Joanna Howe ’16 is interning at Volunteer Lawyers for Justice in Newark, N.J.
The Max Shacknai COVE exists through the efforts of individuals. During the course of Fiscal Year ’14, we have had a number of opportunities to recognize the work of others.
Levine/Weinberg Fellowship
The COVE selects students annually for the Levine/Weinberg Endowed Summer Fellowship. This fellowship provides highly qualified students, interested in pursuing a career in community and/or public work, with summer internship funding in the field of direct community service. This year’s recipients are:
- Joanna Howe ’16 will work for the Volunteer Lawyers for Justice in Newark, NJ this summer. The organization provides comprehensive legal services to economically disadvantaged adults, children, and families in New Jersey through the services of dedicated pro bono volunteers. She will be working directly on cases under the direction of an attorney assisting families to access legal services in cases involving adult guardianship, bankruptcy, consumer law, criminal record expungement, driver’s license restoration, estate administration, family law, FEMA, housing law, insurance, unemployment, and veteran’s issues. Read more about her experience here.
- Ha Vu ’17 will be working with two organizations in Vietnam, her home country, this summer.
Bai Giang Truc Tuyen provides supplementary online English courses for high school students in remote areas of Vietnam, creating access to free educational tools to advance their academic and professional aspirations. She will also work at the Vung Tau Orphanage and Center for Social Protection of Children, delivering short info sessions about sex, reproduction, and other women’s issues for female high school students who are never formally given sex education.
- Stephanie Rameau ’15 will work at the Florida Center for Survivors of Torture in Miami, Fla. Through an intensive case-management, strength-based, client-centered model, the organization serves survivors of political and state-sponsored torture who are living in Tampa Bay and Miami-Dade. The goals of the program are to increase self-sufficiency and self-efficacy and to support survivors in their healing process. They assist survivors in rebuilding their lives and work to empower them through a community-based approach.
Dean’s Community Service Award
This award is given to the most worthy individual, residential unit, or group at Colgate that, through the year immediately preceding the award, has given significant service to the local community. This service exemplifies an understanding that we are part of a larger community and that volunteer service and civic participation are part of the responsibility of well-educated women and men. Elisabeth Muehlemann ’14 and Jocelyn Simpson ’14 were awarded the 2014 Dean’s Community Service Award.
Newman Civic Fellows Award
Many people note the problems and injustice that they see in society — a special few take action to create change. Kristi Carey ’15 is one of those committed individuals. For her actions on behalf of those in need, Campus Compact named her a 2014 Newman Civic Fellow. Read more about Kristi and the fellowship here.
Projects for Peace
Michelle Van Veen ’14 and Sarah Dickson ’14 spent their summer in Reykjavik, Iceland, studying what is often understood to be one of the most peaceful countries in the world, as opposed to one of the most conflicted — often the focus of social science research. They set out to examine Iceland’s small refugee population; Van Veen and Dickson asked questions about homogeneity in Iceland and how refugees exist, struggle, or thrive in a country that, while difficult to access, has the resources to accommodate them. Ultimately the project aimed to study a homogenous, peaceful society that is slowly become more diverse to see whether or not peace can still be maintained in a multicultural society.
The project was funded with a $10,000 grant from Projects for Peace, an initiative for undergraduate projects designed to find solutions to conflicts. Projects are conducted during the summer and can focus on an issue anywhere in the world, including the United States. The Projects for Peace grant is available to students at 90 colleges and universities affiliated with the Davis United World College Program, an organization that provides scholarships to its partnered institutions.