Service-Learning Student Success Endowed Fund
Recognizing the importance of preparing students to be engaged citizens and successful professionals in the 21st century, Louis Gwin and Rachel Parker-Gwin established the Service-Learning Student Success Endowed Fund.
Award Recipients
In spring 2006, the Service-Learning Center awarded its second round of Rachel Parker-Gwin and Louis Gwin Service-Learning Awards from the Student Success Endowed Fund to the following students:
Jennifer Jackson, Students in Free Enterprise
Two years ago, Jennifer started an organization called Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE). This organization is designed to bring economic opportunity to people of all ages across Southwest Virginia. Over the past two years she has been involved in a project in the Clayton Estates community where she has worked with high school aged students to get them job ready and college bound. Each year SIFE students spend between 16- 20 weeks going to the community on a weekly basis to teach students about goal setting, college preparation such as SAT prep; and finding financial aid. They also worked on job preparation that included learning how to interview for jobs, how to fill out job applications, and the do's and don'ts of getting a job. And lastly, they focused on basic financial concepts.
Also through SIFE Jennifer has worked on a project at the Radford Women's Resource Center implementing a financial literacy program for women in the Cornerstone program. This year they spent 8 weeks teaching women how to create and maintain a budget, different ways to save, and learning how to read their credit reports. SIFE made sure that the program was detailed enough for the women to have a true understanding of the financial concepts but simple in terms as to not overwhelm the women with too much information at one time. Currently, SIFE is working on building a curriculum that will be used every year at the shelter.
Ennis McCrery, Writers in Residence
Ennis is the Coordinator of the Writer-in-Residence Program in the Department of English, which is an outreach effort that places MFA students in Creative Writing into local K-12 schools for semester long residencies. Ennis served as the first writer in residence, at Margaret Beeks Elementary School, during the spring of 2005 and was subsequently named as the coordinator of the program. In addition to working with local schools, she also participate in campus activities that affect children
Katie Perkins, Stroubles Creek Watershed Initiative
Throughout the four years that Katie has been working with the Virginia Water Resources Research Center and the Stroubles Creek Corridor Initiative Project, she has been on both ends of the learning and teaching aspects of the Blacksburg watershed. She first started by learning the ways around Stroubles Creek and major pollution spots, to then be able to teach other students in the service learning classes how to keep our watershed clean. Over the years she organized trash cleanups with community and campus groups, conducted visual surveys of Stroubles Creek, assisted in organizing annual Stakeholders Summits for the watershed, and overall served as Dr. Younos' "right hand" on the project.
Brandi McKee, Pilot Street Project
Brandi is recognized as the first On-Site Coordinator for the Pilot Street Project. This Project brings an English as a Second Language classroom to refugees, most of whom are from Somalia and Eritrea, living in the Maple Grove Apartments in Roanoke. A rented apartment serves as an on-site classroom in which she conducts four adult ESL classes per week, as well as two sessions for school aged children. Brandi has helped to extend the Pilot Street Project partnership between the Service-Learning Center and Refugee & Immigration Services to include students from Roanoke College and Hollins University.
About the Fund
The Student Success Endowed Fund is to be used to support the development of students identified by the Service-Learning Center as demonstrating exceptional leadership potential and/or to provide financial assistance to community service initiatives conceived of and implemented by students.
Student development activities are defined here as students' attendance at national or international conferences or participation in local training programs that include registration fees, books, or other educational materials.
Initiative activities are defined here as projects students design to serve the local community that have implementation costs. Recipients of Student Success Fund aid are selected by the Service-Learning Center.
Giving to the Fund
By Check
Gifts to the Student Success Endowed Fund are made payable to:
"The Virginia Tech Foundation, Inc."
and mailed to:
Service-Learning Center
201 Major Williams Hall (0168)
Blacksburg, VA 24061
To insure that your gift is used as you wish, please include a note stating that the gift is for the Service-Learning Student Success Endowed Fund.
By Credit Card
Donors are more frequently using credit cards to make their gift. Some simply call in their donation; others specify that an automatic charge is to be made periodically.
For more information, contact Leslie Hetherington at 1-800-533-1144, or lhetheri@vt.edu
Meet Our $10 for 10 Donors
Meet Our Founding Donors
Drs. Louis Gwin and Rachel Parker-Gwin were among the founding supporters of the Virginia Tech Service-Learning Center. Over the years, they have contributed their time and talent to creating, supporting, and enhancing service-learning opportunities for students at the university.
Louis Gwin, retired associate professor of Communication Studies and former Co-Director of the Literacy Volunteers of America, designed the inaugural newsletter of the Service-Learning Center in 1995 and engaged his students in writing articles and using their public relations skills to promote service-learning across campus. He helped the Center develop promotional materials and served as the copy editor for its publication, Best Practices in Cyber-Serve.
Rachel Parker-Gwin, associate professor of Sociology, incorporated service-learning into her sociology courses throughout her tenure at Virginia Tech. She received various honors for her teaching including the Outstanding Service-Learning Educator award in 1996. She served as a peer mentor to other faculty throughout the state of Virginia. Additionally, she published articles in professional journals and presented at professional meetings about her work with service-learning. Rachel spearheaded the Center's longitudinal study on the effects of service-learning on alumnae, as well as worked closely with the Center to study and publish the affects of service-learning on students' cognitive and social development.