Kate Sweetland-Lambird's Reflections

Working with the YWCA I have seen both the beauty and the struggle behind a healthy community partnership. I think that community partnership is one of the most essential parts of getting to know the areas of need in the community and where the resources of the college can assist these needs. This relationship is also a cornerstone to my professional growth. My early experience with my community partner was not pleasant. I dealt with the difficulty of communication and building a working relationship. Communication was inconsistent and where I was wanted and needed was not understood or made clear. However, with Deb taking the spot of my official community partner, my struggle with my community partner turned to a wonderful relationship based on consistent communication. With my program, Deb is my direct community partner, however, I also interact with Lyne from Lincoln Elementary as a community partner regarding LEGOS and Maureen and Betsey, who are coaches for Girls on the Run. With this many people that I am in constant, direct communication with, it is essential that our communication is clear. As the year has progressed we have all fine-tuned our skills and understanding in how we work together for our common goal. Overall, my experience with community partnership has been a great growing opportunity for me, professionally, as well as an incredible experience, seeing the beauty of partnership manifest itself in successful programs.

As my journey with CPS has progressed, I have developed a deeper understanding of the importance and the process in having and maintaining good community partnerships. Initially, with a rough start, I learned the value of the community partnership and how reciprocal correspondence and commitment is needed. A partnership takes two people, and one person cannot carry the load for both. As my partnership with the YWCA transitioned to a new person, I learned the beauty of a healthy partnership. Scheduling and logistics take work and detailed and clear communication. However, when two people, or parties, work together great results occur. Because of consistent communication with Deb, Lyne from LEGOS and Maureen and Betsy from Girls on the Run, our programs turned out incredibly successful. In fact, both programs are expanding. This expansion will continue my always needed growth in efficient and effective correspondence. The beauty of the partnership is the reciprocal relationship. I have learned that as the partnership becomes more intimate, my understanding of the resources I can help provide to the community, and the experiences that I can gain from the community become clearer. As Deb and I have addressed my personal and professional goals including both growth in understanding issues of racism and competency in clear and efficient communication I have seen personal growth. This growth manifests itself in personal confidence in my ability to understand the issues at hand and handle correspondence in response to these issues of social justice. I am excited for my lifetime long journey of growth ahead of me, interacting in many community partnerships with many community partners. It is these partnerships that are so essential to lasting change.

My experience with my learning circle, eRace, has been absolutely incredible. eRace is an interracial dialogue group that meets every week to discuss race issues on campus and in the world. eRace is consistently the highlight of my week, and one of the many highlights of my CPS experience. One reason that I find so much enjoyment from being involved with eRace is because of the way this group challenges me. Each and every week I am put in an uncomfortable position in which I must be vulnerable discussing my prejudices and my privileges as a white woman. The first semester of my participation in eRace consisted of taking steps towards a deeper understanding of what white privilege is and how it plays into society, our institutions and my personal, everyday life. This semester we have focused on the race relations and how race plays into Gettysburg life—in various academic departments, in the activities provided by the College Activity Board, and others. The application of what I have learned from first semester with my personal white privilege, to how it manifests itself in college life has been an incredible experience. Through an eRace sponsored Common Hour event, I and two of my fellow CPS students were able to sum up and perform all that we had learned through our experience with eRAce into a speech we wrote called, “My Responsibility as a White Person…” It was an incredibly powerful event, and a really rewarding experience.

