Since its inception the Faith & Work Initiative has helped Millsaps faculty develop and implement service-learning projects for their academic courses. These projects deepen student engagement with course materials while helping them connect their classroom learning and intellectual skills with needs and challenges in the local community. Read about five such projects below...

Katrina, the Red Cross, and Millsaps Computer Science Students

With so many evacuees coming to shelters in the metropolitan Jackson area in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, locating them had become chaotic. Workers could track them only manually, fumbling through hundreds of handwritten cards. Therefore, Volunteers Thad and Sandra McLaurin devised a plan that would expedite this system. They contacted Millsaps officials for permission to use the computer lab in Sullivan-Harrell to input data.

"We had many people who were trying to find family members and friends who had been evacuated to the Jackson area," said Sandra McLaurin, a former executive-in-residence of the Else School of Management. "No method was in place to determine which of the 10 or so shelters had received these evacuees."

So the McLaurins got busy. Sandra McLaurin knew the resources that were available at Millsaps-specifically, the numerous computer systems located in computer labs. And with the help of staff members and students, a database containing the names and addresses of all evacuees to the Jackson area from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast was created. Next, workers created additional databases: one that listed all 911 calls made to the area and another that listed all volunteers who were working in locations ranging from Richland to Ridgeland.

When classes were resumed after Katrina, Dr. Don Schwartz, chair of the computer science department, created a service-learning course in advanced database. "Students designed and implemented a web-based application for organizing and managing the information about the volunteers," Schwartz said. "Through this system, volunteers could register, list their skills, and specify those time periods during which they could work." This allowed volunteers' skills to be matched with Red Cross needs.

"Initially, the most critical task was to create a template for volunteers to follow that allowed input of all the information," said Jeanne Bodron, coordinator of user services for the Department of Computer Services. "We have entered the names of hundreds of missing persons, coding the state of each person's health. This information is uploaded to the Coast Guard secure web area, which initiates the organization for search and rescue efforts."

Kristine Kinsella, B.S. 2005, the wife of Head Softball Coach Joe Kinsella, has logged several hours a day at the computer lab, alphabetizing shelter data and entering 911 calls for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency. Senior Adam Huffman of Philadelphia, Mississippi, and junior Andrew Harris of Hattiesburg worked diligently with Bodron and Raymond Heatherly, B.S. 2004, M.B.A. 2005, of Jackson, student computing manager, to launch the project. More than 3,000 names had been entered by September 5.
Huffman and fellow senior Johnathan Spencer decided to continue working on the Red Cross Volunteer Database System as part of their Senior Project required for graduation. As a component of the project, they have built a server computer and installed all of the necessary software to host and run the Database System created for the Red Cross. Basically, this means that all that should be required to host the system is an internet connection and maybe some adjustments to the configuration settings. Huffman and Spencer presented the computer system to the American Red Cross at the Jackson location on April 26th.
The project is not only receiving acclaim locally. Spencer, Huffman, and Schwartz will be presenting a paper describing this project at the 2006 International Conference on Software Engineering Research and Practice. The conference is part of the 2006 World Congress in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Applied Computing (WORLDCOMP'06), and the largest annual gathering of researchers in computer science, computer engineering and applied computing. In addition to giving Professor Don Schwartz some initial monetary incentive and project support, the Faith & Work Initiative is providing travel funds for both him and his students to present their project at an international conference.
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Ripe for Learning: Millsaps Mobile ‘Maters

Who: a small group of Millsaps advanced art students and the North Midtown community

What: a conceptual art project designed to embellish, renew, and grow ideas and people

Where: throughout the North Midtown neighborhood adjacent to Millsaps College

When: during the spring tomato growing season and beyond

Why: because tomatoes are delicious and beautiful, and growing them is fun and rewarding!

