Raise Your Voice in your state

For more information on the Raise Your Voice Campaign in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, visit www.raiseyourvoice.org

MASSACHUSETTS Campaign Activities

2004-2005:

Real Change Contest
Submissions due February 11.
Massachusetts and Rhode Island

Real Change is a an opportunity for college students in Massachusetts and Rhode Island to launch an idea that will spark change either on their campus or in the community. This is an opportunity to share your hope for a stronger community, your belief that it can happen, and your willingness to begin it. Students will make their pitch with a short essay. Three ideas will be chosen from the submissions to receive $500 each to make their idea for change a reality

Contact information for further details: Jon Parise, jonathan.parise@tufts.edu, or on the web, http://ase.tufts.edu/macc/events.htm#realchange

See 2005 Month of Action events in Massachusetts

2003-2004:

Massachusetts and Rhode Island’s Raise Your Voice Campaign, “Mapping Place - Connecting Community” will continue to help students understand their place and power within their colleges, peer networks, and communities.

As in Year I, students will participate in the Campaign through three levels of activities: high-level, mid-level, and low-level engagement activities. Modeled on Campus Compact’s Service Learning Pyramid, activities are arranged in a tiered fashion to accommodate the varying degree of sophistication of civic engagement among college students. MACC and RICC acknowledge that it is essential to meet students where they are and take them to the next level.

Low-level activities are fun, social, and quick. For example: Know Your Campus – Know Your Community quizzes and Voter Registration Drives are fun activities that can be done by tabling in high traffic campus areas such as dining halls, student unions, and commuter lounges. Provocative questions and Agree/Disagree bulletin boards in student lounges and residence halls get students thinking about the pressing issues of the day. Suggestions on holding these activities and others will be available on our website: www.raiseyourvoice.org

Mid-level activities delve deeper into social issues and challenge students to get more involved in direct and indirect service. Massachusetts and Rhode Island will provide training, electronic toolkits and information, and mini-grant funding for students, staff, and faculty who want to involve college students in civic engagement activities and dialogues.

Last year, RYV Massachusetts/Rhode Island supported over 40 student dialogues on broad ranging topics including: incarceration, youth voting, affordable housing, international student rights, and campus policies on student postings. In the 2003-2004 academic year, RYV Massachusetts/Rhode Island will support at least 40 student dialogues through its Civic Engagement Mini-Grant fund, training for trainers on holding student dialogues, and the work of the 27 Massachusetts AmeriCorps*VISTA members.

Twenty students will have the opportunity to participate in a Fall Alternative Break Weekend in Holyoke, MA in which they will do direct service by rehabilitating community housing and public spaces and will learn how to hold their own alternative break programs in the spring. It is our hope that some of these students will be interested in working on a cross-campus alternative break to Washington DC, in association with Northern New England Campus Compact.

Throughout the year, students will be invited to statewide and regional events. In the Fall students can attend a MA/RI dialogue on Youth Voting co-sponsored by the Massachusetts Youth Vote Coalition. In January, students are invited to a community mapping training along with faculty and staff partners. In the Spring, students can attend a MA/RI dialogue on Careers in the Common Good at the Rhode Island Community Jobs Fair. They can also participate in the Tools for Change conference at UMASS Amherst and the two-day New England Campus Compact Conference through the student institute and student track. Local and regional trainings on student dialogues, grantwriting, and residence hall civic engagement will be held periodically throughout the year.

The MA and RI Raise Your Voice website will provide toolkits and activity ideas including a residence hall advisor guide and a guide to holding a Civic Engagement Banquet (similar to the Oxfam Hunger Banquet).

There is the potential to hold a learning circles gathering for students at the end of the academic school year. During the Fall, the possibility of this event will be discuss with the Raise Your Voice Fellows.

High-level engagement activities will bring together our student civic leaders – the Raise Your Voice Fellows. These students are invested in civic work and want to uncover the assets and linkages within campuses and communities. They form a cadre of writers, trainers, facilitators, and activists that will sustain this work and pass on the excitement and knowledge to their fellow students.

Student Raise Your Voice fellows perform a variety of roles during the year -- creating and holding dialogues, providing training for other students, writing and reflecting on their civic engagement, and advising Massachusetts Campus Compact and Rhode Island Campus Compact on student programming. Nine students will serve as Fellows for the 2003-2004 school year. They represent the following colleges: Emerson College, Mount Wachusett Community College, North Shore Community College, Roger Williams University, Salve Regina University, Simmons College, Tufts University, UMASS Amherst, and University of Rhode Island.

All nine fellows meet four times per year: in person at the beginning of each semester and at the New England Regional Campus Compact Conference, and by phone at the end of the Fall semester. They work on two types of projects: those specific to their college/university and those that bring students together regionally and statewide. At the January meeting, fellows will collaboratively write a public issue statement on student voice and power in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

For more information on Massachusetts and Rhode Island activities and for a calendar of events please go to our website: www.raiseyourvoice.org.

See 2004 Month of Action events in Massachusetts.

2002-2003:

A declaration was made declaring February 16-22 A Week of Action in Massachusetts:

"Whereas; indifference can erode the social fabric of our communities and nation.

Whereas; college students are among the least politically engaged by traditional standards of political participation (only 28% of 18-24 year olds voted in the 2000 election).

Whereas; this generation of college students are more likely to engage in volunteer activity than any other generation.

Whereas; college students in Massachusetts make up a group of over 300,000 individuals with ideas, voices, and actions ready to lead this generation and determine the future of our country.

Whereas; civic engagement can generate social consciousness, cohesiveness, and responsiveness to issues important to students and society.

Whereas; the Raise Your Voice campaign is a national effort involving 600 campuses to increase student involvement in public life and create solutions for the challenges facing our democracy.

Whereas; Massachusetts college students and college presidents have joined together in a statewide Raise Your Voice campaign launched by a Week of Action to increase student voice in all realms of civic life - from voting to volunteering in the community.

Therefore; now be it resolved that February 16-22, 2003 is declared Civic Engagement Week- A Week of Action."

Press:

• Lasell News Online, March 14, 2003, "Civic Engagement Forum Highlights Service-Learning"

• The Daily Item (Flynn, MA), February 21, 2003: "Healey: Volunteerism can help alleviate budget crisis"

For more information, contact:

Massachusetts Campus Compact
Larissa McKenna
Tufts University
196 Boston Ave, Suite 2400
Medford, MA 02155
617.627.3889
ryvlarissa@yahoo.com