eRace has been where my greatest learning has taken place this year, not only in my CPS experience, but in my Gettysburg College experience in general. Discussing race at the CPS training in the summer of 2007, I began to realize the extent of my white privilege. I was incredibly uncomfortable and felt very out of place. I didn’t like discussing race; I didn’t want to be perceived as racist. I wanted social justice and I wanted to be a part of the movement towards social justice. So where was the disconnect? Well as Gandhi once said, “you must be the change you wish to see in the world” and this couldn’t be more true in my life at that point, and still today. To walk the talk I spoke with passion, I must address my issues with discussing race. This isn’t something I needed to do once many months ago, it is something I must do everyday. I am saturated with prejudices and stereotypes that unconsciously affect me everyday. As a white woman, I live in a society where I have the freedom to not be critiqued because of the color of my skin and thus I don’t even need to think critically about race let alone discuss it. What hit me though, and what continues to hit me is the fact that I as much as it is my white privilege to never have to think twice about race, I am the one who has the power, simply by the color of my skin, to make a change and stand up against racial injustice. From my involvement in my learning circle I have learned about the racial injustices that go on everyday that I was once oblivious too. I have learned the power of my voice. I have also learned my great passion for justice of all kinds, but specifically racial justice. eRace has encouraged me to put myself in a vulnerable position to critically discuss race and race relations. It has challenged me to use my voice outside of the learning circle and live out what I believe, that as humans we are all equal and deserve the same respect and opportunities to define our future. My involvement has truly been a life changing event, for I have learned that I must truly “be the change I wish to see in the world.”

My experiences with campus leadership alternate between overt leadership through direct management and training of the volunteers, to the often unacknowledged work of living a life of social activism. Neither is greater, neither is less important. Directly interacting with the volunteers for my programs and training them about what it means to be a mentor (for LEGOS) or a running buddy (for GOTR) is crucial to their success as volunteers. It enhances the quality of the experience for the child as well as for the college student. It not only gives the college student a foundation and general understanding of the program, but I also try to emphasize how the quality of their experience can be so rich if they choose to learn from the child they are paired up with. However, without demonstrating through how I live, this idea of reciprocity, the volunteer management and training would be unimportant. I must demonstrate the lifestyle in which I encourage them to live out as volunteers—this is a part of my campus leadership, and no less important than the training itself. To those who chose to be volunteers, to my friends, or to those in which I have little or no contact, the way I live my life is a sure way that I can demonstrate the social justice I long for in this world. As Gandhi so aptly put, “you must be the change you wish to see in the world.”

Campus leadership is an area that has allowed great personal and professional growth for me. Personally, I have learned the importance of demonstrating and living out what I believe. This is the most effective way to spread one’s message, and to do the contrary can be detrimental to the effectiveness of sharing one’s ideas and passions. I have also learned the importance in being able to articulate one’s desire for social change. Professionally, it is through the responsibility of recruiting, training and managing volunteers that I have grown considerably in my communication and organizational skills. The process of recruitment has expanded the areas in which I generally inform people about what I am involved in. Training has given more breadth and depth to my understanding and ability to communicate this understanding of the programs and why it is essential that we partake in them. Managing the volunteers has improved my proficiency and organization in correspondence. Overall, campus leadership has tied a lot of the other aspects of my CPS experience together, asking that I put what I have learned into practice!

In the midst of my CPS experience, without a step back to reflect it is hard to note the experience of growth in both my personal and professional skills. However, upon stepping back, reviewing old journals and reports it becomes clear how the depth of my learning and understanding of not only critical issues but of managing and organizing my program has come to be. It is through the experience that is CPS. It is through “thinking critically, [and] acting compassionately.” Reflections on what I am struggling with, issues that I have not broken through the surface of and struggles of managing time and volunteers run steadily throughout past journals, but with each of these struggles comes growth and step towards a deeper maturation and understanding. Experiences like challenging eRace meetings and staff meetings stir up personal development, while the contrast of apathetic and passionate volunteers, bad weather, and more participants than expected bring the growth to my professional skills.

Over the course of my CPS career both my personal and professional skills have clearly grown and developed upon reflection of where I have been and where I am now. Personally, my understanding of social justice issues that our society is facing and that specifically my programs are created in response to has increased significantly. My learning circle (eRace) has been a huge part of this growth. The understanding that growth and awareness regarding social justice, specifically racial justice is a process is crucial. I think one of the most important realizations is that in order to bring about change in society, I must first look into myself and see where change needs happen there. This process shouldn’t take place once, but continually. I constantly have room for growth and ways of thinking that need to be analyzed critically. Professionally, my skills have been utilized, challenged and improved. Communication and time management are two areas that I noted steadily over the course of my time thus far at CPS. I have also enhanced my skills regarding correspondence with and coordination of a large group of volunteers due learning from the Program Coordinator experience alone and all the uncertainties that this brings.