Conclusion

As the title suggests, this will be my last post concerning my service work this semester in the Washington Neighborhood. I completed my last hours of service on November 19th at the Saint Patrick’s parish dinner. The last few weeks that I spent at the dinner were with the members of Saint Pat’s parish and not any of the other parishes around Dubuque. I learned last week that the union will no longer be putting on the dinner during the third Wednesday of the month so the St. Pat’s people will be doing that dinner as well now. During my last few weeks, I didn’t notice any anger or some of the attempts at misleading that I saw in previous weeks. All of the people that attended the dinners were very gracious and kind to the volunteers and others. This makes me wonder why I noticed some of those actions during those couple of weeks and not at any other time. Perhaps there were a couple of people that gave me that perception that did not attend any more dinners. Overall, I leave the service opportunity with a very good feeling about the volunteers as well as the people that attend the dinner. I have next listed the goals and the means for reaching those goals that I made for my service project before I began volunteering. I then list my assessments about how I think that did during my service in reaching those goals after my hours were complete.

Goals:

My goals for this service project are to 1) learn about the people that live in the Washington Neighborhood, 2) get to know other people that volunteer at the dinner and what their motivations for helping are, and 3) to increase my ability to perform service and to help understand why I should spend time volunteering within the community.

Means:

The means for achieving these goals will be mainly accomplished through my time volunteering at the dinner at St. Patrick’s Parish every Wednesday from 3:45 until 6:15. I will make sure to try and talk with the people that attend the dinner when I can so that I can learn as much about them as possible. I will also take the opportunities that I have to talk to the other volunteers that help out with the dinner. I will also try and take time to reflect about my service experience each week to see what I have gained from my volunteering time. I will get to know the Washington Neighborhood better by participating in the clean-up day on October 18th which will be a great time for me to see where the people live. The Winterization Project on October 25th will allow me to see inside the homes of some of the people within in the Neighborhood and maybe some of the struggles that they are encountering.

Assessments:

1) I believe that I have learned a lot about the people that live in the Washington Neighborhood during my 30 hours of service. I was able to see where people lived, both inside and outside of their homes while I was performing service at the clean-up and winterization challenge. I have learned that many people live very simply and in conditions that are well below to what I am used to. Many people are trying to improve the condition of the neighborhood, but there are still many properties in need of drastic help. My time at Saint Patrick’s Parish has taught me that many people from the Washington Neighborhood are in such great need that they must rely on the dinners for survival. I believe that my areas of service were ideal for this goal and I think that I achieved it.

2) I spent much of my service time working with many different people. This did not allow me to build any close relationships with other volunteers, but I was able to see a wide range of people doing service. I learned that the people with the Washington Neighborhood Association spend a lot of their free time trying to help out their area just so that it is a better place to live. Their motivations are to make their neighborhood a better place to raise a family. I was able to draw that the main reason that people volunteered at the weekly dinners were because they know of the need for their help. Many of the volunteers knew many of the people and would talk to them while they were there. The main goal of the volunteers was to make the people feel welcome and do everything that they could to let them have a nice, peaceful meal.

3) I think that my service time did allow me to increase my ability to do volunteer work. The main thing that I have learned is that there are service opportunities everywhere and I could volunteer my time nearly every day if I so choose to. I possess many of the talents that are required for service, I just need to put some of my time off to the side so that I can use them. Spending 2 to 3 hours a week volunteering is easily doable for me at this time of my life and I am going to attempt and volunteer more than I have in the past. I am going to attend some of the dinners next semester as I know that I have no other commitments on Wednesday’s evening and I have really enjoyed working at the dinner this semester.

I think that I achieved most of my goals that I created before service began. I think that the main reason that I was able to do this was because of the service sites that I worked at. The clean-up and winterization project were great in allowing me to get a look at the neighborhood in way that I would not have gotten to see otherwise. This also allowed me to see volunteers that were different than the ones that help out at the dinners. I think my primary service site was absolutely perfect for my goals and the overall point of the project. I was among many people that truly needed help and many other volunteers. Looking back, I don’t think I would change anything about my service. It has been a great experience and I am really glad to be a part of the honors program with this required class.

