Written by Alison Luck ’22, 2020-21 Community Engagement Student Leader
Last November, I was hired by the Student Engagement Center as the 2020 program leader for the Summer Community OutReach Engagement (SCORE) program. Over the next few months, I was trained by the previous program leaders, I established a relationship with my co-leader, and we began diligently planning what we hoped would be a successful, powerful engagement experience for incoming first years of the class of 2024.
By May, it was obvious that everything would have to change.
Despite our hopes and intentions, there would be no SCORE in August. We had to let go of an incredible team of leaders and cancel all of our plans. It simply would not be safe for students to participate in the program. And by July, it was confirmed that Whitman would not be reconvening in person at all for the fall semester.
Back in May, when it became clear that the job I was hired to do would no longer be needed, the Student Engagement Center did not let me go. Instead, I was offered the option to stay on as a summer intern, working on research projects and attending conferences and meeting with incoming students. Although things were different, I was excited and enthusiastic about continuing my work with the SEC.
One of my primary projects this summer was to do some research about best practices for continued community engagement during the era of COVID-19. I read scholarly articles, op-eds, and blog posts. I attended webinars and conferences. I filled a notebook with notes and thoughts and data and ideas. And in the end, I learned a lot more than I thought I would about the importance of community engagement in a place like Walla Walla.
Whitman students are often hesitant to venture beyond Main Street if the end destination is not a hiking trail or ski trip. We often have a hard time seeing ourselves reflected in what we see as a small, conservative, agriculturally driven town. It is not uncommon for Whitman students to feel at odds and uncomfortable when they find themselves outside of the “Whitman bubble,” so we often resign ourselves to staying within our comfortable, college community. In this way, the Whitman population is not intentionally cultivating a culture of social solidarity. When we do not see ourselves in this town, we do not actively work to keep it safe and healthy.
Social solidarity, as defined in a New York Times opinion piece, is “the interdependence between individuals and across groups.” The belief that all members of a community rely on one another, regardless of socio-economic status, race, or political affiliation, is crucial to getting our community, our state, our country, and our world out of this current health crisis. Cultivating community presence and care is important now more than ever before.
At the end of the day, the health and wellness of Walla Walla is the health and wellness of Whitman. Whitman students cannot thrive unless Walla Walla is thriving. As temporary residents, we should strive to be more than just that, temporary. Our time here transcends four years when we contribute to something bigger than ourselves – namely, the community.
And this is where my experience with community engagement becomes invaluable. The times when I have seen myself reflected in the Walla Walla community, the times when I have felt the most at home in this town, the times when I have recognized the mutual need between myself and this place have all been times when I was engaging meaningfully with the community beyond campus. Community engagement programs created in me a solidarity with the Walla Walla community.
When I think about those times when I felt most connected to Walla Walla, they are almost exclusively at events that I attended in-person. They are traveling to the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, spending a couple of hours in an elementary school classroom every week, and helping a local farm harvest tomatoes and potatoes. Six months ago, it would have seemed almost incomprehensible for me to consider this level of connection in a virtual space.
So how do we make this work? We are in a pandemic, which creates a greater need for social solidarity. But social solidarity is cultivated through community engagement, which is on hold because of the pandemic.
The thing is, I love a challenge. I love puzzles and logic games and research. I love to take a problem that seems completely insurmountable and find a solution. I knew from the beginning that there would never be a single right answer. There would never be a perfect transition. But through hours of research and discussion and brainstorming, I ended up with several PowerPoint presentations, many conversations with incoming students, and a seven-page document of my thoughts that I lovingly refer to as my manifesto on maintained community engagement.
I have taken on many projects over the course of this summer that I had no idea I was signing up for when I applied to be the SCORE program leader last November. One that I am particularly proud of, and the result of all of this research, is a set of guidelines for the SEC community engagement programs to develop best practices for virtual, remote, and socially distanced community engagement. These guidelines synthesize much of what I have already discussed here, in a format that will allow for the program leader cohort to develop programming that is safe, accessible, and mutually beneficial while we continue to face this pandemic. This is my contribution to answering the challenge of continuing to cultivate social solidarity during this health crisis.
But my favorite part of this document I developed is actually something I did not come up with myself. The presentation begins with a quote from the organization Break Away, which the SEC works with for community engagement programs such as SCORE and Spring Break Engagement Trips. In the Break Away blog post “A Statement on COVID-19,” the organization states, “Making others a priority in your decisions and life choices doesn’t just have to happen in person.”
If there is one message that I have taken away from this summer, and that I hope you have taken away from this post, it is that. Prioritizing others, putting the wellness of our community over ourselves as individuals, and doing work to actively better the lives of others is not something that is done only when we show up to help at a soup kitchen, when we volunteer in a classroom, or when we participate in a service project like building a house. We can continue to do this same work in virtual space. This is not a time to step back, this is an opportunity to be rejuvenated. Our lives will never go “back to normal.” It is up to us to build a better tomorrow for ourselves and our neighbors and our world, and we will do this remotely and online. There is so much work to be done, and I, for one, am excited to get started.