2010 Van Amson Fellow: Service Learning with American Studies Professor Kobrin
Mitzi Steiner
Barnard, 2012
2010 Van Amson Fellow: Service Learning with American Studies Professor Kobrin
This past summer I had the privilege of serving as the Service-Learning Fellow for the Community Impact Van Amson Fellowship. As a fellow, I acted as the research assistant and curriculum writer for “Immigrant New York,” one of Columbia’s American Studies service-learning courses for the 2010 academic year.
As a college student, I have always been sympathetic to the plight of my peers as they scramble to complete assigned readings and projects. Yet, I had never given much thought to the intense, often tedious process my professors faced when creating a syllabus. As the blueprint of any class, the syllabus serves as a guide not only of due dates and assignments, but of the ideas which will be central to class discussion. In focusing on specific texts, a syllabus sketches the parameters of students’ intellectual inquiry, and, thus, the issues they will debate and the conclusions they are likely to draw.
Creating a “guide” for Immigrant New York required thorough research and thoughtful arrangement. The goal of the syllabus was to draw on a cross-section of immigration issues, both past and present, and to weave them together into a cohesive dialogue. In order to do so, I filtered through historical documents, memoirs, historical fictions, opinion articles, and sociological studies, and attempted to include a diverse array of authors. What emerged was a multiplicity of voices on a variety of topics, ranging from immigrant politics to education, and across the span of the last century.
As I crafted the syllabus, I also attempted to bring to life the academic study of the immigrant experience through engagement with local immigrants. As a service-learning seminar, Immigrant New York complements class discussions with required service with immigrants in the immediate community. Collaborating with the Riverside Language Program, a local ESL organization serving recently-arrived New York refugees, I structured potential volunteer positions for each of the seminar’s future students, ranging from technical assistance to alumni support. The resulting list of service opportunities is one which I hope will benefit both students and immigrants, alike.
Overall, syllabus writing for the “Immigrant New York” service-learning seminar presented a unique set of rewards. It provided me with a professor’s eye-view of education. It also brought me to work with local organizations to brainstorm innovative ways to enhance their work and to connect students to local immigrants. Most importantly, it taught me to keep one eye towards academia with the other towards activism. I hope to carry these lessons with me in my future studies and research within the American Studies department and beyond.
Tags: american studies, fellowship, immigration, service learning
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