A Changing Community

The focus of this blog will be on the idea of communities. This discussion is extremely relevant to my ongoing service project as much of it has focused in the Washington Neighborhood. Many residents of the Washington Neighborhood are striving to transform the community into a much better place to live and raise families. However, this seems to be a continual ongoing process with no end in sight in the upcoming years. I believe that the people of the Washington Neighborhood are working as best as possible to improve their community, yet they are encountering the problems faced by any group that is attempting to transform an area. The only way in which a community can transform itself is to have every resident willing and able to help in the revitalization. This goal is nearly unachievable as there is almost a constant movement of people in and out of residencies in a neighborhood as large as the Washington Neighborhood. If there are any people in the community that do not care about improving the neighborhood and simply do nothing, then it will be nearly impossible for any goals or change to be achieved. Due to these reasons, change occurs gradually over time and cannot be obtained in relatively short periods of time.

I believe that my experience of helping to clean up the Washington Neighborhood for an entire Saturday morning allowed me to see some of the improvements that are being made and some that need to be made in the future for the revitalization to be complete. There were many homes that were in very good shape and it was obvious that the homeowners tried to keep them in working order. However, there were some properties that looked rundown and completely ignored. I know that the Washington Neighborhood has a policy of forcing residents to keep in the front of houses in good appearance as a way of trying to promote a better aesthetic look for the area. After walking through the alleys, it was obvious that many residents simply do not care what their houses look like and until that changes, the view of the neighborhood will not change. I can see that there are many residents that have taken an active role in attempting to promote change and have spent a lot of time to achieve the goals of the neighborhood. Unfortunately, until the push for change is taken up by every resident, the neighborhood will never fully reach its goals.

The narrator in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is able to bring about change within in Harlem by simply making sympathetic speeches to its citizens. The narrator is able to do this despite not being an extremely well known public figure at the beginning of his active life. Ralph Ellison is trying to tell his readers that the key to promoting change within a community is to unite the residents under one goal. This happens in Ellison’s book through a relatively unknown speaker that ignites the people to push for change. He is able to talk about issues that may not directly affect the people, but he is able to convince them that it is in their best interests to think and act in a particular manner. By being an unknown person, the people become willing to take action on their own rather than simply following a leader. If this type of person would reveal themselves in the Washington Neighborhood, there would be a much better chance that the community would change. A leader could act as a gathering point and ignite the majority of people to really strive for improvement in their community.

The Story of Others

Through the service that I am performing, I have a unique opportunity to be able to talk about the lives of the people in the Washington Neighborhood. This blog is essentially acting as a literary work about the people in the neighborhood that can be accessed by the outside public. I believe that my specific area of service allows for me to get an inside look at the lives of some of the people in Dubuque that are less fortunate than most. From what I have seen thus far, some of the struggles that these people are facing need to be told because many people in Dubuque are unaware that people with such problems exist in their city. I have seen many people attending the dinner week after week and they seem to really need the dinner to be able to survive. I know that a dinner is offered somewhere in Dubuque every night and I would guess that there are some people that attend each one. Residents of Dubuque need to be aware of these people that are in dire need as many would probably be willing to donate products or time to help members of their town to live in a little more comfort. Many of these people were attending the dinner even before the recent downturn in the economy which shows that the state of America has not been as prosperous as some would like to believe. In addition to the commonalities of the attendees of the dinner, there are dozens of personal stories that need to be told as well.

The personal stories of the patrons would be the main source that outsiders could really learn about the problems of the people. Reading about the experiences of others allows people to learn and increase their own knowledge which could help the readers in their own lives. Many people will hear the stories about the struggles of the patrons and decide that they should take action and help them out as much as possible. This type of action could not happen unless the citizens of Dubuque are aware of the problems within in their city. This type of situation has happened throughout history; once people become aware of a problem, they take action to try and solve the situation. This specific situation with the people of the Washington Neighborhood is no different and the best way for people to decide how to take action is by hearing about it from firsthand accounts.

Martha Nussbaum writes in her book, Cultivating Humanity, about the value of reading literature. Nussbaum argues that much of what people do and believe comes from how they interpret the things that they read. According to her, nearly everything can be interpreted in a different manner depending on the reader. She spends a large section of her discussion focusing on tragedies. I think this area of literature most connects to the lives of the people that attend the dinners as their lives are not what is seen as desirable by most people. Nussbaum says, “Tragedies acquaint the young citizen with the bad things that may happen in a human life, long before life itself does so.” I am sure that many of the patrons that attend the dinner are in that situation due to circumstances completely out of their control or just because of poor luck. Despite this fact, Nussbaum would still say that by reading about the personal stories of these people, people can learn how to avoid that situation as best as they can. The stories of the people that attend the free dinner need to be heard by the rest of Dubuque. By doing so, people will be more likely to offer their services. Life is unpredictable and any person could be in that situation of need at some point in their lifetime so hearing about the experiences of others will help them to survive in that situation.

