Our Opinion: Pending grand jury in Luzerne County provides new strategy to reach reluctant witnesses

web1_Bourdeau-SJU.jpg

College Corner: Nathaniela Bourdeau sweeps 100, 200 dashes at Rider Invitational

<p>The mid-1980s were a time of considerable sharpening of political discourse, growing income inequality, racial and ethnic tensions, and an increasing sense that social and economic mobility were becoming limited. Personal aims, as opposed to cooperative service to solve shared or public problems, were the order of the day.</p><p>The response on a number of college campuses was to form the Campus Compact, a &#8220;commitment to each other to work together to advance the public purposes of higher education on their campuses, their communities, and across the public.&#8221;</p><p>Campus Compact was a new and exciting concept for me. As a young professor in economics and marketing, I viewed this commitment to others as a route to embed awareness about the public good as an outcome of my courses. Students in my class, for example, would work with a nonprofit community partner to formulate a plan for a fundraising event. We worked with organizations such as Habitat for Humanity and the local soup kitchen. In our work, we swung hammers with future homeowners and ate with people who were hungry, hearing firsthand about their stories of homelessness and hunger.</p><p>The experience gave us an opportunity to work in a community-based setting and combined analytical thought with teamwork and creative promotional planning. The service-learning academic courses engendered civic spirit, teamwork and volunteerism. More importantly, we modeled empathy, compassion and listening skills, while utilizing our collective creative problem-solving skills for the betterment of others.</p><p>Thirty years later, many of the same tensions that led to Campus Compact &#8211; such as income inequality and coarse political rhetoric &#8211; are still with us, indicating the goals of the compact have not been accomplished.</p><p>The leaders of higher education institutions and our colleagues are faced with a choice: either abandon the concept or step up our efforts. Hundreds of campuses are opting to step up efforts by creating a Campus Civic Action Plan. Misericordia University will proudly host a collaborative conference on service learning and the public good on Thursday. Five of the regional university presidents have agreed to join together to talk about how we can cooperatively serve with each other in support of our respective missions and support of education that supports the public good.</p><p>Among its many purposes, Campus Compact states &#8220;our students, faculty, staff, and community partners co-create mutually respectful partnerships in pursuit of a just, equitable, and sustainable future for communities beyond the campus &#8211; nearby and around the world.&#8221;</p><p>Students from local universities willingly serve through feeding others in conjunction with Commission on Economic Opportunity and the Weinberg Food Bank, help young students with studies and mentoring through the McGlynn Center and collect iPods to support the &#8220;music and memory&#8221; program for patients with dementia. And, those are only some of their civic-minded activities in recent days.</p><p>On the global front, two Misericordia faculty members have extended the reach of our service-learning programs internationally. Joseph Cipriani and Jennifer Dessoye accompanied eight occupational therapy students to Jamaica last May. The students experienced firsthand the Jamaican culture and the challenges of the nation&#8217;s health care system, while working at Mustard Seed, a nonprofit that serves disabled and orphaned children. The students also acquired wheelchairs from Pride Mobility of Pittston and gave them to Jamaican residents who otherwise would not be able to leave their homes.</p><p>Please join me and be an advocate for Campus Compact and our region&#8217;s collegiate students as they continue to build important partnerships that foster positive change in support of the public good.</p><style>
.neFileBlock {
	margin-bottom: 20px;
}
.neFileBlock p {
	margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
}
.neFileBlock .neFile {
	border-bottom: 1px dotted #aaa;
	padding-bottom: 5px;
	padding-top: 10px;
}
.neFileBlock .neCaption {
	font-size: 85%;
}
</style>
<div class='neFileBlock'>
<div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/web1_BotzmanColor.jpg">
<div class="neCaption"></div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/web1_BotzmanColor.jpg</photo0><caption0></caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>Thomas J. Botzman</p><p>Guest columnist</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Thomas J. Botzman is president of Misericordia University in Dallas Township. For information, visit <a href="http://www.misericordia.edu/" target="_blank">misericordia.edu</a>.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Thomas J. Botzman: Colleges recommit to helping our communities through service learning