Students in Professor Michelle Acuff’s Advanced Studio Art course created an intriguing public art project this past spring. Partnering with the Faith & Work Initiative’s new 1 Campus, 1 Community project, students studied the North Midtown neighborhood in search of ideas for a public art project. On one of their walks through the neighborhood, students noticed an abandoned lot littered with stacks and stacks of large plastic bins. The students’ creative energies kicked into gear, and before long they had cleaned, painted, and wheel-fitted eighteen of the bins. Dozens of bags of potting soil and baby tomato plants later, they had a fleet of mobile tomato gardens—small tomato plots that could be wheeled home and moved to wherever the sun shone the longest in one’s North Midtown yard. The Millsaps Mobile ‘Maters were given to children in the after school program at the North Midtown Community Development Corporation. The event was marked with a Mobile ‘Maters parade and delicious tomatoes for all. “Overall,” says Professor Acuff, “we think our project functions on so many different levels: aesthetically, environmentally, nutritionally, playfully, and in terms of social justice. It was really fun to work on, and I am especially glad I got to do something in Mid-town.” Click here to view pictures.
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Making it Real

by Dr. Laura Franey

Service-learning has been a great addition to Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies, a class I teach every spring to a diverse cross-section of students ranging from freshmen to seniors and representing nearly every major. In the past three years, the students have participated in service-learning projects with area day-care centers and after-school programs, senior citizen services, charitable organizations, and childhood literacy initiatives. This past spring semester (2006) was extra special, I think, because it was the first time we paired with the Barksdale Reading Institute to place Women's and Gender Studies students in local public elementary school classrooms to read with children. Those who chose to work with the Institute just couldn't stop talking about how much they enjoyed picking out books for the kids to read and how much they bonded with the kids during their weekly sessions. As part of their experience, the students wrote essays in which they explored how applicable the theories and statistics regarding the operation of gender in the "real world" of education seemed to be in the schools they became a part of. For instance, they mentioned how they would carefully watch interactions between school personnel (such as teachers and librarians) and children of different genders to see if there were differences in treatment; they analyzed their own interactions with boys and girls; and they contemplated the kinds of books that boys and girls found interesting to read and the ways in which books were often "packaged" to appeal more to one gender than to another. But even more important than this kind of academic examination of their service-learning experiences was the simple fact that they met people involved in education in Jackson and met kids who live and go to school not too far from Millsaps. The vast majority of the students, not just those involved in the Barksdale Reading Institute, reported a great deal of satisfaction from their service-learning experiences. Though a few students did not take full advantage of this opportunity afforded them, I think all of them benefited in some way from having to stretch away from their own needs and desires and venture outside their sometimes too-closely delimited comfort zone in order to learn about how distinctions of gender, class and race can play out in other environments besides the college they currently attend.
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Teaching to Learn: Spanish Students Volunteer at St. Richard’s Elementary

In the fall and spring semesters of 2006 and 2007, students in Professor Robert Kahn’s Spanish classes had the opportunity to share their skills in Spanish with elementary school students at Saint Richard’s Elementary School in Jackson. Not only did the Millsaps students teach basic elementary Spanish appropriate for the elementary age group, but each one had to prepare and deliver a comprehensive report dealing with a Spanish-speaking country of their choice. The countries they selected were Cuba, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Mexico. To enliven their presentation they each made posters, played music, and showed various forms of art work. Millsaps students were not only able to enrich the learning process of these children through this interchange, but they also increased their own language skills by teaching. Moreover, they obtained a deeper understanding of the countries previously mentioned through the research needed for their oral presentation.

Millsaps Student Kaycee Wright mirrored the feelings of most of her peers when she said, “I really enjoyed going to St. Richard’s and helping with the Spanish class. The children were very eager and open minded about learning a new language, which made helping with the lessons a most enjoyable experience.” The host teacher at the school, Janet Trahan, was also quite enthusiastic about the program: “At first, I didn’t know what to expect or what I would have the Millsaps students do. But, as it turned out, they were a blessing! They all were of great help and assistance to me.” Ms. Trahan was particularly pleased with the presentations the Millsaps students gave on a Hispanic country. She noted, “My 5th and 6th graders as well as I enjoyed the presentations. The Millsaps students did not rush through them; they knew their information.”
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I Can Learn!