Further Reflection

I am using this blog post to further reflect on my service work in the Washington Neighborhood. I have thus far completed 22.5 of my goal of 30 hours of service. I have volunteered at Saint Patrick’s Parish a total of five times thus far for a total of 13 hours. I plan on volunteering at the dinner another three times to complete my service hour requirement. In the three weeks since my last post about service, I have worked with three different groups that put on the dinner. The only time that I have worked with the same group of people was two weeks ago when the Saint Patrick’s people organized the dinner as they had during my first week. Despite the fact that this meal was organized by the same group of people, there were still volunteers that I had not previously worked with. My third dinner was run by a group of union workers. This was a very different experience than any other as it was the most organized out of the five thus far. I expected this to be the case as I thought that a group of people who were a part of a union would be very organized and that they would run the dinner in that same manner. The most recent dinner was organized by a group from Holy Family Catholic Schools. This group brought in prepared food as the group from St. Columkille had done during my second week. I think the best part about working with new groups each week is meeting and being able to talk to different people.

After having volunteered for five dinner thus far, I feel that I have a good sense of what tasks need to be performed and I have had to focus less time on figuring out what to do and this has enable me to spend more time noticing things about the people that attend the dinner. I first started to notice specific things two weeks ago when I had the duty of serving chicken nuggets to everyone. The meal is organized so that every person gets an initial serving of food and then they can go back up for seconds after everyone had been fed. A few people asked for extra food the first time through the line and I had to tell them that they could come up later for more. A few people were perfectly fine with hearing this news while others were visibly upset. One man even went as far as to come back through the line again and ask for a tray with just chicken nuggets. I have also noticed that while serving milk, people will come back up and ask for more milk and say that they did not receive any when they went through the line the first time. We knew that they received milk the first time through and are more than happy to give them more, but they feel as though they must lie in order to receive it. Last week while I was eating, they called for seconds and there was mad dash to get in line. We then observed some people taking that food and storing it in containers and leaving. There is supposed to be absolutely no carry-outs, but people do so anyway. The conclusions that I have drawn from this sort of behavior is that many of the people that attend the dinner feel as though they must lie or attempt to cheat the system in order to get enough food. We are more than willing to give everyone as much food as they want so no deception is needed. The people feel that they must be competitive in order to get what they want because that is what they have encountered throughout their lives and this does not change for them when they attend the meals. A small minority of the people will do anything to try and get ahead.

I have spent my other 9.5 hours of service working two Saturday mornings in and around the Washington neighborhood. The first 4 hours were as a part of the Washington Neighborhood clean-up in which I walked through the neighborhood picking up trash. The most noticeable thing that I saw was that there were very few people actually helping to clean-up the neighborhood. I know that there were some people that were working extremely hard, but I had just hoped to see more involvement from the people that lived in the area. I believe that walking through the alleys and many of the streets for an entire morning gave me a much better sense of what life is really like in the Washington Neighborhood. The second Saturday consisted of 5.5 hours of service as a part of the Dubuque winterizing challenge. This was a very organized service project with hundreds of volunteers where the main goal was to make the homes of Dubuque more energy efficient for the winter. I was a part of group that helped at three residencies where the people were of Hispanic heritage. I think this was actually a very good experience because it gave me a look into the lives of a sub-culture of people that live within the city of Dubuque. There was a language barrier in some cases, but that did not affect our duties of helping to prepare the houses for winter. The next time that I mention my service in this blog I will have completed my hourly requirement. I hope that I can use my last 7.5 hours to notice even more about the people that attend the dinners.

Learning about Catholicism

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I attend Loras College which is a Catholic Liberal Arts College. I have lived in this environment for over three years and taken a few classes that have focused on the Catholic Religion. I have often felt as though I haven’t learned much about Catholicism during my first three years at Loras. I have attended Catholic school since kindergarten and have taken classes in religion as far back as I can remember. In a sense, I have thought of Loras as an extension of high school as far as my education in Catholicism is concerned. However, I mentioned in a previous blog that after talking with fellow classmates about Loras, I realized certain details that I had not seen before. I think that talking to people who did not attend Catholic high schools about the Loras environment is what I have learned most about Catholicism while on campus. I had never been exposed to many Catholics who had attended public schools before entering Loras College and they have revealed many aspects of a Catholic education that I had not been aware of. My example about the Catholic aspect of teaching the sciences was something that I had not thought of and by talking to others I actually learned more about Catholicism on campus. I believe that I have actually learned more about other religions than I have about Catholicism at Loras. I took a Catholic Identity course entitled Priest, Minister, Rabbi two years ago. Much of what was discussed about Catholicism was familiar to me. However, the material on the comparison between Catholicism and Protestantism and Judaism was very new to me. I increased my knowledge on Catholicism by learning about two other religions.

