during this time of dispersion, how saying goodbye was difficult, and reflections on CBL after four years in CBL courses and about their time as CBL Interns. They put on a virtual dialogue session featuring four Holy Cross alumni who shared about living a life of service and justice beyond the Hill; this dialogue session was our highest-attended dialogue session ever! The younger Interns helped to celebrate our Senior Interns with a virtual send-off featuring a TikTok-style video, messages from faculty, community partners, and the CBL Intern community, and highlights of their numerous achievements. The Interns contributed to a social media gratitude campaign for our community partners during the last week of classes, recording videos of speeches they would have made in person and sharing messages they would have shared during their final days at their sites. The list goes on.

While these virtual times are no replacement for the in-person times we have had in CBL and that we hope to have in CBL as soon as it’s possible to safely gather again, these virtual times have been fulfilling and meaningful in their own unique ways. They would not be as fulfilling and meaningful without acts of great leadership. The CBL Interns’ work over the past two months has proven that when you put your mind and heart to it, connection is absolutely possible even when contact is not. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” These times that we’ve experienced while physically distanced from each other most definitely have been challenging and controversial times. The CBL Interns, though, have faced these challenges and controversies head-on and shone brightly because of their leadership in dispersion. This leadership has inspired us and so many to persist in making and maintaining connections.

Thank you, CBL Interns!

By Daniel Klinghard, Director, J.D. Power Center

Students across the world are experiencing significant disruption in their daily lives and in their education. At the J.D. Power Center, we know that many of the students we work with in normal times are particularly hard-hit, as internships, CBL sites, and research opportunities are curtailed. Most of these opportunities thrive most in situations where students can engage with people and communities on a close-up basis—internship supervisors, community partners, research subjects, all require the kind of one-on-one contact that the current situation prohibits. These experiences often come as the result of long term planning on students’ part, and are hard to recreate.

That’s why we’re starting a blog series on experiential learning from home—to help you think through some ways that you can keep engaging in experiential learning while you are engaging in social distancing. We invite students to join us by sharing their own experiences.

In the meantime, here are some ways you can continue engaging in experiential learning:

1.) Intern remotely

In many cases, students interning through the J.D. Power Center’s programming were automatically moved to remote work along with the rest of their work sites. If you have this opportunity, keep it up. Set aside specific hours that you can focus in on internship work, and keep in contact with your supervisor. In times like this, doing good work can really stand out, and demonstrate your engagement.

If you are not currently interning, but interned in the past, consider reaching out to past supervisors to see if you can help out—particularly if the kind of work you were doing can be easily done remotely. You likely have additional time on your schedule with normal operations shut down—offer a specific amount of time that you would be willing to return to your internship duties, and see if they could use the help.

2.) Learn about working remotely

Although the world of work is undergoing significant changes as large numbers of people shift to working remotely, remote work has been a feature of the American work landscape for some time. Take some time to think about your work habits while working remotely. Research best practices in working from home (the popular press is currently featuring a number of articles on working from home), set up your own workspace with this in mind, and monitor your own habits. Write your own guide, reflecting both your research and your own experience.

3.) Learn a skill

Often, our students have ideas for projects that they do not have a technical skill to accomplish—video editing, coding, statistics packages. This is a great time to develop some skills that might help you advance future projects. Or just engage in learning something you know you’ll value down the line: master Excel, polish your negotiation skills, or learn a new painting technique. Skills like these might help you when it comes time to launching a new project or internship when things get back to normal. Sites like Lynda.com and Coursera have a wide range of online courses that help you invest in your experiential future.

4.) Seek out a mentor

Students often say that one of the best things about experiential learning are the mentoring relationships that they develop. Make use of additional down-time by reaching out to a Holy Cross alum to develop a mentoring relationship. The Center for Career Development hosts the HC Network, a completely-online guide that lets you contact alums in fields you’re interested in via email, phone, and video conference. https://hcnetwork.holycross.edu/

5.) Build your online portfolio

Too often, social media is seen as a massive time waste (and very often, it IS a massive time waste), but it can also be a useful way to both explain and reflect on your work. Think about how you can build a web presence that you use exclusively to engage with others about your work and your interests. Maybe create an Instagram account that highlights artwork you’ve studied, or a Twitter account that posts news about an issue you care about. Use your time on social media to engage in ways that help you experience the world positively. Some helpful guides to using social media in a professionally-responsible way can be found here:

Twitter

Linkedin

Pinterest

Blogging

6.) Work with a club

Holy Cross’s RSOs could be particularly hard-hit by the campus shut down. If you’re part of an RSO, think about ways that you can work now to prepare for starting up again. Reach out to members and plan some virtual meetings, or propose some remote projects. Are there long-avoided tasks that could improve your operations or standardize your procedures that you just never seem to get to? This could be the time to get them done.

