so I'm bad at online goodies. Sorry!

Name: John Weeks (AKA Juan Esteban Semanas)
Major: Naturally this needs to be plaural- Neuroscience and Hispanic Studies
Hometown: Leesburg, Virginia
Service Involvement(s): Major: THE Student Organization for Medical Outreach and Sustainability. CPK, others I'm forgetting
Favorite Book: The King Arthur Flour Baker's companion? May not be the intellectually stimulating masterpieces of Paul Farmer, but it's much tastier.
A rambling statement about any or all of the following: your concept of service. What is it? What is it now? Why do it? Is there too much? Not enough? What is citizenship?

---WARNING--- This is 100% ramble. If you're looking for sense, grammar, correct spelling, or even logical flow of thoughts, stop here. So works my mind----

In my (often not so) humble opinion, "service" per se, is a tricky concept. In any sort of definitoin you have to really measure your words, be sure you're expressing what you want to. It's easy to get so excited about the concept of "helping somebody" that you forget that "somebody" is a somebody as well, and might not really dig the way you're talking about them. With that in mind, I'll go ahead and hypocrite all over myself trying to define service. So what is service? I would go as far as to say it has to include a level of interest in the welfare of other people that goes beyond intellectual curiosity, but at the same time reflects their human values and qualities. It must be a concious effort to assist someone else in thier walk through life. There are many different reasons to do service, and everyone who actively engages, contributes, or thinks about engaging in service has their own unique reasons for doing service. All I know is, ever time I've ever had an opportunity to do some sort of "service" I've benefited far more from the experience than those I was trying to "serve". As for the level of service, Who's to say if there's too much, too little, or just the right amount. Service should be a work of pasison, and I think that as long as those doing the serving are passionate about their cause, then who's to stop them? One thing that might improve the current state is greater collaboratoin in the service done: imagine instead of "turf wars" over "who can serve an area", "name recognition" and such garbage, if people just worked together what a difference could be made. So, en fin, for me service is where passion and energy connect with a cause in an attempt to make a difference in the world.

Hey Everyone!

Name: Jazmine Piña

Major: Sociology and Public Policy

Hometown: Mount Vernon, New York

Service:Alpha Phi Omega, Tribe Ambassadors, Project Mexico, WMIDMUN and WMHSMUN and at home I'm an honorary member of the East Yonkers Kiwanis club (so I do the service and just don't pay dues, it's pretty sweet.), work with the Key Club in my high school and volunteer at the children's hospital where my twin sister and I went after we were born.

Favorite book: Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

About Service: I went to a private, catholic, all-girls school from 6th grade until I graduated from high school and to most people that didn't experience it firsthand, it was an environment that was often was stereotyped as petty girls who lived off of their parent's money and didn't care about anything outside of the walls of our school. Our school motto was "Serviam" which meant "I will serve" in Latin and anyone that spent time at Ursuline, whether for seven years or just for a school-wide liturgy, saw that was an environment where service and helping others was weaved into almost every facet of our education, with sixth graders through seniors actually volunteering (not forcibly volunteering, but signing up week after week to serve) in groups at nursing homes and soup kitchens around Westchester on a regular basis. From just learning about service and experiencing it as a part of my education, it grew into something that I wanted to do and became an even bigger part of my life. I joined Key Club in high school and worked in my school and on the district board for New York and those experiences gave me the chance to do service and to give others a gateway to do service, and those experiences are still a huge part of what drives me to do service today.

The Volunteer Vote

80 million people volunteer in the US each year

The V3 Campaign will make the voice of the nonprofit sector heard, its value realized, and its votes counted in EVERY election in America by Inauguration Day, January 20th, 2017.