I think that there is definitely something unique about attending a Catholic College versus a public university. I have to confess some ignorance on this subject as I have not spent a significant amount of time at a non-denominational university. I would assume that there is less openness surrounding religion at a public university and there is most likely not a campus ministry room in their main buildings. Students usually receive a few emails a week surrounding Catholic events on campus such as ones about daily or weekly Mass. I have also noticed the presence of crucifixes in some of the rooms of the science hall on campus which I know would not be present at a public school. There is also a difference between attending a Catholic college and a college affiliated with a different religion. Loras most likely has more in common with these private schools than public universities; but again, I have very little knowledge on other private institutions. I think that the most significant thing that is focused on at a Catholic college is the importance of being a part of a community. The Catholic Church focuses its teachings on a community rather than in an individualistic way. This is why Catholics stress the importance of attending Mass every week. Students are encouraged to attend events about their religion and one is usually offered at least once a week. Classes in which the main focus is the discussion about the Catholic religion are also held. These factors help to make students realize that they a part of community and that they should take an active role in it.

Our class recently read a book by Dorothy Day about the Catholic Worker Movement. I have to admit that I was completely ignorant of this movement and the fact that it still exists today. I did not even realize that there was a Catholic house here in Dubuque. However, after reading Day’s book, I got a much better sense on this particular service branch of the Catholic religion in the United States. I had a friend in high school that was not Catholic and I remember having many conversations about the differences between our two religions. Some of the discussions focused on the differences in ministry services that religion performs. I had to agree with him that at the current time I felt that Protestants were more involved with spreading their ministry than Catholics were. However, after learning about the Catholic Worker houses still in this country, my perception has changed. If I would have known about this book while still in high school then I would have been able to have a much more in-depth and worthwhile discussion with him. Overall, I am glad to have attended a Catholic college and can’t see myself at a public university or a college of some other denomination.

Politics

With the presidential election just a few weeks away, it is a great opportunity to analyze politics and its involvement in my service experience. What exactly does the word politics mean? I know that when I initially hear the word politics used, I think of the differences between Democrats and Republicans and what their stances are on important topics. Many people would say that politics are contained within the capitals of states or large cities with Washington D.C. being the focal point in this country. In reality, politics are everywhere. The governments of even the smallest communities make decisions that affect its constituents and that is what politics is. Politics in my opinion is when people make decisions in the attempt to help the majority and the greater good. This definition can then be extended to include any group that comes together that makes a decision. Politics are important in businesses, schools, and even religious organizations. The politics of organizations determine how they are run and also how they are perceived by outside observers.

I have seen varying effects of politics thus far during my service at St. Patrick’s Church. Both types of politics that I mentioned previously are present. The most notable influence of politics that I have seen is how the community dinners have been organized and run. I believe that I am in somewhat of a unique circumstance in that different people organize the dinner each week. This has given me a great perspective on how different organizations put on the meal. The first two weeks were organized by church groups and were run in a very similar manner. A couple of people were present at both and were looked at as leaders by all of the other volunteers. These people did not have to state their claim as leaders, but were simply looked at as in charge by everyone. As a new volunteer, I have taken a follower’s role at all three dinners that I have participated in and that is where I am expected to be by all of the other people. A group of union workers organized the dinner this past week and they did so in a planned out manner. It has been very interesting to see the differences each week, but there always seems to be an implied leader that delegates tasks and answers any questions. It will be interesting to see if Russ, Regan, or I become included in any decision making conversations after we have volunteered a few more times and know essentially what needs to be done at specific times.

In addition to the politics of running the dinner, there has also been a lot of talk surrounding the upcoming presidential election by the people that attend the dinner. I have yet to get directly involved in any conversations about the nominees, but I have heard many heated discussions with people making their case for the candidate that they support. These discussions show the importance of the election to every person in society. People that struggle to find a steady source of food are still concerned about the election and who the next president will be. These events that I have observed have convinced me that the democratic system of the United States is still a success after over 200 years in existence.

