Aquinas College
Presidential Statement on Civic Engagement - Harry Knopke, former President of Aquinas College
Whether thought of as service, community service, or service learning, distinctive yet interrelated endeavors, the act of meeting theneeds of others is one of the central charisms of the Dominican tradition that forms the core of being of Aquinas College. As such it has also become part of the tradition that has characterized the College over time.
Our undergraduates are introduced to this tradition during their first days on campus. As members of an entering freshman class they work together on a daylong service project the week before classes begin, typically assisting teachers and staff at an area school prepare for the new year. This year, for example, our students worked with the administrators and faculty of the Sigsbee Park Elementary School, a public inner city school, to clean, paint, and help refurbish interior and exterior spaces. This entering experience typically generates longstanding relationships between our students and school personnel, and at the same time forms the base students use to move into other service experiences.
Myriad opportunities to expand on this initial experience present themselves in subsequent weeks and months, particularly in the form of community service. The application of one's gifts, skills and resources to provide something of value in meeting the expressed needs of a specific part of the community is the essence of this form of service. Dozens of students, along with faculty and staff, for example, have organized themselves to participate in the ongoing Grand Rapids HOSTS (Helping One Student to Succeed) program, tutoring public elementary school students on a weekly basis to help them develop their reading skills. Many others work with the WORD project Writing Opportunities, Reading Discoveries) and with other English as Second Language efforts coordinated by the Hispanic Center of Western Michigan. And, students form in groups devoted to a common community service purpose, such as the environment or health care systems in a developing country. Many of those groups occupy our Woodward Avenue theme houses - some of the most highly competitive, highly sought-after living-learning residences at Aquinas.
Service learning, the linkage of community service and academic study in ways that cause each to strengthen the other, is becoming an integral part of Aquinas undergraduate courses. Students enrolled in SH 399: The Changing Face of Grand Rapids Schools, for example, can receive Spanish credit toward the major or minor by volunteering in Grand Rapids at Burton or Riverside Middle School or the Hispanic Center where they speak Spanish and all written work they submit for the course is in Spanish. Our semester abroad program provides students with language and cultural immersion opportunities at sites in eight different countries. It also entails credit-bearing service learning courses and/or course work in the host countries our faculty organize in response to community-identified needs.
Service, community service and service learning. In a very fundamental way, these central activities of Aquinas College help our students learn what others before us have shown: that each of us is uniquely called to live a life of love; that everything we do infinitely matters; and that as our gifts meet the world's needs, we can discover ourselves more fully and in doing so find deeper passions from which to serve.