Preparing students for a life of “service, with and among others” is the mission of Wheeling Jesuit University and the centerpiece of the education its students receive.
“Our campus’ culture is characterized by an appreciation for the people and the places we serve, locally and nationally. We are serious about being agents of positive change with the people in our community and around the world, and we do that in a variety of ways,” says Rev. Joseph R. Hacala, S.J., President of Wheeling Jesuit University. “We believe that offering students an education for life, for leadership and for service, with and among others, can change our world. Our students believe it, too. That’s why more than 80 percent of our students participate in service projects in the community each year.”
The University prides itself for providing all of its students with an education that translates knowledge into service, changing their lives through the power of learning.
“We seek to bolster charity with action for change. We want our students to serve in soup kitchens, to lead projects to stop widespread hunger, and to address policy changes that can transform the world,” says Fr. Hacala.
Service in the community was very much a part of Fr. Hacala’s life before becoming the seventh president of the University. During his career, he has served in a myriad of national positions that allowed him to bring service projects to the forefront of communities and to change lives in the Ohio Valley and around the nation. He served as special assistant to Secretary Andrew Cuomo at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), director of HUD?s Innovative Center for Community and Interfaith Partnerships, executive director of the Domestic Anti-Poverty Program of the U.S. Catholic Bishops, and director of the Office of Jesuit Social Ministries.
So it’s no surprise that he is especially passionate about sharing those experiences with students: nor is it a surprise that one of his many accomplishments during his first year as president was to create a hub for campus service projects--the Service for Social Action Center (SSAC). Located in the Acker Science Center, this recent addition to the Wheeling Jesuit campus coordinates, tracks and organizes service opportunities for students, faculty, staff and local agencies.
“Our goal is to provide students with meaningful service projects that include opportunities for reflection and spiritual development. We want our students to become ‘servant leaders’ in their own communities after graduation. That goal guides all our service projects. We work to provide opportunities to develop their abilities to serve in many capacities during their undergraduate years,” says Dr. Jill Kriesky, director of the SSAC. She also directs the University’s nationally known Clifford M. Lewis, S.J., Appalachian Institute.
SSAC Assistant Director, Erin McDonald, a 2003 Wheeling Jesuit graduate, coordinates the extracurricular and course-based service activities for the University community by identifying service projects, tracking participation and providing support with spiritual reflection and skill development. Through her work in the community as a student at Wheeling Jesuit, McDonald developed a great connection to the people of West Virginia, and a desire to make a difference in the community. The SSAC, in partnership with Campus Ministry, coordinates many projects, including the Freshman Year Seminar Service Experience, the Service Learning Floor and the Mother Jones House. SSAC staff help connect faculty with community-based projects so students can experience service in the context of academic learning. It also finds community-based work-study positions for students who wish to work with nonprofit organizations and agencies, tracks club service work and recruits for local agencies in need of student service.
Many Wheeling Jesuit students’ commitment to a lifetime path of service begins with the annual ?Make a Difference Day.? Since 1994, this program has introduced hundreds of new students to the work of various nonprofit agencies dedicated to helping those in need. As part of the University’s first-year seminar, students perform one afternoon of service with agencies throughout Wheeling. This year, nearly 300 freshman students served in child care and elder care centers, housing programs, and the YWCA among many other programs and agencies. They were challenged to move beyond volunteering to incorporate the University’s mission of service to others into their everyday lives.
Community ?service,? in a Jesuit context, is best understood as a ?means to an end,? motivated by a search for, and an expression and understanding of, justice, says Rev. Paul Stark, S.J., Director of Campus Ministry. “This type of service extends further than a particular service opportunity or individual organization. Rather, ‘service’ in this context provides opportunities to learn from the people we serve, helping us to reflect on and redirect our own lives, through that reflection. Faith-based, and derived from the practice of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, this type of service promotes a broad, practical, prayerful and philosophical understanding of service, in the context of a ‘faith that does justice.’”
Students in their junior and senior years who develop a substantial commitment to service, have another option--living and working in the Mother Jones House, an intentional Christian service community located in East Wheeling.
“At its roots, the Mother Jones House in East Wheeling embodies our students’ integration of faith and service in the Catholic and Jesuit traditions,” says Fr. Hacala.
The Mother Jones House offers a promising addition of student servants to a neighborhood struggling to recover a safe, economically secure quality of life for its residents. The students live by six core values: simplicity, spirituality, community, social justice, learning and service.
Each Mother Jones student attends classes at Wheeling Jesuit, lives in the community and performs at least 300 hours of service each year. These students serve others by working at community non-profits, including the nearby Laughlin Memorial Chapel, where they assist in running an after-school program, offering tutoring and homework help, and providing positive role models. Students also work at the Catholic Neighborhood Center delivering meals to shut-ins, and preparing meals and food boxes to complete their 10 hours of service per week. Other times they help at the Lincoln Detention Center or other community sites, such as Hopeful City projects or Health Right, a free medical clinic.
Every day--weekends, the day before a paper is due, exam weeks, Christmas break, summer--members of the National Jesuit Honor Society, Alpha Sigma Nu, facilitate the pickup of leftover bread and deli items from two area Riesbeck grocery stores for delivery to Catholic Charities Neighborhood Center.
Alpha Sigma Nu faculty moderator, Rev. Michael F. Steltenkamp, S.J., launched this project in 2001 with the assistance of a student enrolled in his class “Father Mike” asked Richard Riesbeck, ‘03, president and CEO of Riesbeck Foods Inc., if Alpha Sigma Nu students could pick up clearance items from his stores and deliver them to Catholic Charities. Thus was born what has become known as the daily “bread run.”
The honor society continues to recruit and coordinate campus volunteers for this project, and assistance has come from diverse niches of the campus community, including athletic teams, faculty, staff and administrators, and the Jesuit community.
Faculty members also offer students the opportunity for community service projects tied to a particular academic discipline. For example, each semester, students in Dr. Beverly Carter’s Advanced Web Design class design Web sites for nonprofit agencies throughout the region. The assignment gives the students hands-on opportunities at creating Web sites and helps area non-profit agencies develop an Internet presence so they can reach, and serve, more people.
“We’re making it easier for the people in the region to connect to services in the Northern Panhandle, and I think it brings new awareness of the needs of the people in the region to our students,” says Dr. Carter. The students designed the Web sites for Harmony House, which protects and supports victimized children; Ohio County Family Resource Center (OCFRN); and the Court Appointed Special Advocate (CACA) of Ohio and Marshall County, which recruits trains, and supports volunteers who advocate in the 1st and 2nd Judicial Circuit Courts for the child victims of abuse and neglect.
“This is an effective way for students to learn what is happening in the community, and allows them to contribute by applying their technology skills,” says Dr. Carter. “It blends our mission of service with today’s technologies, and I believe it leads to long-term relationships among the students, organizations and the region, long after they graduate.”
Kriesky notes that the idea of long-term service is the University’s goal for its students.
“When students come to WJU, we give them the opportunity to expand on the tutoring, mentoring, and direct care for the homeless and elderly, and other service work, that they might have done in high school. By the time they leave Wheeling Jesuit, our students are supervising other volunteers and designing activities at community sites. We are preparing them to lead in service with and among others,” says Kriesky.