The importance of politics in community is discussed in Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man which the service learning class is reading. The one thing that I have noticed in the book is the presence of a clear leader in each organization that is highlighted. The university that the narrator attends is headed by Dr. Bledsoe. Dr. Bledsoe takes pride on maintaining complete control of the institution and even brags about his deception of weakness to the regents of the school. The two men that the narrator report to at the paint factory also must maintain complete control of the workers under them. The narrator meets a similar situation with the leader of the union at the factory who has more say in situations than the other workers. The narrator always comes into conflict with these types of leaders which means that Ralph Ellison most likely condemns the politics of organizations that are run in this manner. The narrator ends each encounter with these men with a feeling of hatred and anger. If the reader assumes that Ellison is making arguments through the narrator then he most likely feels the same way. The politics of organizations can be very different with some being a great success while others are complete failures. The key is to find which way of leadership works best for each particular situation.

First Service Experiences

It has been two weeks since I last posted and in that time I have started my service project that I will continue until the end of the semester. As I said in my previous post, I am volunteering at St. Patrick’s Church every Wednesday from 3:45 until 6:15. I am performing my service in the basement of the church where a community dinner is held. This dinner is free to the community and any one is allowed to come and eat the food that is prepared by various volunteers. Different members and organizations take the responsibility of preparing and serving food every week. I think this will be a strong advantage for me during my service experience as it will allow me to work with many different people. When I first arrive at the kitchen, I have helped prepare food during my first two service days. This is followed by helping to set up the food and other items in preparation for serving which begins at 5:00. The first week I served ice cream and the second week I distributed water to the people. When the serving is completed, I help to clean up the dining area and kitchen while people eat their food and depart.

So far, this experience has been somewhat of an eye opening experience for me. I immediately noticed a schedule on the door to the kitchen with the locations of free dinners that are offered somewhere in Dubuque every day of the week. I was not aware that a dinner was needed by the people of the community every day. I knew that there were people that lived in Dubuque that were poor, but I did not know that there were people in need of a free meal everyday in order to survive. I saw many of the same faces at both meals that I provided service, but also some new faces at the dinner this week. While talking to some of the other volunteers, I learned that the number of people that attend the dinners increase as the month progresses. Welfare checks and food stamps are distributed at the beginning of the month, so people must rely on free donations at the end of the month. The first dinner was the first Wednesday of the month and I saw an increase of about 10-20 people at the second dinner. I expect that the number will continue to increase for the next three weeks.

One of the things that I have noticed so far at the dinners is the wide range of people that come to get a warm meal. People often have a stereotypical view on what people in need look like. From my personal experience, I often saw old men as those people who had to really on soup kitchens to eat. My view changed extremely rapidly after just a few minutes. I have seen people of all ages and races at the dinners and nearly equal numbers of men and women. I have noticed that roughly 20 percent of the people are children under the age of 15 which was very surprising for me. I have even seen people that are my own age is which makes me very thankful for the life that I have lived so far and that I am fortunate enough to not be in that type of situation. The majority of the people are very courteous and thankful for the volunteers that serve them. Some arrive over an hour before the meal and visit with one another before they can eat. I look forward to the next two months of service and hope to continue to learn about the volunteers and the people of the community.

Life in a Catholic College

Loras College is a four-year, Catholic Liberal Arts College. With a Catholic designation, many of the courses and activities are geared towards the Catholic faith and affect what students will take away from their four years. As a graduating senior in May of 2009, how I will act and think has been influenced by the Catholic faith on campus. The Catholic religion promotes a sense of community and reverence which many students will also take with them as they leave.

As a Catholic institution, there are many different courses that are offered about religion and ethics. A course on Catholicism is required in either their first or second year which offers a comparison between the Catholic religion and others. This course gives new students a perspective on what the college stands for and a chance to reflect on how they can be successful at a Catholic college. There is also an option to take a required ethics course with a focus on Catholic teachings. In addition to these required courses that are offered, there are also Masses in the chapel on campus and a campus ministry that students can participate in if they choose to do so. All of these options on campus allow for students to embrace the Catholic ideas on how people should live their lives. Students can learn that to live a Catholic life, they must take an active part in society and treat others as they wish to be treated. A college campus that does not offer courses in Catholicism or Catholic activities would not develop students that are taught to try and be active in their communities to the extent that Loras does. Catholic dogma stresses the importance of living and praying in a community and the environment of Loras College allows these significant aspects to be spread on to many students and lead to an overall betterment of society.

The strong Catholic influence that can be felt on campus also has a tendency to inhibit students in some areas that affect how they are prepared to live in society after graduation. As a private institution, the college can choose to invite speakers that wish to or limit the exposure of certain ideas to the students. Many of the speakers that are brought to campus do not talk about controversial issues within the Catholic Church. During my four years of attending Loras, I do not recall a person coming and talking about the pro-sides of abortion or contraception. There is very little mentioned on these issues outside of the classroom setting so students don’t become as educated on these controversial issues as they might in a public school environment. Some campus groups are also denied funding from Catholic groups due to what they work for or believe in. Even if the group works for something that is good for people and society, but some of the money may go to an area that is against Catholic teaching; funding is denied. I believe that the positives should be weighed against the negatives instead of a decision based solely on one small aspect.

