Hill House Article in The Bowling Green Daily News
Here's the link to the original article: http://www.bgdailynews.com/articles/2010/09/29/features/features1.txt
Here is the text:
Four graduate students are using their areas of study to improve a neighborhood
By LIZ SWITZER, The Daily News
Wednesday, September 29, 2010 9:53 AM CDT
More than a century ago, Jane Addams saw the need for a more civil society and founded Chicago’s landmark Hull House, basing it on the idea of neighbors helping neighbors.
The name is slightly different, but the founding principle behind Western Kentucky University’s Hill House in Bowling Green is the same. And as the program marks its first year of existence, its student residents are gearing up for their first major project.Hill House, which used to be a haven for drug trafficking and prostitution, is the result of a collaborative project between the WKU ALIVE Center for Community Partnerships and the university’s Institute for Citizenship and Social Responsibility. The idea behind it is to better the 11th Avenue neighborhood surrounding the house through partnerships between students and neighborhood residents.Hill House students develop working relationships with their neighbors and host Sunday potluck dinners each week to share ideas about community needs and projects. The program serves as an interdisciplinary graduate assistantship program that lets students live and work out of Hill House while applying their coursework to a real life community.While students gain social service knowledge through research projects, neighbors reap the benefits, like weatherizing their homes for increased market value, the brainchild of an MBA student. The weatherization project gets under way in October, with the help of a local volunteer group, Craftsmen for Christ.“The learning that occurs in a program such as Hill House is very different than the learning that occurs between the four walls of a classroom,” said ALIVE Center director Leah Ashwell. “It is really experiential learning at its best while you are addressing real world problems outside of a classroom setting alongside community members to find viable solutions to complex problems.”“It’s about people helping people,” said Terry Shoemaker, program coordinator for the ALIVE Center for Community Partnerships as well as the Institute for Citizenship and Social Responsibility.“Participation in civic life in America is on the decline and because of that we have a lack of trust in each other and in our government,” Shoemaker said. “So the project becomes, ‘If we no longer have trust in each other, how do we rebuild that?’ What does it look like when neighbors help neighbors and teach what they are doing and why they are doing it?”Christy Serafini is a graduate student working on a master’s degree in social work. She is concerned with public transportation in the city and wants to take a look at expanding that service in the neighborhood.“I’ve seen how public transportation affects community members in Bowling Green,” Serafini said. “I’m glad we have a public transportation system. I would consider Bowling Green more of a rural area, so what we have in place now is a great start, but I think it can be improved to better serve some people in the area.“Textbooks are bound by individual human discoveries - if it has not been discovered, it cannot be reported,” she added. “Experience gives birth to discovery, and it is here at the Hill House that my experiential discoveries will hopefully inform my social work practice and will desirably affect the lives within several communities for the better.”Hill House residents hope to soon see their work making a visible difference in the neighborhood, a mixed area with some gentrification and historic restoration under way. Just the restoration of the house itself has been a great improvement, Ashwell said, adding that WKU hopes to expand the program with private funding.Currently, the university provides four $10,000 stipends to students who use their academic areas of study in addressing a neighborhood issue.“If these students can learn just by living here in the neighborhood, and maybe even teach this neighborhood how to go about solving their own problems again, and talking again, they take those civic capacities and skills out from here wherever they land and the neighborhood grows from it,” Shoemaker said. “It makes our democracy healthier for everyone.”
Discussing the Islamic Controversies Across the United States
The discussion was timely because of the issues surrounding the proposed Islamic Center in New York City and the incidents much closer geographically to Bowling Green, KY (i.e. Murfressboro, TN and Florence, KY). Approximately 60 participants crowded into the ICSR classroom to engage in the dialouge.
Dr. Guy Jordan gave a brief summation of the media controversies and Dr. Morsi started the discussion by providing some thought provoking questions. Many questions and thoughts centered around the media's role in these controversies as well as the Constitutionality of the Islamic Centers' right to build.
After an hour of substantial discussion, WKU student Matt Sheffield from Bowling Green, asked the pivotal question. Matt said that he has grown up in Bowling Green and has seen what has happened at other Islamic Centers in Murfreesboro, TN and Florence, KY. He knows that nothing contentious or inappropriate has happened concerning Bowling Green's Islamic Center, but it knows that tension is possible in Bowling Green. Matt then wanted to know how can WKU students act responsibility now and be proactive in prohibiting any negativity toward the Muslims in his home city. Dr. Morsi and Dr. Girdner suggested that the students help in educating people in our area concerning the Islamic religion.
This is a perfect example of why WKU opened the ICSR on campus. Students are challenged to think critically, in this instance about Islam, religious freedom, and our community. Once supplied with the information, WKU students are recognizing their place in serving generously and acting responsibly.
ICSR's next T3 event will be October 19th on the topic of "Fear and Manipulation in American Politics."