YOUR work — the issues YOU care about — will only be addressed when we stand together.

www.v3campaign.org
check it out

The Legacy of Randy Pausch

Members of SLC:

Randy Pausch, 47, author of The Last Lecture, died today after complications form his battle with pancreatic cancer. Randy's book will be part of the focus of SLC 08. Please take a moment to review parts of Randy's book, one of the videos from his recent lectures and the press surrounding the truly inspirational man. His legacy should live in our hearts.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/books/07/25/obit.pausch.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Nik Belanger

Name: Nik Belanger

Major: Government and French/Francophone Studies

Hometown: Lafayette, Louisiana (near the bayou...not exactly on it, though)

Service Involvement(s): I'm most involved in the International Justice Mission, a Christian human rights and social justice organization seeking to merge the Christian, service, and advocacy communities for the purpose of unifying social justice/action and the Christian faith (that's the blurb on our blog). Through IJM, I'm working on the affordable housing campaign in Williamsburg, which is spearheaded by the Virginia Organizing Project. I'm also a member of CKI, a tutor at Rita Welsh and a SafeZone facilitator. As far as ISTs go, a friend of mine and I took a semi-spontaneous unofficial service trip to Monterrey, Mexico, over winter break via Greyhound bus from New Orleans--and ended up working and celebrating New Years at a homeless shelter. For what's left of the summer, I'm working back home at a community health care clinic as their volunteer administrative assistant.

Favorite Books: The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne; The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene.

Some words: My real passion is for instilling a heart for the poor and marginalized in communities and individuals of faith. My personal faith and social convictions have become pretty interwoven--especially since coming to school--, and the two have begun to grow together. Specifically, I'm fascinated by Biblical calls for economic redistribution and social equality...and what that means for the modern Church in America. Thanks to IJM, I've been able to meet people who've helped me develop some of these ideas, and I'm always looking for ways to take them a step further.

Justin G. Reid

Name: Justin Gerard Reid

Major: American Studies; Global/African Studies minor

Favorite Book: Coming of Age in Mississippi

Service Involvements: My focus is racial/socioeconomic inequality, particularly in education. I mentor through a program called Rites of Passage at Toano Middle School and tutor in the local alternative ed. school, as well as volunteer in the Admissions Office. I've also worked with nonprofit and government agencies to address this issue in the cities of Richmond and Petersburg (through Sharpe and The Phoenix Project), in Tanzania (as a member of AIDSTanzania) and most recently while studying abroad in South Africa.

Why serve? For me personally, it's been a matter of coming to grips with reality and accepting the fact that as a black male the statistics are not (and have never been) favorable. I realized early on that too many people sacrificed their time and their money so that I would be different. I'm from the rural South and I was raised by a strong, closely-knit community. I intend to give them a return on their investment. I'm also currently not satifisfied with the statistics.

Allison Anoll

Hello Friends.

Name: My name is Allison Anoll.

Major: I'm a double major in American Studies and Government.

Hometown: I like to identify my hometown as Exit 152B off I-95. If you're not familiar with Northern Virginia, that's the western side of Prince William County.

Service Involvements: My time at William and Mary has been shaped largely by my involvement in the Sharpe program. As a freshman I was a Sharpe Scholar in the Citizenship and Community class. During my sophomore year, I lived in the Community Scholars House and created the Sharpe Ambassadors program. This program morphed into my position as a Program Assistant for Sharpe during my junior year. This year, I will continue my work as a Program Assistant as well as fellowing for the Citizenship and the Community class. In addition, I will be teaching the Civic Engagement Seminar for upperclass Sharpe Scholars in the fall.

Outside of Sharpe, I am a Tour Guide for the College and work in OSVS as a Community Service Leader. In this position, I organize weekend and day trips as well as schedule speakers for William and Mary students surrounding the topic of education.

Favorite Book: I'll have to go with Bowling Alone. Alongside being an incredible piece of quantitative research, the book gives drive and justification to my own research and service.

Ramble Ramble Ramble: My past research and my current honors thesis focus on the development of affective civic education. What I'm most interested in about service is its ability to inspire people to ask difficult questions about social justice, system stuctures, and their role as an architect in a changing society. I believe change is slow, but always possible. I believe education, especially in civic skills, is a skeleton key to paradigm shift. I believe discussion breeds change if only by making you think about your individual actions. And for all these reasons, I'm siked about SLC.

Travis Grubbs

Name: Travis Grubbs

By the way, if anyone knows what Drew is doing to me here, please let me know, cause i have no idea. But I have to say, he does look pretty official with that pink stethoscope.