At first thought, I did not see much influence of the Catholic environment on the science department where I take the majority of classes. However; after talking to a classmate on the issue, I have realized that the department is greatly affected by existing in a Catholic environment. In the chemistry department, students must complete a thesis project before graduation. However, a panel consisting of Catholic members of the college must approve any research before it can be performed. Topics such as evolution and birth control also must be taught carefully by professors. I think the main reason why I did not see these things right away is because I have only attended Catholic schools and I have not been exposed to a school that teaches solely about science. I have always personally compared Loras to ultra-conservative schools which has blocked my realization about the impact of Catholicism on the teaching of science. The fact that Loras is a Catholic college both helps and inhibits students after they leave and enter the real world. Overall, I would say that the positives and negatives cancel each other out and make Loras similar to a public school.

I will be performing the majority of my service at Saint Patrick's Catholic Church. Saint Patrick's organizes a weekly meal for the congregation every Wednesday and I will be helping to set-up, serve, and clean up for the meal. One of my main goals for this service project will be to interact with the people that I am working with as well as the people that attend the meal. In addition to working at Saint Patrick's every Wednesday, I will also be spending consecutive Saturdays in October helping clean up the Washington Neighborhood as well as helping to winterize homes. These two areas of service contrast each other well as I will be in a closed environment for one and out in the neighborhood for the other. I am looking forward to starting service in the coming week and continue it throughout the rest of the semester.

Beyond Loras College

I will be graduating from Loras College this coming May. I will have earned a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in Biochemistry. I; like many of my other classmates, will not be heading directly into an occupation, but instead will enter into a graduate school to further my education. I plan on entering into a medical or osteopathic school where I will not be offering many of the things that I have learned at Loras College to others immediately. Instead, I will be expanding on what I have learned in the previous four years so that I will be able to offer even more valuable knowledge and experiences onto people in society. However, there are some things that I have learned at Loras which are unique and that I will be able to use to help others immediately after graduation from college and also medical school. Many of the classes that I will take in graduate school will focus solely on the body and its medical aspect. The liberal arts education that I will have for the rest of my life due to Loras College will enable me to better understand patients and people than a background composed solely of science courses. A moderately extensive knowledge in the humanities will hopefully allow me to better understand patients and enable me to effectively assess their needs and treat them.

There will be many different social issues that I will face in graduate school and in my career after entering the professional world. My first two years of medical school will be contained in the classroom setting, but the final two years will be completed in various hospitals. This environment will be similar to what I will be working in during residency and throughout the rest of my life. I will be helping patients from many different backgrounds and lifestyles. Many people that I meet will be completely unlike anyone whom I have met before and I will be forced to learn to interact with their uniqueness. I have lived in Iowa my entire life and if I move to another state or city to practice medicine then I will be unaware of local customs and will be forced to assimilate to a foreign way of life.

Despite the possibility of meeting people unlike anyone whom I have encountered before or living in an unknown city, I feel as though I am prepared to survive those challenges. I attended a small Catholic high school in Fort Madison, Iowa and was not exposed to many people of different backgrounds or lifestyles. Loras College is by no means a large school, but I feel as though I have met many different types of people that I could not have met in my hometown. I expect that I will continue to broaden my horizons in medical school and residency and will be prepared to be a doctor that can interact with any person by the time my career officially starts. I have often heard of physicians that have no ability to interact with patients and I will strive to be different from them. I feel that to be successful, a good doctor-patient relationship is vital. I am aware that I am currently not fully prepared to achieve these goals, but I have been making progress every year while I have been at Loras and this service experience will help in my progression.

Many of these social issues that I am sure that I will face as a doctor were experience by the narrator in The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. As I stated in previous paragraphs, the most noticeable issue that I will face in the future is the possibility of dealing with people from backgrounds that are different from my own. The narrator faced a similar predicament when arriving in New York City to look for a job. He had grown up as an African-American in the South when the Jim Crow Laws were in wide use. Upon arriving in New York where racial equality had a much better chance of occurring than any other place that he had previously been, he entered into a state of shock at the prospect of Caucasians and African-Americans living in harmony. The narrator was not at all prepared to deal with this situation and he was extremely confused by it. However, he was able to adapt quickly to the “improved” conditions. At first glance, it was hard for me to find any similarities between the narrator’s experiences and mine that I will encounter in the near future. However, I was easily able to find connections once I realized that I could one day be living in a “foreign” area as the narrator did.

