Volunteering at Yale: labor of love or fruitless effort

By Lise Clavel

As shopping period ends and the search for the quickest way to get from WLH to Street Hall begins, Yalies may find themselves memorizing the slogans of the many enticing posters that paper the way in and out of classroom buildings. From "We need your help!" to "Don't trade away our health!" the signs represent only a few of the overwhelming opportunities for community service and student activism at Yale. As the numerous rallying cries for student participation blur together in confusion, one question arises: is there a method to all this madness?

Inside the control room

The short answer is yes. Follow any of the dizzying array of clever acronyms, and eventually it will lead to Dwight Hall, Yale's umbrella organization for public service and social justice. Dwight Hall was first established as a means of educating the Yale community about the issues concerning its immediate environment, and, 125 years after it was created, the program has expanded to include over 70 member groups that serve in and around New Haven.

A core of about 10 students—the Executive Committee (ExComm)—and a paid, full-time staff are from the backbone of Dwight Hall. ExComm monitors the progress of member groups as well as associate groups, such as the cultural houses. It allocates funds to groups and rules on applications by potential new groups.

ExComm and the Dwight Hall Student Cabinet—comprised of program coordinators from member organizations—manage the immensely difficult task of consolidating the social consciousness of the University into a focused center. "Dwight Hall harnesses all of this energy and makes it work in some way," Alan Schoenfeld, SY '02, ExComm's Education Network Coordinator, said.

But because of the breadth and sheer ambitions of their projects, complications are inevitable. One constant issue is the creation of new organizations. Though new groups arise ostensibly to serve the community more efficiently, ExComm members are increasingly wary of allowing the number of member groups to grow. "Everyone at Yale wants to be president of something," Schoenfeld said. Thus Dwight Hall must decide which potential leaders have something to offer.

"Our goal is not the proliferation of groups in Dwight Hall," said Shayna Strom, DC '02, a Dwight Hall Coordinator. "That's something we do worry about." Johnny Scafidi, SM '01, the membership coordinator, said. "We're trying to streamline our member groups—[keeping track of] who's doing what and where they are going."

Tailoring the tutors

Tutoring groups comprise the largest contingent of Dwight Hall organizations. Every year, new groups sprout up on campus. Though their leaders often want to forge change, inexperience often leads to problems, both within the New Haven community and Dwight Hall itself.

"We'll always need innovation and enthusiasm from volunteers, but oftentimes Yale service groups don't back up good intentions with logistical planning," said Tish Bravo, DC '02, a coordinator for SPLATTER! magazine, which holds creative writing workshops and produces a magazine with middle schoolers. "I think Dwight Hall would most benefit from a more thorough review process of its resident groups. Groups that are failing—their numbers are in decline, the feedback from the schools isn't great—their issues need to be addressed."

Julio Gonzalez, CC '99, sees other problems. Now working in New Haven as Ward One Alderman, Gonzalez served on ExComm as an undergraduate. He notices an "inertia [in] the vast array of groups working in New Haven public schools [that] sometimes outweighs the positive efforts." He is wary of groups that "cater more to student interests than community needs" and that "really don't live up to the service or activism that Dwight Hall is supposed to embody."

Gonzalez' challenge to the Yale community is to recognize that its accountability to New Haven comes not from some ethereal bureaucracy, but from the individuals who serve, since "the fabric of [Dwight Hall] is the students." He suggests paying more students for their work—programs like Jumpstart and America Reads already do—in order to raise the expected level of commitment.

Indeed, the issue of commitment is an important one for Dwight Hall. Jordan Hinkes, BR '02, a coordinator of TIES (Tutoring in Elementary Schools), struggles with it. TIES is one of the best-recognized tutoring programs on campus, and is known for its ease on volunteers, who often spend only an hour a week in schools.

Hinkes does not expect an hour spent in a classroom to change a child's life. But his goal in the program is to help "Yale students to get out of the community, to see things differently," and at the same time to make sure that the elementary school students "enjoy it."

When asked her opinion of such noncommittal commitment, Strom said, "If you're only going to show up for an hour a week, you'd better be there every single time." Bravo agreed. "If you are going into a school one hour a week and that is the best you think you can do, that's fine—but you better make sure that that hour is useful to the teacher and student alike, and you are not an intrusion." But Schoenfeld thinks an hour is better than nothing. "Man hours are man hours," he said. "Any help is good."

The bulk of these problems, though, have been addressed through a Dwight Hall-run public school internship program. Interns are each assigned to one school and keep in contact with teachers about all programs at a particular location.

The public school interns have created a focal point for organization and communication between Yale and the New Haven schools. The faculty contact at Wilbur Cross High School, for example, where Sabrina Baronberg, BR '01, started as an intern two years ago, maintains that Yale volunteers—through various programs such as Project SAT, Amigos and Community Health Educators—are always "religious about showing up."

Tom Sugrue, a teacher in charge of peer leadership at Wilbur Cross, sees the establishment of public school interns as a great way to "keep things simple. It just works better," he said.

Gonzalez agrees that public school interns help codify Yale volunteerism to reflect schools' needs. Strom, too, cites the program as an example of how Yale has started working more sensitively with the New Haven community. "It means that Dwight Hall [will be] responsive to the schools rather than vice versa."

Picking your battles

Of the 2,500 or so students involved in Dwight Hall each year, more and more are now joining social justice groups such as Student Labor Action Coalition (SLAC) or Students Against Sweatshops (SAS). These groups take up issues that are often more global and attention-grabbing methods more aggressive than locally based tutoring groups.

But though the two types of service groups, global and local, have different worldviews, they co-exist peacefully. Any tension between the two groups has been replaced with the understanding that there are different ways of solving the same problem.

Irene Garza, SM '02, who as social justice network facilitator takes the pulse of each social action group in order to measure its efficacy, asks the same question that many direct service groups might pose to her: "Are we really doing anything?" The decision to focus on social justice attests to the desire to "raise awareness about particular issues on campus." It's a matter of "the battles you pick," she explains, "and why is one battle considered more valid than another?"

Ideally, direct service and social action would feed off each other, such as under the Yale Hunger and Homelessness Action Project (YHHAP), an umbrella group that organizes both direct service projects and political action campaigns. This challenge to examine the nature of one's community work, however altruistic on the surface, has permeated the leaders' discussions at Dwight Hall. Not only is each member group assigned an ExComm member to track its work and provide feedback, but in the last five years this kind of close observation has begun connecting to the community.

The future

Despite the unending complexities of running an institution such as Dwight Hall, the organization continues to grow in its strength and impact. Its twin goals of activism and awareness remain intact. "Educating Yale students to be more civically minded individuals is a crucial and laudable goal in its own right," Strom said. Schoenfeld is also sold on Dwight Hall's purpose. "We're serving as the conscience of the University," he said. Next shopping period, then, the shortcuts to figure out might not be from one classroom building to another, but from Dwight Hall to somewhere unfamiliar in the community.

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