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Sample Writings * Education * Publications * Refereed Presentations
Research Experience * Teaching Experience * Supervision Experience
Clinical Experience * Community Service * Personal Web Page
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Community Service
Kokomo Symphony Choir -- Member
From 1995 to 1998, I was a member of the Kokomo Symphony Choir, a small community choir with between seventy and one hundred members. The Choir gave two performances each year, one at Christmas time and one in the spring. I sang second bass, mostly in chorus, though I did sing two different solos and once in an octet. The Choir is composed entirely of volunteer vocalists; all proceeds from ticket sales to our performances go to the Kokomo Symphonic Society, which sponsors both the Kokomo Symphony Choir and the Kokomo Symphony Orchestra.
Destination: Education, 21st Century Scholars -- Tutor
From 1996 to 1998, I was a tutor for the Destination: Education and 21st Century Scholars programs at IUK. These programs jointly offered free tutoring sessions to at-risk public high school students once a week, and for two years I tutored a variety of high school students in math, biology, English, and other school subjects.
Indiana University Kokomo Singers -- Member
From 1997 to 1998, I was a member of IUK's student choir, the IUK Singers. I sang bass. We performed twice -- once at Christmas, and once in the spring. Performances were offered free of charge to the IUK and Kokomo communities.
Project "Clothing the Community" -- Member and Subcommittee Chairperson
As a member of the IUK Honors Society, I also served on the Project "Clothing the Community" Subcommittee as the Chair from 1998 to 1999. Project "Clothing the Community" was a year-round, campus-wide clothing drive that collected discarded, unwanted, and donated clothing for the less fortunate in the community and donated them to the Rescue Mission, a local charity group.
Destination: Education -- Mentor
For three years, from 1997 to 2000, I was also a mentor to a high school student in the Destination: Education program. Periodically, we would get together, eat out, work together on his homework, go to plays, talk about astronomy (a mutual interest of ours), and do various other things together. Once, we even went flying together as I accompanied him (and his instructor) on a flying lesson. It was fun.
New World Players' "Shakespeare in the Park" -- Prop Master and Actor
From 1996 to 2000, I was a member of the New World Players, a local student acting troupe that produced and directed annual performances of "Shakespeare in the Park" for the local community, free of charge. With the exception of 1998, I was Prop Master every year, in charge of procuring, keeping track of, and in many cases making needed props for each performance -- props ranging from painted wooden swords to cardboard gravestones complete with flowers. Also, with the exception of 1998, I also acted as a lead male role in each production. I played Lucentio in the 1996 performance of "The Taming of the Shrew," Claudio in the 1997 performance of "Much Ado About Nothing," Sir Andrew in the 1999 performance of "Twelfth Night," and Demetrius in the 2000 performance of "A Midsummer Night's Dream."
Raising Awareness of Interventions in Sexual Encounters (RAISE) -- Member
For a year in 2001 and 2002, I was a member of RAISE, Raising Awareness of Interventions in Sexual Encounters -- a group of speakers who spoke to different classes, groups, and organizations in the Bloomington area to raise awareness about sexual assault. The typical format for a RAISE presentation was for two presenters to show up -- a man and a woman -- and act out the parts of two characters, Tom and Amanda, who are reminiscing about a romantic encounter between the two in which Tom sexually assaulted Amanda. After recounting the encounter, the two presenters would stay in character as Tom and Amanda and field questions from the audience, in an interplay designed to elicit stereotypes and prejudices from the audience members. Then the presenters would break character, point out that the encounter described was sexual assault, dispel the stereotypes and prejudices brought up earlier by the audience, educate the audience on the prevalence and nature of rape in America today, and finally give suggestions for ways that both women and men can avoid sexual assault in their own lives.
Study Circles on Race -- Member
The Study Circles on Race is a citywide collection of study circles – groups that get together and talk about issues of race and ethnicity for five sessions. At the end of this period, each group comes up with a community outreach project, presents it to the other groups at a citywide meeting, and carries out this project. Each group uses a resource book called “Facing the Challenge of Racism and Race Relations,” a publication of the Study Circles Resource Center (SRSC). SRSC is a project of the Topsfield Foundation, Inc., a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan foundation which is dedicated to advancing deliberative democracy and improving the quality of public life in the United States. Locally, the Study Circles are being sponsored by Christian Ministries of Delaware County (a non-denominational, religiously affiliated community service group similar to the Salvation Army).