Advantages of a Liberal Arts Education

As I mentioned in my initial post for this blog, I attend Loras College in Dubuque, IA. Loras is a four year liberal arts college. When I arrived at Loras College in the fall of 2005, I had very little idea about what it meant for the school to be classified as a liberal arts college. After over three years of attending Loras, I feel as though I have a clear idea about what it means to graduate from a liberal arts college. An institution that promotes a liberal arts education is focused on providing students with well-rounded knowledge. Large universities and trade schools often allow students to focus on only one discipline without taking courses in other areas. Liberal arts institutions allow students to broaden their horizons and take classes that will also help them in their areas of interest. I believe that the most common areas that the liberal arts focus on are the humanities and social sciences. These areas of studies promote the understanding of people and their history which is vital for any area of study.

The liberal arts are also important to the world outside of college. When many people enter the workforce and remain in the same position for many years they tend to lose knowledge about other things. People become experts in a small field while forgetting about others. A liberal arts perspective would say that it would be essential to maintain knowledge about general topics in addition to focusing on a given field. This would allow people to have commonalities with a large portion of the population and would also help them in their career or personally. Many people that have the ability to talk about a wide range of topics can relate well to others and are more likely to advance in their careers than someone who is so focused on a specific topic that they are unable to effectively communicate. Having a large background in general areas of interest also can add an outside perspective to ideas and help in assessing their feasibility or effectiveness.

Martha Nussbaum’s book; Cultivating Humanity, promotes the use of a liberal arts education in colleges today. Nussbaum bases nearly all of her arguments on the teachings of Socrates and his views on education. She believes that it is important for a liberal arts view on the world even outside of a college setting. “We have not produced truly free citizens in the Socratic sense unless we have produced people who can reason for themselves and argue well, who understand the difference between a logically valid and a logically invalid argument, who can distinguish between the logical form of an argument and the truth of its premises” (Nussbaum 35). This evidence shows that Nussbaum believes that for a person to be able to succeed in the world they must be able to understand concepts that are taught through a liberal arts education. Nussbaum argues that the most important concept that can be drawn from a liberal arts education and used in the world is logical analysis. This argument is based on the need to question life and not blindly follow instructions or advice that may not be in a person’s best interests. This holds true in the classroom setting where Nussbaum promotes the idea that students should constantly be questioning professors and never accept what they say as always being the truth.

Nussbaum admits that there are challenges to this Socratic way of teaching that she strongly promotes. She argues that there are two challenges to this promotion of student questioning. One is the conservative opposition. “This argument suspects that Socrates’ dedication to argument will subvert traditional values” (Nussbaum 37). People that make this argument would be in favor of a system where students don’t question professors. Often times these types of people are involved in religious affairs where questioning is often frowned upon. The second challenge comes from people who believe that not everyone is capable of logical thinking. This often includes women and minorities. Nussbaum believes that anyone is capable of logical thinking and can excel in the Socratic Method.

How does all of this talk on liberal arts and Socratic teaching connect to the service learning that I will be performing? I believe that a solid background in courses of the humanities and the social sciences will allow me to better connect to people. Learning about the people of the past and how they thought and interacted will allow me to understand what the needs of people that I will be helping are today. People have had the same basic needs throughout known history and by learning about those needs at a liberal arts college I will be able to apply what I have learned in my service works.

Wisdom Connection

The purpose of this post is to examine what wisdom is as I attempt to connect its definition to the service learning that I will be performing this fall. Every person has an idea about what the word wisdom means, but many people do not know what the definition truly is. The fact is, the definition of wisdom is so broad that it is unique to every individual. The prevailing idea of what a wise person looks like is an elderly man or woman who has experienced many things in his or her lifetime and is willing to share knowledge or recommendations to younger generations. In reality, wisdom is not contained to the elderly or experienced members of society. Every person possesses wisdom, even in the simplest form. Wisdom is the state of having knowledge or experiences and then applying them to everyday life. This definition allows every person in society regardless of age to possess wisdom. Wisdom is all around us in society today. By simply observing a single person or a community as a whole, we can increase our knowledge.

