A 2011 alumna who now serves as Assoc. Director in W&M Civic & Community Engagement
Read about my undergraduate memories and lessons learned; recaps of programs and adventures with Civic & Community Engagement; reflections on life as an alumna and staff member and my deep love and commitment to William & Mary.
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Because of Community: Professor Jennifer Bickham Mendez
This post is written by Caitlyn Whitesell ’20, who serves as the communication intern for OCE. She interviewed Professor Jennifer Bickham-Mendez in Fall 2019. Professor Bickham-Mendez researches Latinx studies, race, class gender, social movements, and more in William & Mary’s sociology department. Through her research, she engages directly with the Williamsburg community to serve the…
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Living Our Values
With Daily Work of Justice in full swing, The Active Citizens Conference fast approaching, and my weekly meetings with Aim 4 students, my mind and attention are pulled in many directions. Enter the trusty to-do list. Each time I cross off an item, I celebrate what has been accomplished and also why it matters. In…
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Community = Q(f x d)>R(f x d)
On our first day in class this semester, I asked my students — all first years in the Aim 4 program — how they define community. Then I shared with them some definitions from the last 75 years. This broad offering: “A common definition of community emerged as a group of people with diverse characteristics…
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Because of Community with Professor Carrie Dolan
This post is courtesy of Caitlyn Whitesell, Communications Intern for The Office of Community Engagement. #BecauseofCommunity allows us to share reflections from across campus and community on individuals’ motivations for working within community. These weekly posts are usually only on our social media, but my interview with Professor Dolan needed more. Professor Dolan of Kinesiology…
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Member Mentality
Much of our work in OCE is connected to The Active Citizens Continuum. The continuum describes how an individual can develop in their commitment to community. Member: concerned with their individual or family’s needs Volunteer: participates in service with intentions of doing good Conscientious Citizen: adds questions about root causes to their engagement Active Citizen:…
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Ways of Welcoming
One of my favorite things about William & Mary is our enthusiasm for welcoming others in. I spent much of the last month welcoming students to our programs and offering directions to strangers ambling across campus with map in hand. I have seen students welcome their new peers through Convocation high fives and an offered…
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Finding the Meaning of Life
I asked Sonia Kinkhabwala ’21, recipient of the President’s Award for Community Service and member of the Aim 4 civic leadership program, to share her reflections on this moment in her William & Mary story. “We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another.” – Thomas Merton…
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Magnitude and Direction
“If you remember anything from this class, I want you to remember that a vector has both magnitude and direction” – T. Wayne, my high school physics teacher. A few years ago, I celebrated the tenth anniversary of graduating high school by sending a letter to ten of my former teachers sharing what had stuck…
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Belong Here
Growing up in a military family shaped the way I relate to a sense of place. On the one hand, my connection to where we lived was always temporary. On the other, I learned quickly that each place I lived left a lasting imprint on who I was. Each new hometown had its own customs,…
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Celebrating Active Citizenship
Last week, the Office of Community Engagement hosted our annual celebration of active citizenship. We invite all students, faculty, staff, and community partners to come together in recognition of the important work of the past year. No blog post can encapsulate the many things to be celebrated, so I am just going to highlight four…
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The Difference Community Makes
A few years ago, I asked the students in the Aim 4 community leadership program to write down three ways they are different because of their community experiences and three ways community is different because they engaged. As I was searching for notes to use at this afternoon’s Aim 4 meeting, I found the students’…
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Active Citizenship Reflection
Every year I get to host our Celebration of Active Citizenship which recognizes the many ways students have prioritized community in the past year. While the cupcakes and awards are pretty great, one of my favorite parts of the celebration is listening to students reflect on their community experiences. This year our student speaker was…
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An Education in Kittens
“Is it hard to give them back?” That’s almost always the first question I am asked when someone learns that I foster cats and kittens for our local Heritage Humane Society. Of course it is hard to say goodbye to faces like this, but it is also right. Hard but right is one of the…
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The Welcoming Semester
As I compiled the end of semester reports, I noticed a bit of a theme for the Office of Community Engagement this fall. We have been doing a lot of welcoming. First we welcomed five new staff members to our team. That’s three new community engagement fellows, our new budget manager, and a new coordinator…
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A Decade After Deciding
Tomorrow I am presenting a session on community engagement at Day for Admitted Students. I will also be celebrating ten years since I decided to attend William & Mary at my very own admitted students day in 2007. That’s right, it’s my aluminum anniversary with William & Mary. I have written before about how terrified…
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