On Thursday, April 26, students from Dr. Don Schwartz’s Software Engineering class traveled to St. Richard Catholic School in northeast Jackson to install and test I Can Learn!, which the Millsaps class designed specifically for pre-K students at St. Richard.

Mrs. Shelia Foggo, who teaches computer classes to all grade levels at St. Richard, said she was especially grateful for the software because “everything that is [currently] available is not for this young an age.” Because pre-K students are not yet able to read, their software has to be audio-based so that they can understand and participate. Mrs. Foggo worked with Dr. Schwartz and the class to tailor the software specifically to her students’ needs and specifications. Because of the success of this project, Millsaps plans to make this software package available free of charge to all area school that would like to incorporate it into their classrooms and labs.

I Can Learn! includes games and activities to help students identify and learn letters, numbers, colors and shapes. As students become more proficient in the activities, I Can Learn! increases in difficulty and allows the teacher to track each student’s progress. For more advanced students, the software also begins to teach and test the spellings of the colors and shapes that students have already learned. There is also a catching game, which improves hand-eye coordination.

The partnership between Mrs. Foggo’s and Dr. Schwartz’s classes is part of the Faith & Work Initiative’s service learning program, which, according to its website, seeks to “help students make connections between their academic development and their character development; put differently, it helps them bridge the gap between academic affairs and student affairs, offering them a holistic model of human development.”
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Fund for Theological Education
by Chris Spear

Today’s college culture is not one notable for its patience.

Students today are always on the run, always going somewhere, always doing something – we’re known for our energy drinks, instant messaging, power naps. We’re often so busy, we don’t have the time to eat, much less sit back and reflect leisurely on our lives. There is a reason 30-second microwavable macaroni and cheese is popular among college students.

FTE Fellowship recipients for 2006: Chris Spear (above), John Kellogg (below)

So my attendance at the Fund for Theological Education’s Conference on Ministry this summer was quite a switch. It was a sudden change of pace, a forced slowdown in the middle of a very busy summer. And yet, somehow, by the end of the time I didn’t yet want to return to Millsaps. The Fund had put on an outstanding conference, no question, but I couldn’t quite fit it into the big picture yet. There was something I still needed to consider, a conclusion I couldn’t quite articulate. Only in retrospect, remembering both the social and the personal revelations of the week, did I understand the lessons of quiet patience God had been conveying through my time at the FTE conference.

The Fund gathered its award recipients (my 70 fellow undergraduates, plus about 40 or so Ministry and Congregational Fellows already in the seminary or beyond) for a week at Austin Presbyterian Seminary, just across the street from the sprawling University of Texas. There, we attended an extensive series of lectures, workshops, seminars, and small-group sessions in pursuit of the conference theme, “The Promise of Ministry.” Afterwards, the non-profit Fund provided each conference Fellow with a stipend to support his or her continuing exploration of the ministry as a calling.

The Fund had selected its Undergraduate Fellows from colleges across America, from every imaginable Christian tradition. And yet, we all quickly developed a sense of kinship as we found common ground: we were all rising juniors or seniors, all from the same kind of intimate small-college environment, and all imbued with a sense of ministerial calling strong enough for us to apply for the resources of the Fund to continue our active discernment. I felt an immediate sense of welcome from these people, complete strangers and yet willing to share with me a full week of their summer vacation, dedicated to finding out what we should do with our lives.
I discovered our unexpected kinship, however, when I realized that every single one of us was eager to discuss faith and religion in a completely open, completely non-judgemental way. Naturally, I’d seen such dialogue before, at retreats within my own denomination. But with this many different faiths? It didn’t seem possible.
Yet we somehow managed to explore each other’s traditions, almost by serendipity rather than design. I roomed that week with a great guy named Tim, a Mennonite from Indiana, who taught me much more than I ever suspected I would about the history of his faith and the surprising connections between his church and mine. We talked for hours that first night, interested in how our faith traditions had subtly influenced our perspectives on the conference. Not once did either of us become apathetic or defensive about this most sensitive of conversational subjects.