I have experienced over three years of classroom learning at Loras College, but I would not consider myself a wise man. I feel as though the breadth of my knowledge has increased since my first college experience in my MOI class. My MOI class was centered on the topic of Socrates and his trial and death. Much of the class focused on what the definition of justice really was and what it meant to be a wise person. I remember entering the class and not knowing what to expect from a college course and being unprepared for the complexity of the material. Answering questions in class was done just to be able to finish the course and I forgot much of the material soon afterwards. I did not possess the concept of reading material to understand and instead simply read to say that I had finished assignments. I read Plato’s “The Apology of Socrates” in that first college class and only remember that it was centered on Socrates’ trial and sentencing to death. At that early stage in my college career, I was unable to understand many of the concepts that Plato was trying to portray. Class discussions were filled with confusion as I was amazed at what other students were able to pull from the readings when I was barely able to understand the basic plot. After three years, I believe I have learned to look at the deeper meanings within literature and understand why works were written. Many of the honors classes that I have taken between these two classes have taught me to understand why authors wrote certain works throughout history and the overall message that they were trying to express. From this second reading I was able to pull from Socrates’ comments that the idea of wisdom was the main focus of the work. Socrates was considered by many to be the wisest man in society, yet he considered himself not to be wise. Socrates understood that men were inherently not as wise as they thought themselves to be and thus they were unable to utilize much of the wisdom that they did possess. I believe that the main argument to be taken from “The Apology of Socrates” is that wisdom is possessed by every person, but can only be considered wisdom if the person does not realize that they are being wise.

All of this discussion on wisdom connects to the service that I will be performing in the Washington Neighborhood. I will be spreading the knowledge that I have gained at Loras College onto others. I will also be gaining knowledge from the people I will be working with because they will be spreading their wisdom onto me. I will not only have the chance to apply what I have learned while completing my undergraduate degree; I will also be gaining knowledge that I would have never gained if I was contained in a classroom environment. The intake of knowledge from the experiences of others is a constant process in all societies and a main reason for the betterment of cultures and countries that is continually taking place.

Introduction to Service Learning

Hello, and thanks for reading. This blog has been set-up to follow my experiences while performing service in the Washington Neighborhood in Dubuque, Iowa. I am a senior honors student at Loras College in Dubuque and originally from Fort Madison, Iowa. Service has been apart of my life from an early age and will continue during the service performed this fall semester. My first exposure to the idea of service in the community occurred when I was around the age of 10 with my grandfather. I would accompany him while he volunteered at the local food pantry and delivering meals on wheels. I was at an age where I had a simple idea of what service was and that it helped people. I continued my exploration of what service was into high school and college by joining the local chapter of the Knights of Columbus and volunteering my time while participating in the events designed to help the community. This past summer I also began to volunteer my time at the long-term residency center for the Great River Medical Center in Burlington, Iowa. I spent my free time traveling there and helping the residents in organized games or delivering snacks and drinks on designated nights. I have learned throughout my service experiences that volunteering can take many shapes, but the commonality is always the presence of the goal to help others.

Loras College has provided me with a liberal arts education that has helped prepare me to be successful in life. Courses in the humanities and social sciences are highlighted in the curriculum with the hope that knowledge in these areas will help to prepare students in relating to people after completion of a degree. Many of the general education courses that I have taken while attending Loras have dealt with the examination of people and societies. Many of the courses have focused on how people think and interact in different societies throughout the known history of man. Understanding how the people of cultures have thought in the past and realizing the similarities in today's society will help me to develop close relationships with people that I meet during the course of everyday life. I believe this course will help to connect what I have learned in the classroom to what people actually need and believe in real life. I hope this course will allow me to identify a need in a community and then develop my service skills to help fulfill that need. I am sure that I will enjoy helping others throughout the next three months and I am looking forward to taking a closer look at specific areas that are in need of service within the Washington Neighborhood.

In preparation for my service experience, I explored the Washington Neighborhood with Russ. My first initial thoughts of the neighborhood was that it looked very familiar to how other river towns in Iowa look. The Washington Neighborhood is in the older part of town near the river and seems to be filled with historic looking Victorian homes. I come from a Mississippi River town and there are many commonalities in appearance with the Washington Neighborhood. The old part of town in Fort Madison is full of the large brick houses and small lots that I noticed in Dubuque. The most noticeable aspect of the community was the amount of churches and ongoing improvements that I noticed. There were at least five people either sitting outside on the porches or walking on the sidewalk at each block while I made my observational trip. Russ and I made our trip just as school was dismissing so we saw many young families walking throughout the neighborhood. The neighborhood seemed very diverse as we encountered people from many different backgrounds. Very few of the buildings looked run down or in poor condition. In fact, there were quite a few instances where construction was being performed to improve structures. The overall impression I got from my exploration was that the Washington Neighborhood is a community that is trying to improve itself and I am looking forward to volunteering my time and helping them reach their goals.