Providence, RI--Providence College was one of two higher-education institutions in the state to present a case study on public service efforts at a special meeting of the Governor's PK-16 Council held recently at the Rhode Island Convention Center in Providence.
Dr. Raymond L. Sickinger, professor of history and professor and department chair of public and community service studies; M. Colleen Rost-Banik, service learning coordinator in the College's Feinstein Institute for Public Service; and Kyrk Morris, North End After-School coordinator with the Providence After-School Alliance (PASA), outlined the College's partnership with the PASA.
PASA was formed by Mayor David N. Cicilline in 2004 as a way to expand and improve after-school opportunities for city youths by organizing a system of supports in five "neighborhood campuses" called AfterZones.
PC is the only college partner in the city's North End AfterZone, which serves students from Esek Hopkins Middle School, Times2 Academy, Nathanael Greene Middle School, Martin Luther King Elementary School, and the Sophia Academy.
Through the partnership, PC provides PASA with an office in the Feinstein Institute for special activities, staffing, and coordinating support from College staff and faculty, and a "community assistant," who is a public and community service studies major and who facilitates the work of student volunteers.
Rost-Banik told the roughly 150 governmental, higher-education, and public school officials in attendance that in addition to the work done through the public and community service studies program, nearly 60 PC students per year volunteer for PASA activities.
Sickinger said the benefits of the partnership to PC students include leadership opportunities, exposure to the inner workings of a city-wide collaborative, and the opportunity to become role models for middle school students who might not have thought attending college was an option for them.
The presentation was part of the unveiling of the Partnerships for Success project, which was coordinated by the Rhode Island Board of Governors for Higher Education, the Rhode Island Independent Higher Education Association, Rhode Island Campus Compact, the Rhode Island Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, and a number of other community and governmental partners.
Partnerships for Success got under way just under a year ago as a way for the 11 higher-education institutions in the state to gauge the level of partnerships they have with K-12 schools and to strategically identify future collaboration.
A study undertaken by the Clarendon Group, a Providence-based communications and public policy firm, showed that there are currently more than 250 partnerships among the 11 college and universities, and 29 out of 55 so called "impact" partnerships were based in Providence.
Institutions were asked to select five "impact" partnerships based on the greatest impact each had on school education in Rhode Island. PC's other impact partnerships include mentoring students from Providence's San Miguel School as part of the Providence College President's Council's Pre-College Student Mentoring Program.
The College's other impact groups are Campus Ministry's school-aged children's outreach at Times2 Academy, service-learning opportunities with area schools through the Feinstein Institute, and the Rhode Island Teacher Education Renewal Grant (RITER) program through PC's education department.
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