Major: Chemistry

Hometown: Newport News, VA aka Bad News

Service Involvement: William and Mary Medical Relief, volunteer at Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters, volunteer for Newport News Family Fun and Fitness Fair.

Favorite Book: Well, I’m not a huge reader, but I am starting to read a lot of good books. I would have to say my favorite is Ender’s Game.

The Ramble: I have always been pretty involved with various service projects, and my family has always taught me to help others when they need it most. I feel like this thought stems from the concept of citizenship. Basically, I think that citizenship means that you are a member of a certain community- with that comes the responsibility that you need to help maintain and improve that community. Through citizenship, service follows suit. To make it as simple as possible, service is giving back what you can to the community to make it better than when you started. Overall, there will always be the need for service, because there is always room for improvement. However, I do believe that we can improve more effectively through leading by example. Through each of our efforts we have an impact on people, however few, but if those few more people begin leading by example, then the influence of service spreads. For me, the best feeling in WMMR isn’t necessarily running a clinic or passing out antibiotics to those in need, but the feeling that through our actions, others (maybe members of our group or the people we come in contact with through the clinic) see what we are doing and the flame of service is lit in them. We all have something we can give back to our community, and the sooner we all realize this the greater our society will become.

John Pothen

Hey everyone, I'm John. I'm a rising sophomore here at the college, and I'm really excited about getting to know you all. I can't wait for us to discuss and do service together over the coming year. I bet it's gong be awesome!

Oh and ps, I'm the guy in the middle of the picture I posted.

Name: John Pothen

Major: Chemistry (Biochem minor)

Hometown: Yorktown, VA

Service Involvements:

My main involvement is in the Student Organization for Medical Outreach and Sustainability (SOMOS), and I’ve been involved with a few other programs and efforts run through OSVS like SHOW and Make a Difference Day.

Favorite Book:

Not counting the Bible, I would have to go with Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It’s a great book, not related to service, but sparks incredible intellectual discussion.

I want to echo what Sarah said though, Hope in Hell in an amazing book! Other good ones to check out on the health side of things would be Rx for Survival and The Invisible Cure. These are excellent books that challenged me and have shaped my thought process.

The Nature of Service:

I think everyone has succeeded in voicing particular aspects of service (minus Sarah who took the diverse nature of it head on; props!). So I’ll continue that trend and voice two thoughts I’ve had recently:

1) Service is meant to be all-pervasive.

I think it’s easy for us to think about service within environments that have a certain foreign feeling to them. We slip smoothly into “service-mode” when we’re abroad, downtown, in an elementary school, or in a place where we can see the needs of others more easily. Service within these environments is important; however, service is needed within our native environments as well.

I believe what happens is that we get comfortable. Familiarity can strip the emotional power of need or injustice (which makes me want to discuss the validity of the role of emotion as a motivation for service, but that’s another point entirely) and blind us to what we should do (namely, take advantage of opportunities to serve others whenever possible). My unhappiness with this has led me to a simple conclusion: the attitude of service is most purely manifested in the choice to be a servant daily, regardless of environment.

2) Aid vs. Justice

            A discussion we’ve had within the SOMOS team recently has been regarding the jargon we use. At the heart of this discussion has been the desire to remove a sense of hierarchy from thoughts. It’s easy to see our service organization a modern Prometheus that brings the light of solutions to a people in need of aid. Within this thought can lie the notion that we are in some way better than the people we try to serve, but the truth is we’re not.

            A subtle way in which this arrogance can rear it’s head is when we describe what we are doing as aid. Let me be clear, there is nothing within the word itself but as people who are less than perfect (speaking for myself at least) it’s easy to let that promote the unwanted sense of superiority. Therefore it may be beneficial to describe our actions as attempts to fight injustices induced by an external force (often a system that promotes the wealth of a few through the poverty of many). This leads to me a refined statement when discussing service: it is most purely manifested in the choice to be a servant, in humility, daily, regardless of environment.

These are thoughts I’d had. I’d love it if someone disagreed with me on something I presented. I love discussion and the subsequent refinement it can bring.

