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Janina Smalls, Carole Kongprachith, and Maya Stanic presented at the Statewide Service-Learning Conference: The FAFSA Project: A Case Study Illustrating the use of Service-Learning to Facilitate Students’ Comprehension of Business Concepts. A month later, all three students and Candice Sakuda flew to San Jose to present The Real World Needs More than One Discipline: “Student Experts” Collaborate for Real Community Impact, at the Tenth Annual Continuums of Service Conference.
Story submitted by Kapono Ryan
Chaminade University students Chelcy Reyes and Crystal Weseman were recognized by the Hawaii Pacific Islands Campus Compact (HIPICC) for their inspiration in service to the community at the Fifth Annual Statewide Service-Learning Conference on March 10. HIPICC presented each student with its Community Impact Student Award. In its inaugural year, the award begins a tradition of recognizing students in HIPICC member institutions who exhibit outstanding leadership and innovative approaches in their community service or service-learning endeavors both on their campus and within their community.
Reyes was also chosen to go to Philadelphia, PA for the 2007 Education Leadership Colloquium. She and Leanne Nakamura from the University of Hawaii-Manoa will serve as members of the Hawaii Leadership Team. Reyes will compete with other winners from across the nation for Campus Compact's Howard R. Swearer Student Humanitarian Award.
Born and raised on Guam, Chelcy Reyes is currently a Chaminade junior majoring in sociology. She has participated in service-learning at Chaminade for three semesters with Project SHINE (Students Helping in the Naturalization of Elders), a citizenship tutorial program for elder immigrants and refugees. According to Reyes, Project SHINE has helped her to realize not only the difficulty in learning a new language and gaining citizenship in the United States, but also the need for such service programs in ethnically diverse communities. Chaminade University service-learning director Candice Sakuda said Reyes had progressed naturally from tutor to coordinator. "As a coordinator, Chelcy has demonstrated effective leadership and organizational skills," said Sakuda. Helping to train and mentor her peers, Reyes also manages the placement of the elder learners according to their English language ability levels and decides on individual tutoring sessions for those whose citizenship test is near.
Crystal Weseman began her service-learning work at Palolo Elementary School as part of a class in education. Weseman is currently a Chaminade sophomore and a second year outfielder for Chaminade's softball team. Sakuda said, Weseman wanted to try something new and fun for the kids, so she decided to put on a softball camp for the Palolo Valley girls' team. As last spring's season ended she had discussions with her coach, who wanted to help. The young woman organized the First Annual Chaminade Softball Camp, which was a huge success with 28 girls from Palolo Valley participating. She is already planning the second annual Chaminade Softball Camp. "I believe that Crystal embodies the goal of service-learning," Sakuda said. "She gives our community her time and talents in ways that apply and also enrich academic learning,"
The Hawaii Pacific Islands Campus Compact (HIPICC), administered by the University of Hawaii-Manoa Service-Learning Program was awarded a three-year education grant totaling $1.2 million by the Corporation for National and Community Service's Learn and Serve America program.
The Service-Learning Award is bestowed at the Academic Awards Ceremony following Baccalaureate each year. There were three top nominees for the award. All had demonstrated excellence in academic achievement, through many semesters of service-learning. All had the glowing support of faculty and service-site supervisors. And ALL were already slated to receive the top awards in their respective majors! The decision was difficult; each person was so deserving that we wished there were three awards to give. Miss Trysten Coffey stood out, with the most “votes.” Among other reasons, Dr. Regina Pfeiffer and Dr. David Coleman had nominated Trysten for her positive, infectious attitude toward learning and service. Trysten will be attending law school in Michigan this fall.
