Epiphanies

Below are the links to Mike Fox’s journals from Venezuela and the Virgin Islands on service learning expeditions.

Venezuela:  http://www.hydeexpedition.com/venezuela.html

Virgin Islands:  http://www.hydeexpedition.com/virgin-islands.html

Enjoy!

PEDz – Service Work – HotNewHipHop

BUSN200 student, Mike Pederson, rapping about his STLF service trip across the United States

Mahatma Gandhi once said “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others”.

I had the pleasure of being a bus core leader for a non-profit I have become close with called Students Today Leaders Forever, which in short, leads service tours over spring break and creates service projects in each city they visit.  I had many of these students (even ones who were on my bus) in my groups for BUSN200.  These students came to their first meeting with a similar expression of “what have I gotten myself into,” especially after I refused to give them any details about the trip.

While on the trip I really got to see the extent of what Mahatma Gandhi was talking about with the quote above.  People really do rediscover themselves on the trip; I even saw this transformation at the first site we served in Joliet, IL.  A woman, likely in her 40’s, came out the back of her house (where we were cleaning the area of illegally dumped materials and debris) literally in tears because of what we were doing for her.  She exclaimed her joy and thanks to us for what we were doing from behind her tear-streaked face, but she didn’t understand what made all these college kids from Minnesota come all the way down to help her community.  When I tried to explain I couldn’t really find the right words, so I simply said “it’s just what we do”.  I saw smiles all over the faces of the participants, all working as a team for a common purpose, all for a community that none of us had any ties to but none the less we could all see that our being there made a difference.  This was only a small extent of how people found themselves on the trip, yet still, they found that what they were doing made them feel good, even if they didn’t know why.  I knew exactly why they all had smiles on their faces!

What is essential for a quality BUSN200 service experience is an open mind, you have to be open to the idea of service and you must serve in an environment that gives you some kind of fulfillment.  Some of the best sites go undiscovered because the label of the site does not seem exciting or intriguing, so dig deep and find a non-profit whose cause you can really relate to.

To all the future BUSN200 students, come with an open mind and come excited about the experience.  I promise that if you come to class with these two things, BUSN200 won’t just be another class that you have to take—but it will be an amazing experience.  If you come with assumptions, the class will feel like a class and it will feel like work.  BUSN200 is really one of the only classes that you as a student have 100% control over what you learn.  Challenge yourself to take control of the experience and make it into something that you can gain from.  The amazing thing about service is the emotions it evokes and the lessons that can be learned.  You never know what you can discover, so don’t be afraid to discover yourself through service!

By: Taylor Matysik, BUSN200 Facilitator

Nothing can measure the size of a child’s heart
Youth is a blessing, a work of art
Sometimes the lesson was hit or miss
But then again, ignorance is bliss
I asked, what is opportunity cost?
They learned, it is all but what is lost
Teaching is not an easy task,
at first I hid behind a mask
It was not long, however,
That I feared this strange endeavor
My name is Peter, I told them all,
Welcome! they said, let’s have a ball!
I took off that mask and chimed right in,
Okay class, let’s begin!
75 smiles, each I will remember,
How time moves, is it already December?
Confidence, patience, empathy,
I will use some day in orthodontistry
A classroom is not an office you see,
But it cultivates skills, universally

By: Pete Wright, BUSN200 student

What does it mean, to have a business degree?
What is business, what is a degree?

With it, what guarantees, are given to me?
If success is only relative and changes constantly.

We are told every day, good isn’t good enough, we need to do more.
So why work harder, what the hell for?

Especially in the lifetime, that we have been placed in!
Would Ben Franklin ever had become America’s first entrepreneur
if he was told all the time, the world was going to end?

So why is a business degree worth striving for?
I realized it’s not the degree that I’m working toward.

Because it’s what I do while I’m in school that is ultimately going to push me forward.
From networking, to opportunities like the one I was given through Business 200.

And through my service I realized I could actually make a difference.
One month I learned more than I had from any class that I’ve taken so far in business.

With just a little effort there’s a lot you can do.
After all, Chuck Norris was able to punch an atom, and it split into two!!!

By: Daniel Culhane, BUSN200 student

Just being my second semester as a Business 200 Facilitator, every day opens new doors for me and I am so impressed by how much variety in service there is surrounding us. This semester I am pleased to hear new stories and life changing experiences that each student has been facing. This semester some students are giving their time to help serve children with special needs ride horses, to doing free tax returns for low-income families, and even traveling down to an Orphanage in Honduras over spring break. The students this semester have reminded me with their passion and drive the importance to help create a better business-community relationship all around us.

Being surrounded by the same people every day can hinder your views about what is going on in the community nearby. I am intrigued each group meeting how students’ view points from their first initial business 200 journal have changed and seem to accept the service learning aspect of this course more. With everyone having such different talents and hobbies, this makes service learning able to reach a wide range of organizations.

