OACS December Updates
MLK Joint Day of Service
Join students and staff from universities across Nashville in a weekend of action and reflection as we honor the efforts and contributions of Dr. King in challenging the discourse on civil (dis)obedience and justice for all humankind on Saturday, Nov. 13, 2018.
A number of non-profit organizations in Nashville will be hosting service opportunities during the MLK Joint Day of Service. Students interested in participating should complete the 2018 MLK Joint Day of Service Registration Form by Monday, Jan. 8. Participants will have the opportunity to sign up for a specific service site the morning of the event.
There will also be a limited number of leadership positions available for students the day of the MLK Joint Weekend of Service event.
Student leaders will be responsible for the following:
- Attend a brief training at 9:30 AM at Fisk University the morning of the event (Saturday, Jan. 13)
- Assist with volunteer registration, waiver completion, and site sign-up
- Communicate with their partner non-profit the day of the event
- Ensure that volunteers board the correct bus for their service site
- Motivate and organize volunteers at their service site
- Lead volunteers in a safe return trip to Fisk and encourage participation in the closing reflection
- Contact staff leaders in the event of an emergency
Students interested in serving as site leaders for the MLK Joint Weekend of service should contact Meagan Smith at Meagan.smith@vanderbilt.edu
OACS Global Service Immersion Program Application Extended
Due to additional requests for extension, the application for the 2018 Global Service Immersion Programs has been reopened and will be extended through winter break to Sunday, January 14th at 11:59pm.
OACS Global Service Programs challenge students to question their perspectives and roles in the shared human experience through pre-service curriculum, intensive service, post-service skills application, and continuous reflection.
Interested students are encouraged to visit the Global OACS Alumni pages for the Ecuador, Morocco, and South Africa programs to learn more about past cohort experiences. For more information on the Global Service Immersion Programs and to apply, please visit the OACS website.
Local OACS DIVE: Closing Celebration and Spring Cohort
The Office of Active Citizenship and Service thanks all who joined us for our Local OACS DIVE closing celebration on Thursday, Nov. 30. We hope you enjoyed meeting the students in the Affordable Housing and Food Waste/Food Deserts cohorts and their non-profit partners, who together have applied the process of human-centered design to address challenges identified by the community.
The celebration began with opening remarks, followed by an introduction of the human-centered design projects from the students and their non-profit partners. Guests had the opportunity to ask questions about the inaugural Local OACS DIVE programs and get to know our local community leaders making a difference in Nashville.
OACS looks forward to continuing the DIVE program in the spring with the Lived Experience of Refugees program beginning in January. Beginning with a DIVE Bootcamp, Meaningful Service Institute and Community Partner Presentations, the 2018 DIVE cohort will engage in 6 seminars over the course of the semester that combine context, context, and design lab time.
Following a brief introduction to the causes of human displacement and the resettlement process, the seminar series will require students go out into the community to better understand refugees’ access to affordable housing, health care, education, cultural preservation, and advocacy in Davidson county. Students will work closely with their community partner mentors to engage in the human-centered design thinking process to design a prototype to an identified community challenge with the understanding that this process is both time and resource bound.
Save the date for April 16, 2018 to join us for the DIVE Closing Celebration to hear more about the defined design challenges and see the students’ prototypes. Thank you for your support of Local OACS DIVE!
MHS 3890: Resettlement in Nashvile – Advocating for the Displaced
The final weeks of the MHS 3890 course were centered on reflection and students’ identities as active citizens and advocates for the refugee community in Nashville and worldwide as well as the power of presence and value of relationships in service-learning and advocacy. Students gathered in the OACS lounge to discuss their greatest takeaways, reflections, and actions steps moving forward. For their final assignment, students crafted an Action Plan based on the Social Change Model of Leadership framework. In these plans, students combined reflection, theory, narratives collected throughout the course of the class, and personal accountability methods to discuss how their realistic action steps lead to a more authentic commitment to active citizenship and advocacy alongside the refugee community.