I grew up in Yorktown, VA and got some really special opportunities to serve in inner city Newport News throughout middle and high school. I saw a lot there that I’m just beginning to process and understand. There was a culture present that actively promoted poverty and, at times, loss of life. In fact, a boy I tutored once was killed in a drive-by shooting (it was a case of mistaken identity).

Experiences like that have given me a desire to serve others and to fight injustice wherever possible. And I’m looking forward to a great year with you guys as we try to figure out how to do that effectively and put our thoughts into action!

Hi guys! I hope everyone is having a relaxing, fulfilling summer, and I'm excited to meet all the SLC members this fall!
Name: Sarah Van Dine
Major: Neuroscience, minor in Hispanic Studies
Hometown: Stratford, Connecticut

Favorite Book: I have a few, but I just finished reading a book entitled "Hope in Hell"-a documentary of Doctors Without Borders. It's a really interesting read for anyone interested in international medical service!

Service: William and Mary Medical Relief, Spring Break Service Trips-Student Director, Volunteer EMT-I (back in Connecticut), and hopefully more to come.

A little about me... I would refer to myself as a "blue-eyed funk machine" (if you've seen Blades of Glory with Will Ferrell, you'll get it). I'm just really spunky, enjoy trying to make other people laugh, and try to get the most out of life. I've always been the type of person who enjoys doing/being involved in a million different things at once. So through the years I've accumulated tennis, swimming, dancing, music, and service as some of my interests. I started doing service projects through my church in high school, and like many of you as well, service became contagious. It seems like a common question is "What is service?" and I've come to the conclusion that "service" encompases so many aspects that can not be pinned down to one simple definition. However, in my life I've realized that I serve to inspire others to do the same. So one of my favorite aspects of service is the inspiration that stems from the act of helping others.

Jake

Name: Jake Milnor

Major: Art History/Hispanic Studies

Hometown: Long Island, Virginia (it exists, it’s just very, very small)

Service: Student Organization for Medical Outreach and Sustainability (SOMOS), APO, I’m involved in a few independent organizations while home in the summer too, mostly an outreach program geared toward kids in juvenile detention centers

Favorite book: I don’t really have one favorite, but I like Federico Garcia-Lorca, Faulkner, C.S. Lewis, and Jean-Paul Sartre a lot.

About Service: I was raised (and still live) on a small dairy farm, and I had a pretty secluded upbringing and high school experience. I was the first person to go away to college in my family so when I came to William and Mary I had a HUGE culture-shock, but I immediately got involved with service because of the abundant opportunity to do so at W&M. I’m pretty hardcore Catholic, so I see service as a moral responsibility of any healthy human being. I think it’s impossible to fully enjoy life and be well, while there are people in the world who suffer or do without. It’s a collective responsibility to alleviate this and we must serve each other. I don’t think anything we do in life matters, unless we submit ourselves to serve others and improve the environment of our surroundings. I know my view sounds a little bleak and medieval, but what I see at W&M makes me very optimistic and hopeful for the future because true-service without personal recognition or gain really seems to be the thing to do on this campus, and I think that’s amazing. People our age are capable of doing things greater than themselves, and the service atmosphere at W&M really proves that. I don’t think I could ask for a better situation.

Oops! Didn't figure out how to post the pic until after I posted my entry. Haha...enjoy your summers, y'all!

<3,>

Name: Irène Mathieu
Major: International Relations
Hometown: Winchester, VA
Service Involvement(s): Student Organization for Medical Outreach & Sustainability (SOMOS), College Partnership for Kids, Community Partnership for Adult Learners. I spent last spring semester in Peru, where I took classes and worked on sustainable development service work with ProWorld Service Corps. I’ve been involved with a few mentoring programs as well.
Favorite Book: This question is tough! But I have to pick Letters to a Young Poet on the basis of its importance and influence in my life right now/in the last few years.
The ramble: In high school, I was not very involved with service, but I was keen on changing that upon starting college. I’m lucky to have ended up at William & Mary, because our rich campus culture of service has stretched my notions of community service and giving back in ways that I could never have anticipated as a high school senior. For me, service has become more than an extracurricular or something to do outside of one’s “real” life and career. For me, service is the basis of my real life and career. The motivation for this comes from a deep-seated belief in the equality of all human beings. But since so many economic and social conditions in this country and around the world fail to reflect that equality, the impetus of my professional life is rectifying it. Service shouldn’t be something we do “on the side;” it should be the culminating action for our mandate, as human beings, to love and care for one another. And since love is what I value above anything else, why shouldn’t my life be based on service? Less abstractly, I think service is a great way for people to learn about real-world conditions all around them, to apply classroom knowledge and to understand how history and economics play out in others’ – and their own - lives. Because of how much I’ve learned about these things since becoming involved in service at William & Mary, I highly encourage peers and those younger than I to get involved in a similar manner. Service broadens our horizons, challenges our definitions, and for me, provides the means with which to live a fulfilling life.

