When asked, they expressed a great amount of interest in doing work within Somerville. In fact, that's the first place they wanted to start with a lot of their work. Julie expressed the fact that their organization really wants to tap into the networks already established through both Tufts in generally, and more specifically Tisch College. They hope that achieving this goal will allow them to get students working in the community right from the get-go. Now, ideally they would like to get students involved in public policy internships/jobs, where their main dealings would be with research and proposals regarding the most pressing issues facing Somerville. The ideal sites they're looking for to work with are all places that help to institute change, such as non-profits, NGOs, and local government officials. The latter is what they expressed the highest interest level about starting with. They seemed to really express that their ultimate goal for the students participating would be for them to gain the knowledge, confidence, and power of affecting real change in American politics.
With the above stated, they said they want to make a substantive, public policy focused impact in everything they do. They are hoping to have actual, tangible changes made in laws, resolutions, and initiatives from both the government and the community. Also, they would like to empower students to become the leaders that enact this change and spearhead the efforts.
Currently, the group has the two main founders and a few members that have said they really are excited to work with the Institute. They are actively searching out more students though, and have had some success. Julie also has been reaching out to network through Tufts, specifically to Tisch College and The Institute of Political Citizenship. Regarding the community, they are still exploring possible organizations they could go out and talk with.
Specifically regarding the economic recovery in Somerville, they seemed to fairly educated about it. They said they understood it was obviously a huge issue facing the community, especially in issues of housing and jobs. They added they thought this was especially bad for immigrants throughout Somerville as they have less resources than most. Through their organization though, they are hoping to explore these facts in order to come up with possible policy options to improve these situations.
After our initial brain-storming session I felt that the most useful nodes that we could find from the groups here on Tufts would be for their potential service, and their most important stat would be the number of members. I am still a little unclear about what type of groups that can directly help or change the economic situation in Somerville, but I think this group is an excellent start. They are new, ambitious, and most importantly they, "would like to empower students to become the leaders that enact this change and spearhead the efforts." as Dean stated. This is the type of group that I could see spreading the word about the economic situation in Somerville, and about the Boston Area Social Network, which could bring more nodes through their interactions within the community. They may not necessarily serve as a direct "recovery service," but they have the potential to serve in the area of our interest.
ReplyDeleteA potential for service lead me to choose Fraternal organizations like Theta Delta Chi and Zeta Psi as my nodes for the week. Regardless of their reputation as purely social establishments, the fraternities and sororities here at Tufts have a long history of positive campus and community involvement. In addition, the Greek system has an equal if not larger student body than the majority of student groups. If added to the Boston Area Social Network the Tufts Greek system could service as one of largest bodies of potential student service for Somerville. Outside organizations with specific goals could contact any fraternity if they need man-power or on campus advertisement. Fraternities could be used for their marketing services as well because of their social nature. I think that it is our job to connect this type of potential with the people in the community that have the services but need support.
I followed the same path as Marcus coming to the conclusion that the larger the group— the greater the potential. Accordingly I chose Hillel, which not only draws a huge number of participants, but has the means and resources to be a major contributor to aiding the economic recovery in Somerville.
ReplyDeleteFounded in 1923 in Illinois, the Hillel foundation is now present at hundreds of campuses, in several countries, and also has affiliates across the world. According to the associate I spoke with, just before the beginning of the recent recession the Hillel Foundation reached a landmark in their finances, and was thus relatively safe from the effects. However, she said she wasn’t completely familiar with how Somerville has been affected, but that she knows they were “hit pretty hard” and that the already high homeless and unemployment numbers have risen substantially. The Hillel Foundation at Tufts, like the Hillel Foundation nationwide, does not have members. Students (and community members depending on the event) interested may participate each individual event. Tufts Hillel has a staff of seven and the Tufts population that participates is relatively large compared to other on-campus organizations. It has its own funding as well as TCU funding.
The person I spoke with wasn’t sure they had done anything exactly related to the economic recovery of Somerville, but went on to say they have brought speakers to the area such as Hillary Clinton, and that they have done food drives and participated in community events such as literacy carnivals. She also commented that in the past they have had participants donate their time for various things, such as tutoring, that could definitely contribute to the goals of our project. The large number of “participants” would, just as the Greek life, be a huge ‘potential’ on our map. Their mission is to enrich Jewish students “so that they may enrich the Jewish people and the world.” They are partnered with the other religious groups on Tufts campus, and they often work with a variety of other groups depending on the event.
While I recognize the value of placing nodes on the map that would be tagged as “potential,” especially since so many of these groups have such a large membership base already built in. However, for this map to be functional, we need to link these groups of “potential” service with the institutions that will allow them to provide the service—those that would be tagged as “actual.” In that sense, while continuing to seek out groups that have large membership bases, I think we should mainly be focusing on groups that are already supporting economic recovery in Somerville—without these groups, our “potential” groups would have nowhere to look for the opportunities with which to link their membership bases. However, I think that finding these groups—the ones that are already operational—is going to be a more difficult, as my experience this week showed.
ReplyDeleteI chose to look into “No One Leaves,” an organization that seeks to prevent foreclosures and evictions by providing tenants with the necessary information and access to services. While there is a (small) group here at Tufts that participates, upon speaking with the coordinator I learned that it is in fact a Harvard Law School student organization supported by City Life and Vida Urbana. In addition to Tufts, No One Leaves also has groups at Harvard, Suffolk, BC, BU, and is looking to expand to Northeastern and Emerson. This organization would seem to be an ideal “actual” node for our map. However, speaking with the coordinator, I learned that the group will only be working in Dorchester, Hyde Park, and Jamaica Plain this year. While they may eventually expand to Somerville, they do not have any concrete plans for this at the moment.
Of course, while this group would certainly be a good “potential” node and its affiliations would be of interest to look into, my experience makes me think that we should first build a strong base of “actual” nodes. By doing this, when we approach groups that would have the membership bases of volunteers, we will have operational institutions with which to connect them.