“Perhaps the biggest takeaway from class this morning, when the other students were discussing their plans, was that I appreciated everybody’s own gifts and talents more.”
- John Baumgardner

After I thought about this quote I believe it is so important to recognize that not every service site is right for everyone. Because of everyone’s unique talents and passions; Business 200 is a great way for them to shine and to find out more about themselves in the process. It is an important way to practice building relationships with trust, overcome language barriers, and push you of your comfort zone. I can’t wait to hear about the 40 hours of experience each student has completed by the end of this semester and the lives they have been able to change.

By: Andrea Paetznick, BUSN200 Facilitator

This year the Business 200 program is celebrating our 20^th anniversary.  We want to celebrate the amazing things that St. Thomas BUSN200 students have accomplished in the community over the past 20 years.  By the end of this year more than 10,000 students will have completed BUSN200, contributing more than 400,000 hours of service at more than 4000 service sites in more than 20 different countries!  If taxpayers had paid for that same amount of service, at today’s minimum wage, it would have cost us more than $2.5 million.

In order to properly celebrate the amazing accomplishments that have taken place over the past 20 years, the new BUSN200 Center is hosting a 20^th anniversary celebration week!  We invite you to come celebrate on the appropriate day listed below.  Thanks to all involved for 20 great years of this amazing program and looking forward to seeing you all next week!

Faculty and Staff day:  Monday, March 12^th

All St. Thomas faculty and staff are welcome to join us anytime from 7:00 am until 10:00 am for bagels and coffee to start your day off right!

Current Student day:  Tuesday, March 13^th

All students currently participating in the BUSN200 program are welcome to join us during convo hour for root beer floats!

Campus-wide day:  Wednesday, March 14^th

Everyone in the St. Thomas community – students, staff, faculty, etc. – is invited to join us anytime from 7:00 am until 10:00 am for bagels and coffee!

All Students day:  Thursday, March 15^th

All St. Thomas students are welcome to join us during convo hour for root beer floats!

Community Partner day:  Friday, March 16^th

Community partner non-profit organizations are invited to join us from 4:00 pm until 6:00 pm for desserts!

Keep your eyes open for exciting giveaways throughout the week!!!

All events will be held in the BUSN200 Center in McNeely 215

Before starting to serve as a BUSN200 facilitator, I did not have full understanding of just how important service is. Yes, I had done service before, however, it’s a lot more meaningful within a more defined setting.

Service is not just going to the food shelf and helping give out food, or fundraising money, not to underestimate the importance of these; but service is a way of life. You have to believe in serving others – during good and bad times. And this is not something that always comes naturally.

So as I witness the transition of students from being “not so excited” to complete the BUSN200 requirement in the beginning to the last class when students share moving, creative expressions of what they have learned from serving, I am constantly reminded why we serve others – “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” -Gandhi Mahatma

By: Cliff Nsubuga, BUSN200 Facilitator

Check out this great article about a BUSN200 alumni student: http://plymouthmag.com/article/plymouth-social-media/wayzata%E2%80%99s-bridget-ulrich-volun-tweeting

As a Business 200 Student Advisor one of the critiques of Business 200 we often face is students feel that by requiring them to serve we are undermining the principles of service. The term “forced service” or “forced volunteering” is often offered up as an alternative by the student. Students often feel that by requiring them to serve it takes away from the purpose and genuine act of service. They often feel as they already pay close to $30,000 dollars a year for tuition, they should not be required to give their time away for free. In some cases they fail to see any practical potential application of their business skills or links between for profits and non profits.

In most professions, situations of conflicting views with a customer (or a student in our case) are often dreaded and the low points of an employee’s day. When I first started out working in Business 200 it was. I did not want to deal with students who disagreed with our policy. It wasn’t fun, it was stressful and truthfully I often found myself deep down questioning if we could inspire a student to genuinely participate, enjoy and learn from service if they feel we forced them to serve. However, miraculously after my first semester with Business 200 things changed and these dreaded low points became the highlights of my day.

Why have my views changed so drastically you may ask? Well it is not because I have a new found passion for arguing or that I have become acclimated to the conflict. I could say it was because of the effects of service learning and use this as an opportunity to site a multitude of statistics and academic studies I have read discussing the benefit of service learning in an undergraduate program. Truthfully however by doing so all I would be doing is constructing a good academic argument in support of Business 200. When it comes down to it, this drastic change is due to those same students who at the beginning of their service were questioning the purpose and validity of Business 200.

Now I should clarify it is not every single one of those students, but it is the astounding number of them who have shown up to their final meetings and seminars with drastically different viewpoints from when they began. They have discovered the purpose of service learning and in doing so they have shown me that even the most reluctant of students can take something out of Business 200. Not only have they allowed Business 200 to inspire them, they have inspired me to inspire others. When faced with these situations of conflicting viewpoints I now remind myself of the students who question the purpose of this course at the beginning of their service are often the ones who find the purpose of it through service.

By: Justin Lind, BUSN200 Student Coordinator