Berea College: Learning, Labor, and
Service
By Meta Mendel-Reyes, director of the Center
for Excellence in Learning Through Service (CELTS) and
associate professor of general studies, Berea College
Berea College’s distinctive tradition of “learning,
labor, and service” made it a natural choice to
become the first Bonner scholars college in 1990. A
nondenominational christian college in Kentucky, Berea
was founded in 1855 as the first integrated and coed
college in the south. Berea college provides a comprehensive
liberal arts education for low-income students, primarily
Appalachians and African Americans. All students receive
a full-tuition scholarship and work ten to fifteen hours
per week in positions ranging from food service to community
service.
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Berea students and staff from
the Southern Mutual Help Association in New Iberea,
Louisiana, worked together during a Hurricane
Katrina service-learning class. |
The labor program makes it possible for students to
work in teams to organize and implement various community
service programs. The largest of these is Students for
Appalachia, an umbrella that includes such activities
as mentoring and tutoring children, visiting the elderly
in long-term care, and promoting environmental justice.
Bonner scholars hold community service positions throughout
their four years, working together to run an after-school
program as freshmen, and in the following years joining
student-led service teams on campus or serving directly
with community organizations.
In 2000, Berea College established the Center for Excellence
in Learning Through Service (CELTS), whose mission is
to “coordinate service-learning and student-led
community service programs in order to educate students
for leadership in service and social justice.”
The Bonner Scholars Program plays a prominent role within
CELTS, and the Bonner developmental model, “service
as transformation,” has contributed to leadership
development throughout the student-led programs.
One of the most important ways in which CELTS addresses
civic engagement and diversity is through service learning.
A student body composed of low-income Appalachians and
African Americans enriches the study and practice of
civic engagement because the students come from groups
that have been disenfranchised throughout American history.
However, our students and the groups to which they belong
represent not victims but inspiring models whose political
struggles help to bring the nation, in Martin Luther
King Jr.’s phrase, “back to those great
wells of democracy which were dug deep [in] . . . the
Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.”
In just a few years, service learning has grown rapidly
at Berea. Today, approximately fifteen courses are taught
each semester, representing twenty disciplines across
campus. Our community partners include nonprofit agencies,
community organizations, and schools. Berea College’s
service-learning program has been nationally recognized
by U.S. News and World Report as number one in 2002
and as one of the top twenty programs every year between
2003 and 2006 (schools were not ranked within the top
twenty).
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A Bonner scholar from Earlham
College working with a child in a local school. |
A recent service-learning class, Rebuilding Through
Service: Lessons From Hurricane Katrina, exemplifies
the values of civic engagement and diversity. During
the 2006 January short term, students studied the impact
of the hurricane, particularly on the poor and people
of color, and then traveled to Louisiana to help with
disaster relief. The trip was supported by a special
grant program established by the Bonner Foundation in
response to the disaster. Guided by their teachers,
CELTS Director Meta Mendel-Reyes, and Bonner Scholars
Director Betty Hibler, the students worked with a grassroots
organization, Southern Mutual Help Association, in a
rural area of the state. While helping clean out hurricane-damaged
homes, students interacted closely with the families,
who ranged from fourth-generation Cajun fishermen to
an elderly African American couple.
The fact that our class was diverse racially but shared
a common economic background helped students identify
with the Katrina and Rita victims in an area characterized
by its diverse population of African Americans, Cajuns,
and Vietnamese and by its poverty. Similarly, the rural
background of most of the students, plus the experience
of rural life in Berea, helped them relate more easily
to the people of Southwest Louisiana. As a result, the
students were more likely to define service not as charity
to the unfortunate, but as a shared struggle for equality
and justice.
After their return, the students presented their findings
to several Kentucky congressmen, thereby transforming
their service experience into civic engagement. By offering
first-person perspectives on the hurricane damage and
the inspiring efforts of the people to recover, the
students hoped to help their representatives understand
the urgency of increased support to the Gulf region.
Students were also able to share these perspectives
with their peers through an interactive campus presentation.
As one student reflected afterward,
Of all the courses that I have taken at Berea College
. . . Rebuilding Through Service: Lessons From Katrina
has had the greatest impact on me. It has been a week
since the class ended, and already I miss the people,
the stories, the experience. I found it strange that
human beings bond over trauma and destruction. By trudging
through the pain, loss, and sorrow, relationships are
solidified. . . . “Community” is being redefined
in the Gulf. Neighbors are helping neighbors, families
have come together, and an already tight sense of culture
and belonging is being strengthened further.
The experience of doing this work not only increased
the students’ sense of belonging to a community,
but gave students a sense of what it would be like to
live this level of committed service and citizenship.
