Monthly Archive for April, 2005

I. Youth – relevance to class
- has been more communication between clinic and class
- students are willing to help
- defining roles has been difficult – most students are in the kitchen
- people who come at beginning are those who come in the end
- tend to stay more, as have increased experience
- maybe force people to come first, as they would get more accustomed to the clinic atmosphere
- what can class do?
- no one knows what they’re doing – those that come more often realize their role more quickly than others
- idea of coming by first 4 weeks
- when introducing youth at the beginning of the semester, stress the time commitment, so conflicts cannot be an excuse later on
- less volunteers than more, as with too many, they all can’t come
- perhaps shorter shift before midterm (shadow before midterm)

II. 98/198 c – Dr. Steinbach
- most dynamic cousre that may possibly emerge on this campus
- Wednesday and Thursday good to help clinic
- may be good to have a class (decal or something) that’s main goal is to better clinic function, it would act to support clinic coordinators
- perhaps speakers could come in to speak – Dr. S willing to sponsor, but no real need to hold it
- women’s tried to hold monthly meetings – no success
- time constraints could keep 198c from happening – we’re asking already for people to come to pc, sunshine, and clinic
- perhaps we should use of PC as a better forum for the same goals as everyone is already required to come to that
- 198c class could be a buy-in
- often at PC, not everyone comes – same people tend to be at pc and sunshine – makes it hard to bring the various parts together
- for some, there wasn’t a clear outline of expectations of the positions (ex, confusion as to requirement of sunshine meetings)

III. Wednesday class – Nate
- effects everything in Thursday class and in turn the new volunteers
- seems like this semester morale dropped a bit
- not as excited, seems to be more just another class for some
- class seemed to be overly processes, formulaic
- same structure, kind of like a check-list
- institution of more of a group process
- weeks where everyone was involved were the most fun
- perhaps need to redefine roles for people
- reason for a sort of formula is to make easy presentation for class, so they know what to expect and what is expected of them
- ‘formula’ is because it is a good one
- takes short time as if speaker, they take a certain amount of time
not as much room for creative input
- improvement may be a different room
- group presentations could spice up the class, and that was the idea
- as thought before, we should model one – changes the atmosphere
- ask for speakers to only talk for a bit
- possibly should plan Thursday class week before instead of day before
- assign a UGSI and one coord to a topic, they can research and then present the ideas to the rest of the class
- possibly on Wednesday, more time once a month to go over in depth the coming weeks
- group presentations were dull.
- we approve it is a good idea
- assign a UGSI to be a point person for the group
- second half is a good idea, but we need to enforce it

III. Women’s and Class – Julia
- seems to be a better, came in before to shadow (ex: footwashing!)
- problem of volunteer retention
- just seemed to be Julia, coords and kids from class
- lack of a role in terms of retention
- would help to define roles – make them feel needed
- unfortunately roles per week vary as needs of women vary as week to week
- size of class – so many people there
- limit people so they have duties and ownership over what they are doing
- help to have projects, ex- dinners where a person coordinates it instead of all the weight being on the UGSI
- during the day they have activities for the women – class group could plan stuff like jewelry making, etc for the women

IV. Reader – Terry
- seems a bit outdated
- for the paper, made a new option being that they could choose 2 articles and write a one page reflection
- have split the weeks between the cords to reformat it
- will add the new articles
- seen that we have a difficulty in getting people to read it
- fact sheet with specific points that they are required to read each week
- Quizzes made you have to look at it in past semesters – problems with blackboard though
- quizzes in class like IDS 130?
- have kids make the reader
- use of reader in small groups so they get the info
- fact sheet is good and the ones in the reader were updated a year ago
- in the syllabus already have 2 or 3 articles per week so that they know what’s coming up (like a reading list)
- UGSI’s tell them to read it and remind them

V. 98/198b – Alen
- lot of things need to be done, 198b would be a sort of the taskforce of Suitcase – creates and gets projects done
- ideas get thrown around and worked on
- having another class to get work done – proactive
- have people need to check-in with admin to keep people doing their roles and jobs (accountability as a part of admin role?)
- many things that ‘need to be done’ are just part of a positions job description
- often people are taking on a lot, but don’t have time
- might not work as a lot of knowledge
- 198b might be hard to get through
- too big of a time commitment
- good idea in principle – but might reduce individual accountability

VI. Goals for students – Nate
- they don’t see the importance of it (second half of semester)
- make sure the stuff is applicable
- ex talk about Berkeley Mental Health
- make sure that maybe end of each class – tie the topic of the week back to clinic and how it can help them caseworking, etc
- over summer, Garima and Allison are going to be working on a user-friendly resource guide that could be a valuable tool to incoming volunteers too
- ask speaker to talk of topic and then how it practically applies to clinic and volunteering
- good model is Student Advocates for the Homeless
- each lecture builds and helps the kids learn how to apply the ideas at hand