Introducing Mallory!

Hi Everyone! I am really excited to meet you all and have an amazing semester of SLC! Who am I? Well...

Name: Mallory Johnson

Major: Government and Interdisciplinary (Still in the works, combining Civic Engagement and Public Policy)

Hometown: Burke, VA (Good old Fairfax County)/Seattle, WA/London, England

Service Involvement(s): APO :) , APO SBST to Biloxi, Campus Escort Head, CSLs, Matthew Whaley Tutoring, Relay for Life, and the Phoenix Project (Not to be confused with Project Phoenix...the Phoenix Project is a six week summer service-learning program in the economically distressed community of Petersburg, VA), and hopefully more to come!

Favorite Book: That's a tough one...I'd say it's a toss up between The Memoirs of Cleopatra, Les Miserables, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Gone With the Wind. Too hard to pick just one!

Rambling Statement about Service: When I came to William & Mary, I was not very familiar with service, other than the couple hours I spent volunteering for political campaigns to meet a requirement for the IB program. Over the course of the two years I've spent here, though, service has grown into a true passion that adds a sense of purpose and fulfillment to my life. I began to understand that the impact of a project increases exponentially with the addition of reflection, internalization, and consideration of the broader implication of service and has subsequently opened my eyes to facets of the world that often go overlooked. I keep a quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes over my desk, which basically sums up my perspective of the impact of service- "A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions." I've had an amazing journey in the realm of civic engagement and I look forward to what new lessons and experiences are still in store.

I hope you're all having a great summer! I look forward to meeting you all in the Fall!
~Mallory

Hi again...ok I'll start with the introductions.

My name is Drew Stelljes. I was born and raised on Long Island. I lived in a small town (smaller than Williamsburg) on the east end of LI. With about 200 kids in my graduating class (all of whom I went to school with for 12 years) I was ready for smeothing different. I was really into art in HS so I applied to art schools and accepted Alfred U. in upstate NY. I did a last minute switch after realizing that I didn't want to be an artist and ended up at JMU. I loved it. I majored in Sociology and Org. Communication. I received a Master of Education in Counseling Psychology at JMU and it's at that time that I fell in love with service, more sepcifically how people change as a result of involvement in service. Upon graduating I got married and moved to Williamsburg to work at W&M.

I've been working here for 10 years now and I've loved it. In that time I have been witness to a rapid and dramatic increase in student involvement in service and as important a revolution in the manner in which we consider service and citizenship.

I earned my PhD in Educational Policy from W&M and have written on service-learning and commitment to service quite a bit. I have a book coming out in August on the topic.

My wife Amy and I have two children. Emma is 3 and Braden is 1. We live in Williamsburg and feel blessed to have wonderful friends. We have a terrific church community - St. Martin's - check it out sometime :) - and we have a sweet dog named Sadie.

I love SLC because it unites community leaders with motivated students to discuss important topics. We learn best when we discuss - in big group and outside of SLC during AND beyond the 10 week program.

I will write a lot more later but for now let the fun begin!

SLC Introdcutions

Hello SLC Members:

This is our page. It is our communication portal and we can begin with introductions. Please post:

Name
Major
Hometown
Service Involvement(s)
Favorite Book
A picture (of yourself, you and friends, you and family, etc)
A rambling statement about any or all of the following: your concept of service. What is it? What is it now? Why do it? Is there too much? Not enough? What is citizenship?