Staying at home is going to have its highs and lows, its frustrations and its moments of peace. It is also a moment of testing, and an opportunity to learn patience with ambiguity. Don’t stop engaging!

And remember, the J.D. Power Center is here to help. You can reach us at jdpowercenter@holycross.edu.

Several Holy Cross students and faculty members spent part of their winter break taking part in the annual Joint Mathematics Meeting (JMM) in Denver, CO. The group was part of the 2019 Weiss Summer Research Program, and their research ranged from predicting individual success in the National Basketball Association (NBA) to understanding differences in behavioral synchrony in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder. Not only did they get to show their findings during the conference, but some were even able to win awards for their presentations.

“Our students have a significant number of opportunities to present on campus,” said Eric Ruggieri, associate professor of Mathematics, “but it’s a whole different experience to present your work to faculty and students across the United States. I also think it’s an eye-opening experience for our students. It’s a huge community of people who are excited to hear what they have to say.”

“A high point is the judging process itself,” said David Damiano, professor of Mathematics. “It is often the case that judges will suggest possibilities for further research. This is an especially good experience speaking to an audience of students and mathematicians from across the country. Our students invariably give polished and substantive presentations, and the experience is a confidence booster.”

For the students who attended, along with presenting on their own work, the conference was a chance to learn about other research taking place across the country.

“Each day, we would wake up and attend presentations on various topics such as Probability and Statistics, Real and Complex Analysis, and Mathematical Biology,” said Marialena Bevilacqua ’20. “I was given the opportunity to meet and talk with mathematicians and other students from many universities all over the country. This conference opened my eyes to the many opportunities that (studying Mathematics) would afford me in the future.”

“My experience in Denver was exciting and informative,” said Elena Wang ’20. “I was able to see a lot of mathematics that I wouldn’t have been able to learn at Holy Cross in a classroom setting. Being able to go to Denver gave me a taste of what mathematics is like outside of Holy Cross.”

Seven Holy Cross students presented at JMM. Their project titles, as well as any awards won, are listed below.

1. Marialena Bevilacqua ’20 [Outstanding]
   Title: Predicting Success in the N.B.A.
2. Emily Devine ’21
   Title: Understanding Behavioral Synchrony:  Differences in Behavioral Synchrony in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder using Functional EEG Networks
3. Xu (Mike) Ding ‘21
   Title: Simulating the Board Game Risk
4. John Graf ‘20
   Title: Consecutive Increases Related to the 3x+1 Function
5. Piotr Pogorzelski ’20 [Honorable Mention]
   Title: Predicting NCAA Basketball Games Using Logistic Regression
6. Patrycja Przewoznik ’21 [Outstanding]
   Title: Structural analysis of the force chains within communities of particle
7. Elena Wang ’20 [Honorable Mention]
   Title: Clairaut Surfaces in Euclidean Three-Space

The College of the Holy Cross Mediation Team recently competed at the International Academy of Dispute Resolution (INADR) Intercollegiate Mediation Tournament at York University in Toronto, Canada. The team had a strong showing, winning several team and individual awards. Jake Mozeleski ’22, Alison Emery ’23, and Victoria Tara ’21 won second place for the mediator team award. Below is a listing of the full results.

Team Awards

• 2nd Place Mediator Team: Alison Emery ’23, Jake Mozeleski ’22, Victoria Tara ’21
• 5th Place Advocate/Client Team Award: Justin Absten ’22, Antonio Ricco ’23, Emma Kennelly ’23
• 6th Place Advocate/Client Team Award: Angelo Carbone ’22, Caitlin Marple ’21, Bridget Whelpley ’21
  

Individual Awards

Advocate/Client Pairing Awards (Top 20):

• Caitlin Marple ’21 and Angelo Carbone ’22
• Angelo Carbone ’22 and Bridget Whelpley ’21
• Victoria Tara ’21 and Alison Emery ’23

Mediator Awards

• 3rd Place Individual Mediator: Caitlin Marple ’21
• 20th Place Individual Mediator: Victoria Tara ’21

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared on the Holy Cross news website on June 5, 2019. It is written by Evangelia Stefanakos. 

On April 25, the Worcester Historical Museum was filled with emotion — sorrow, anger, joy — as hundreds explored the museum’s newest exhibition, “LGBTQ+ Worcester — For the Record,” a chronicling of images, histories, voices and experiences of Worcester’s LGBTQ+ community over the last 50 years.

The exhibition, timed to the 50th anniversary of New York’s Stonewall uprising and the advent of the modern gay liberation movement, showcases the scattered documentation of Worcester’s LGBTQ+ experience, which is quickly growing due in large part to the work of College of the Holy Cross’ Stephanie Yuhl, professor of history. Supported by a three-year Scholarship in Action grant, Yuhl is working as part of a team of scholars to develop a physical and digital historical archive, oral history project and artifact collection of LGBTQ+-related materials in Worcester County.