And yet, in the midst of so many new social experiences, there was something definitively and paradoxically personal about my week as a guest of the Fund. Maybe it was the sense of freedom I felt from the conference directors, as they gave me the ability to attend the workshops of my choice. After all, where else could I discuss the connections of theology and the arts one day, and learn about pastoral care in one of Austin’s largest hospitals the next?

Maybe it was the multicultural Worship sessions that began each morning and capped each evening, exposing the parochial faithful like myself—who’d never really bothered learning the rich histories of denominations beyond my own—to colorful traditions I’d never before witnessed. Everything from traditional Jamaican hymns to a Taizé worship service unfurled before me in the seminary’s tiny Gothic chapel.
Most likely, though, it was deep thoughts and quiet spaces that FTE provided, and then left to my care. Because, in the end, that was what “The Promise of Ministry” was all about. To my fellow undergraduates and I, the conference provided the one thing college students so desperately need but almost never achieve: a quiet space, alone with God’s voice. A space to breathe, to think, a quiet space carved in my busy college-student schedule to fly to Austin and reflect on my life’s vocation for a full five days. Like Millsaps and the Faith and Work Initiative itself, the FTE program forces no kind of spirituality nor mindset on its Fellows. Instead, the Fund provided me with the gifts I need to truly follow God’s clarion call in my life—reflection, discussion, finances—and then stepped back to let me choose my own path.

Looking back at the conference, I’m reminded of a reflection expressed last year by Millsaps’ esteemed Dr. Fortenberry at the conclusion of our Faith & Work mission trip to San Francisco. Events like these, he said, are layers in our larger experience; memories that become some fraction of who we are. Sometimes these events affect us in ways we can clearly feel, and in other times they affect us in ways that slip beneath our subconscious, imperceptible but still very much alive. But however they affect us, they remain vital steps in the discovery of who we are and who God made us to be. Separate, these events are tiny incandescences. Yet together, they brilliantly illuminate the path of vocation that has been set before us.

I try to keep that gentle revelation, and my other experiences in Austin, focused in my mind as I step back into the full-tilt environment of my final year at Millsaps.
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After a one year hiatus due to Hurricane Katrina relief and recovery, a group of Millsaps students returned to the Mississippi Delta for a spring break service trip. “Delta Delivery” is an annual trip that was started in 2002 by a student (Katie Hardy ’03) who picked up a magazine in her dentist’s office and found an article about the Mississippi Delta. It convinced her that mission opportunities are available right here at home and she organized a trip that included a delivery of basic necessities for people in the Delta. The name “Delta Delivery” stuck and the trip has become an annual spring break trek.

Sophomore Darrington Lancaster and junior John Kellogg organized this year’s trip which was co-sponsored by the Faith & Work Initiative and the Campus Ministry Team. The Wesley Foundation at Delta State University in Cleveland graciously offered the group accommodations. The service work was concentrated in Ruleville, MS, the home of Fannie Lou Hamer. The group spent a day helping to construct a fence at the Fannie Lou Hamer Memorial Garden where she is buried with her husband. “It was an honor to serve here” said Raymond Clothier, the Associate Director of the Faith & Work Initiative, “this is sacred ground for me and for many who have known the unique combination of compassion and cruelty that has been found in this state.”

On Sunday, the group enjoyed a warm welcome at Mallalieu United Methodist Church. “The only way I can describe what it feels like to be in this church,” said John Kellogg, “is that I feel like I belong.” The group spent Sunday afternoon in Memphis at the National Civil Rights Museum. Before returning to campus on Monday, students played games and led art activities at the Ruleville Health Care Center. Plenty of fried catfish and blues music at the Ground Zero Café in Clarksdale rounded out the experience. Though the trip was brief, connections were made that increased understanding and fueled a desire to serve.
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