USD Magazine, Spring 2004

Students and Civic Leaders Find Common Ground for Neighborhood Improvement by Michael R. Haskins A s you read this, 18 people are figuring out how to change the world. Well, maybe not the whole world - not yet, at least - but a big part of their world. They are communiry members and students who chis semester enrolled in "Communiry, Consensus and Commitment," a new class in which they're learning to be leaders who bring people together and inspire chem to find solutions to their common problems. The course is a bold new step for USD, which constantly has sent forth students to perform communiry service and professors who assist with communiry projects, but has

"The fact is that real solutions to communiry problems have to come from the communiry, not from outside experts." For three hours every Thursday night, 14 people from the San Diego neighborhood of Linda Vista, which borders USD, join four undergraduate students to learn about the concept of consensus organizing - meeting the needs of all parties to an issue and creat– ing allies of people who might otherwise be on opposing sides. They then learn how to apply that concept to community issues such as crime, housing, transportation, jobs and education. 'The students and the people from Linda Vista are working together to find out what che residents of this neighborhood are looking for, and how we can work together to help chem get it," says junior Brenna Maize!, a history major with extensive volunteer experi– ence in Linda Vista. "Now, when we go out to work wichin the communiry, we'll already know a lot abour all che different needs and points of view."

She came away with an idea that would bring together the university, COI and che community to explore how consensus organizing can improve Linda Vista and teach new leadership skills to students. Elliott proposed the idea to Liu, who agreed to team-teach the course with members of COL While Liu built the syllabus - which covers the history of activism and organizing, as well as local politics and civic history - Elliott landed a grant chat enables che community members to attend the course free of charge. "Students at USD have many opportunities to work with youth, but not as many chances to work with adults," says Elliott. "This kind of interaction keeps democracy vigorous." Once they complete the background material, class members will rack.le their first project: to develop and execute a community question– naire, create a community action plan and present their ideas to a panel of civic leaders. Their time is limited, but Elliott and Liu envi– sion che course eventually becoming a two– semester offering, with participants from throughout San Diego working with students to prepare community action plans in the first semester and carry chem out in the second. This first time around, however, they're satisfied to have brokered a new connection between students and the community. "It has been so energizing to sit in class with older people and learn from them, and to find out chat they have the experience and rhe background to teach us so much," Maize! says. "It's making true community members out of the students."

The class recently hosted a panel of community and government representatives. never before invited people from the commu– niry to study alongside undergraduates. The time for chat action is long overdue, says soci– ology Professor Judy Liu, who helped create the course and made it part of the sociology department's curriculum. "Academic institutions are excellent at

Which is exactly rhe result hoped for by Elaine Elliott, director ofUSD's communiry service-learning center, who hatched the notion for the course. Last year, she visited the Consensus Organizing Institute, a non– profit group focused on community organiz– ing that has an office not far from campus and is dedicated to enhancing communiry leadership and increasing civic engagement.

studying the communiry, but not as good at connecting with the communiry," says Liu.

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SPRI NG 2004