This is the second in a two-part series that seeks to explore community involvement at Hopkins as compared to two of our peer schools: the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago. This piece focuses on the students at all three schools and how they perceive their and the university's role in community involvement.
Junior Christal Ng used to help run an after-school program at Robert Poole High School in Hampden, helping the students start their own Student Council and getting them more involved in the community.
But when that high school was closed down last year by the city, Ng lost one of the best ways she had to serve the community. She turned to other activities - helping raise money for a Red Cross measles shots drive and doing work for schoolchildren in Haiti - but ultimately she shifted her focus away from campus service groups all together.
"The reason why I don't do a lot [of community service] anymore is because the impact was limited and it was frustrating," said Ng. "I felt like bread and water isn't enough for people - some people need more than that."
Now she is heavily involved in Agape, the Hopkins Christian Fellowship, a group that does some service but is primarily a religious organization.
Senior David McGovern worked on the same project at Robert Poole, and like Ng, he has become dissatisfied with the impact he is making on the community. "I don't think that Hopkins students are involved enough to be able to say that there is trust between the community and the undergraduate population," he said.
McGovern is involved in the Hopkins 4K for Cancer and Hope Lodge, both groups that provide assistance, in various forms, to cancer patients. He is also a member of the Student Advisory Board to the Center for Social Concern, the office that coordinates most student community service activities on campus, including Involve, the freshman day of service which occurs during Orientation each year.
The day of service drew 300 volunteers to more than 20 projects this year.
"That day of service," said McGovern, "was almost more of an event to show the Baltimore community to the students - to get them off campus and onto the streets and show them what it's all about."
But despite successful efforts like Involve, Hopkins kids remain largely uninvolved with community initiatives.
McGovern does not think that community involvement is important to the administration.
"I just don't think it's very high on their priority list right now," he said.
Some students have suggested that if Hopkins had a building to house various community volunteer groups - similar to the facilities that exist at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago-things would be easier.
The CSC board recently met with President Brody to request such a structure, but the administration responded that no such facility would be provided any time soon.
"If President Brody called on the Hopkins community to participate in service, as President Bush called on the nation to serve, people would listen," said McGovern.
"There would be a trickle down effect that would involve both students and faculty. I personally challenge President Brody to make such an announcement, and perhaps participate in some community service himself."
In the end, many students think the problem is merely one of resources.
"Working with the CSC, sometimes it's an 'us versus them' relationship, because they're a separate group and not part of the decision-making or policy-making process with student groups," continued McGovern.
"The funding every year for all student groups is between $20,000 to $30,000. I'm sure Hopkins has some more money lying around somewhere. If they doubled the student budget, we could do so much more."
McGovern also thinks the academic climate among undergraduates is part of the problem.
"Speaking from an engineering student's perspective, there is a lot of competition between students, and everyone is motivated to do well in their classes. They take on heavy load. The competition doesn't give them much time to explore," he said.
Students at UPenn
The conflict between academics and service is the same one that UPenn solved by implementing service learning courses - classes that give students credit, and even made it a requirement to do community service.
UPenn senior Allison Lerer has taken more than 10 service learning courses, and she says that they have inspired her to get more involved in the local West Philadelphia community.
She spends 10-15 hours every week doing community service, some of them devoted to work with the award-winning Urban Nutrition Initiative. She teaches eighth-graders about the importance of eating right and living a healthy lifestyle.
She also helps out with a student-run farmers' market that sells fresh fruit and vegetables to students and community members.
"It has made me more civic-minded," said Lerer, "and motivated me to want to pursue a career in non-profit."
More importantly, Lerer gets positive feedback for the work she does.
"The community has responded well," she said. "The students are very welcoming and actually listen to what we have to say. They do trust us since we are teaching them every week."
Many people echoed Lerer's sentiments at the Center for Community Partnerships at Penn, through which the Urban Nutrition Initiative is run.
In at least some small part, the surrounding community sees the University as a trustworthy resource and as a partner that they can turn to when there is a problem to be solved - an aspect of the UPenn culture that many students feel is missing at Hopkins.
Students at UChicago
Travis Schedler, a second-year graduate student at Chicago who runs a community math camp for elementary school kids called Absolute Value, holds the same view as a lot of Chicago students about the University's relationship with the community.
"I think that the community does trust the University," he said, "but also feels a little alienated by our privileged status in that members of the University often try to avoid contact with the community and are not worried about their concerns."
On the student side of things as well as the administrative side, Chicago can seem to fall right in between Penn and Hopkins.
Students are unsure whether the community trusts them, and most sense some sort of wariness from their neighbors, but their efforts are more organized than Hopkins's.
Bridget Wild, a sophomore who spends at least 20 hours a week coordinating programs for various community service organizations at Chicago, thinks that the question of trust between University and community is "loaded."
"For every bad feeling out there about the University, it is our students leaving good impressions ten times over," she said.
"As I make more and more contacts and build trust with certain partnering organizations, I know that what we are doing is making a difference."
Another Chicago community activist, junior Jess Lent, spends most of her free time teaching sex education and mentoring adolescent girls in Hyde Park.
"I think Chicago responds to us well," she said. "It's important to go into this work, however, not thinking that you know all the answers or are 'better' than the people you are working with. Otherwise, the community definitely responds negatively - and rightfully so."
The attitude of Lent and others seemed to indicate that Chicago has achieved its goal of creating a "community of service" - a place where the students think of themselves as civic servants.
Wild put it simply: "Chicago is my classroom. People are my passion. Service is what I know how to do."
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