An Excuse, and an Article

I have been terribly busy this week, but I'm still writing; here's my latest UCSC article. Not the most hard-hitting piece of journalism, I know, but it's about an organization that's very dear to me: The Community Service Leadership Training Corps.


CSLTC: Training the Future Leaders

As an international student from Nepal, second-year Prakriti Mishra came to the University of Chicago wanting to understand American culture better while engaging in community service. Thankfully, she found a program at the University Community Service Center that accomplishes exactly that: The Community Service Leadership Training Corps.

The program, affectionately referred to as CSLTC, has an intensive, two-year curriculum designed to connect its members with community issues and teach them leadership skills that will serve them well in public service-related internships and jobs. Though CSLTC was founded eight years ago as a four-year program by Pamela Bozeman Evans, former director of the UCSC, the program has undergone a series of transformations in recent years that have molded this dual mission.

The program is structured to follow students through their first two years in the college, according to first-year coordinator Caroline Ouwerkerk, who has been a Corps member and program coordinator throughout her four years in the college, while at the same time encouraging them to branch out into the community and put their leadership skills into action.

During their first-year in the program, the twenty first-year students selected each year for the program attend weekly meetings on topics ranging from the problem of food deserts in Woodlawn to effective management and communication skills. Every other weekend the students travel to a different Chicago neighborhood to assist a public service organization with one of their projects.

In their second-year, students will use the UCSC’s resources to connect with an organization and construct a meaningful internship program around it.

“It’s a lot of fun; I really liked our second service project painting Sullivan House because it gave the group a chance to really bond,” said Mishra, who is now interning at La Rabida Hospital for CSLTC.

This quarter CSLTC’s focus is on civic engagement, according to Curriculum Development Coordinator Emma Scripps. “The people we bring to speak to the first-years during meetings often relate what they back to the whole issue of social justice.”

Last week, the first-years and second-years met with Susan Campbell, associate VP for civic engagement to discuss the role the University plays in the surrounding communities. This week students are focusing on the importance of communication in effective leadership.

“We want first-years to think about how being a good communicator has personal implication, and is critically important for a helping your group or civic organization communicate a single, unified goal,” said Scripps.

Scripps is a fourth-year, but this is her first year of involvement in the program. “I’m pretty impressed with the whole structure of CSLTC. It’s uniquely different from RSOs [Registered Student Organizations] because it is directly supported by the UCSC and shares that social network.”

According to third-year Leslie Farland, CSLTC’s second-year program coordinator, the next issue students will focus on his hunger. “We’re hoping to bring people from the Illinois Hunger Coalition and the Greater Chicago Food Depository to speak at a meeting.” This focus was meant to coincide with the upcoming UCSC-sponsored Day of Service, which will also address hunger in Chicago.

For Ouwerkerk, one of the program’s standout features is its student leadership. The program curriculum was designed and implemented by upperclassmen in the college, who played a crucial role in shaping the program two its current form. “I think it’s really cool that the program is so receptive to student involvement. If I come in today and say, “We should do this!” People will want to make it happen.”

“And when a student joins CSLTC, it’s more than just joining a group that does service,” Ouwerkerk added. “They join a network that will support them throughout their time [at the college], and beyond.”