I participated in a Study Circle in Fall of 2003, which developed an outreach project called Unity in DiverCity. Unity in DiverCity is a city-wide festival, modeled in part on BSU’s UniverCity concept, which is intended to promote cultural awareness and education, to improve race relations, and to bring the entire community together, involving people of all ages, in a celebration of our unity and diversity.
Project Rainbow -- Member and Co-Founder (see www.ProjectRainbow.s5.com)
Project Rainbow is a collaboration between three different worlds: theatre, therapy, and theology. It is a dialog between actors, counselors, and spiritual leaders. The actors are activists, concerned with the oppression of groups and working with those groups to create social change. They use Theatre of the Oppressed techniques to reach people. The counselors are therapists, concerned with the problems of individuals and working with those individuals to create positive change in their lives. They use Existential, Gestalt, Drama Therapy, Liberation Psychology, and Multicultural techniques to reach people. The spiritual leaders are ministers, priests, gurus, and other religious or spiritual guides, concerned both with the existential and meaningfulness problems of individuals and with social change. They use the techniques and philosophy of the Theology of Liberation to reach people. Though their approaches and philosophies differ, their goals are quite similar -- and often their techniques as well.
Project Rainbow has published a book chapter, presented presentations at two national conferences, and worked with a community group (The DiverCity Group) to develop a city-wide festival project celebrating the unity and cultural diversity of American cities.
The DiverCity Group -- Member (see www.DiverCity.s5.com)
Unity in DiverCity Universal Festival for Humanity -- Webmaster
Unity in DiverCity 2005: Roots and Heritage -- Co-Coordinator, Secretary, and Member of the Programming, Financial (formerly), Community Groups, Saturday Events, and Advertising Committees
Unity in DiverCity is a community action project based in Muncie, Indiana that was created for a singular purpose -- to promote unity and diversity in American communities through dialog, by organizing city-wide festivals that celebrate the ethnic, racial, and cultural diversity of those cities. Unity in DiverCity is a project being carried forward by The DiverCity Group, a nonprofit community group based in Muncie, Indiana. Our flagship cultural festival was Unity in DiverCity 2005: Roots and Heritage, a three-day, four event, multisponsor, city-wide festival celebrating the unity and cultural diversity of Muncie. Well over three hundred performers, vendors, booth-holders, guest-speakers, volunteers, and DiverCity Group members came together to make this festival happen, and over one thousand people from the community came. This festival was the inaugural event of the Unity in DiverCity Universal Festival for Humanity enterprise. This festival will hopefully become an annual event in Muncie. Furthermore, through the efforts of the DiverCity Group and the website, the DiverCity Group hopes to make it possible for other cities across the nation to do similar diversity festivals, by publishing an online how-to handbook. The Unity in DiverCity festival also began a vital dialog about unity and cultural diversity in Muncie by fostering community discussion about cultural issues, by showcasing the many racial and cultural groups represented in the city of Muncie, and by allowing community organizations doing diversity work to network and advertise their hard work. While the festival was going on, more than two dozen community leaders convened to begin a discussion about the ethnic and cultural problems in Muncie – and how to resolve them. Their discussion resulted in the formation of a city-wide cultural directive – a collection of suggestions for promoting racial and cultural solidarity in Muncie and the surrounding areas. This directive is intended to teach the community of Muncie about our own unity and diversity – both our strengths and our shortcomings – not by having outsiders come in and impose their views on Muncie, but by having the citizens of Muncie ourselves come together, in solidarity, to teach ourselves about our own ethnic and cultural diversity. Thus the Unity in DiverCity festival was not only the culmination of a year of preparation and planning, but the beginning of a greater enterprise as well.
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Sample Writings * Education * Publications * Refereed Presentations
Research Experience * Teaching Experience * Supervision Experience
Clinical Experience * Community Service * Personal Web Page
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