While Worcester’s LGBTQ+ community has claimed space in the city for decades, their history has long been overlooked, a common occurrence for marginalized, hidden or oppressed communities, explains Yuhl. Through partnerships with the museum and various community representatives, Yuhl’s Scholarship in Action grant project, titled “From Margin to Center,” aims to make this rich history both visible and accessible — and, in doing so, showcase its value.

For Yuhl, this is social justice history work.

“The idea was to build a collection because if you start collecting materials, you start validating that history and if you have a history, you’re not easily erased,” she shares. “I always say, and said at the opening of the exhibition, that archives are a form of power.”

In order to build this collection, Yuhl and her community partner William Wallace, executive director of the Worcester Historical Museum, established an extensive network of partners in Worcester. The team of collaborators includes professors Robert Tobin from Clark University and Joseph Cullon from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), both co-curators of the exhibition and larger archive project, along with a community advisory board made up of organizations including Worcester Pride, the Boys and Girls Club, and UMass Medical School. These many touchpoints helped guide the collection process and reach the variety of people who self-identify as members of Worcester’s LGBTQ+ community.

“This has required a lot of social energy, a live network, a lot of building up relationships and trust before people are willing to share their stories,” says Yuhl. “This is especially true because we’re talking about a population that has generally been disparaged. You don’t want to only be extractive.”

This grassroots effort — in partnership with the community, for the community — is vital to the success of the project.

“One of the central tenets of this type of public history work,” explains Yuhl, “is shared authority. It’s not just a scholarly expert that comes in and says, ‘This is the story,’ but rather serves to ask questions and be a platform for communities to tell their own histories.”

Through this project, Yuhl has been able to marry her scholarly interests in public history and in gender and sexuality in the U.S. context with the needs of the local community, making it a perfect fit for the Scholarship in Action initiative. The initiative’s funding, sponsored by $800,000 awarded to the College from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, aims to support sustainable, community-based faculty research projects in Worcester over the next five years through a series of grants.

Yuhl received one of the two inaugural Scholarship in Action grants, alongside Susan Rogers, professor emerita of anthropology, who is studying refugee resettlement in Worcester. A new crop of grants will be awarded in the coming months to support more community-based faculty research projects, which also create a range of experiential, applied learning opportunities for students.

In just the first year of the three-year project, many Holy Cross students have contributed to Yuhl’s research in varying ways, whether conducting legal or newspaper research or helping to gather initial data for a wall-sized map of LGBTQ+ spaces in Worcester that is featured in the exhibition. Most notably, Nora Grimes ’19 and Emma Powell ’20 curated “I’m Not the Only One: LGBTQ+ Histories at Holy Cross,” an exhibition up during the spring semester at Holy Cross. This exhibition was the result of a full summer of research conducted by Grimes and Powell through the Weiss Summer Research Program and is a part of a larger Holy Cross initiative called Project Q+, which aims to create a Holy Cross-specific LGBTQ+ archive.

“As a young historian and ally, I felt that it was and is my duty to participate in this work, to listen, to gather and to uplift the voices that have been a huge part of our history as a college since its founding,” says Grimes, who shared that the most rewarding part of the work was the opportunity to publicly display and share this history that has been historically marginalized with the campus community and alumni.

Grimes and Powell’s work also contributed to the larger archive Yuhl is creating as well as the Worcester Historical Museum’s exhibition, which featured a handful of Holy Cross-specific LGBTQ+ artifacts.

The show at Holy Cross served as a complement to the Worcester History Museum exhibition, with similar shows being put up on the campuses of Clark and WPI by professors Tobin and Cullon, respectively. The college exhibitions aim to reinforce that this local LGBTQ+ history has many different homes and that the history at one institution may look very different from that of another. Ultimately, explains Yuhl, there is a connection between each institution’s LGBTQ+ history and the city’s.

“Our exhibit at Holy Cross may seem small in the scheme of things,” says Powell, “but it is part of a larger project of the Worcester community acknowledging LGBTQ+ people and lobbying not for an apathetic acceptance but for an active celebration.”

While much has already been done, the work of collecting is far from over. Over the next two years, Yuhl and the Worcester LGBTQ+ project team will continue to gather artifacts and stories from the Worcester community in the hopes of capturing a broader, more accurate depiction of the history of its LGBTQ+ community.

The Worcester Historical Museum exhibition, which will be up through October 12th, could mistakenly be seen as a culmination of the collecting, but Yuhl explains it is rather a catalyst for it.

“The exhibit serves as an opportunity to report out to the community on the state of collecting,” she says. “It is the sort of middle point and we’re looking at it as a provocateur, an invitation both to catalyze and invite the community to understand what it is we’re trying to do and to contribute, to share their stories, to help shape it because, ultimately, it’s theirs.”

The LGBTQ+ community’s response to the exhibition, as well as that from those outside of the community, has been overwhelmingly positive — an indicator of the early success and impact of this project.