St. Michael's students granted money for service
Education Awards handed out to six students

Michelle Thomas | staff writer

Six students from St. Michael's College have been given education awards, scholarship awards sponsored by AmeriCorps for being committed to completing community service hours in addition to being full-time students.

Time and effort

Junior Dan Sandberg is one of the students that received the Education Award.  The scholarship was brought to his attention by the Mobilization of Volunteer Efforts (MOVE) program at St. Michael's.  The MOVE office chose students based on prior experience, Sandberg says.

Julia Berberan is one of the recipients of the Education Award. Larry Frisoli, photo

Sandberg will be committing to 900 hours of community service over the next two years.  Once he has completed his hours, he receives a voucher from AmeriCorps which he can use to pay back loans. 

“The stipend helps justify all the time spent on my volunteer work,” Sandberg says.

Sandberg is a Core Team member of MOVE, which means that he is the leader of one of the volunteer programs, Sandberg says. He leads Outdoor Volunteer Efforts, so he decided to make that project part of his “Service Project Plan."

“This scholarship gives me a reason to go out and do more volunteer work," Sandberg says. " I am going to start working with the Wilderness Mentor Program in the winter."

Junior Julia Berberan is also one of the recipients of the scholarship.  Berberan will be completing 450 hours of community service over a period of one year. 

“It seemed like the most reasonable amount of hours of service that I would be able to complete in one year,” Berberan says.

Berberan heard about the Education Award at a MOVE Core Team meeting. She is currently on the Core Team for International Outreach.  The program is similar to the Little Brother/Little Sister program, but all the children in the group are refugees and instead of breaking up one-on-one, they usually stay in one large group, Berberan says.

Berberan is also part of a Participatory Action Research class which is based on service-learning in the Somali and Somali-Bantu community of Burlington.  Berberan is working with a group of St. Michael's students to prepare an extended service trip to India.

“Next semester I’ll try to coordinate more service-learning experiences in the classrooms, and we are always inviting others to participate,” Berberan says.

Service learning

Joan Wagner, associate dean of Academic Affairs, was newly appointed as the service learning coordinator at St. Michael's.  This job entails helping faculty coordinate different AmeriCorps programs for their classes, Wagner says. 

Joan Wagner is the newly appointed service learning coordinator at St. Michael's. Larry Frisoli, photo

Any student can apply for an Education Award, but St. Michael's can only choose a certain amount of students that can receive the scholarship, Wagner says. This year, St. Michael's chose six students from a long list of applicants.

According to Wagner, each student had to complete a very comprehensive application process.  Part of the process was to come up with a “Service Project Plan”.  This idea of the project plan was set up by AmeriCorps because not only do they want to engage the students, they want to create programs that will recruit others, Wagner says.

“Each plan that was submitted by the applicants focused on a different thing,” Wagner says.

Students involved in Fire and Rescue could submit plans involving their volunteer services and Core Team leaders could organize their own volunteer program as a part of their project proposal. Some of the programs submitted were Best Buddies and Committee on Temporary Shelter (COTS), along with extended service trip plans, Wagner says.

Community service is important at St. Michael's because it is a big part of the culture, Wagner says. 

“We already have a well-established volunteer program through MOVE," she says. "AmeriCorps offers a way for students to extend their service."

A word from AmeriCorps

John Coutley is AmeriCorps' programs coordinator for Vermont Campus Compact (VCC).  St. Michael's is one of the 27 campuses involved in VCC across Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.

“The AmeriCorps Education Award Only program (EAP) is granted to organizations around the country and designed specifically for college students,” Coutley wrote in an e-mail.

VCC has had an AmeriCorps EAP since 2000, Coutley wrote.  Students Engaged in Redefining a Vision for Education (SERVE) in Northern New England is an EAP whose mission is to enable higher education institutions to meet a variety of unmet critical community needs, he wrote.

“SERVE New England is an AmeriCorps Education Award Only program using funds granted by the Corporation for National and Community Services and administered by VCC,” Coutley wrote.

According to Joan Wagner, community service is a part of the St. Michael's culture. Larry Frisoli, photo

Member campuses can apply for the award “slots." For example, St. Michael's applied for one 300-hour position, two 450-hour positions and three 900-hour positions, Coutley wrote.  Coutley provides Wagner with the “slots” and then she recruits the students involved in the specific services, he wrote.

“EAP provides an incentive for students engaged in service to take it to the next level of recruiting their peers while at the same time providing much needed resources for tuition and other educational expenses,” Coutley wrote.

Students serve in partnership with schools and community-based organizations in the areas of Education, Human Needs/Services, Public Safety and Homeland Security, Coutley wrote.

“The EAP is generally considered to be a successful and cost-effective program because of its relatively low administrative cost,” Coutley wrote.