Building community on campus

By Sarah Hansell Staff Writer hansell14@up.edu

Last Saturday, most of the 835 students in the freshman class bused out to different locations around Portland to do community service for UP's annual Building Community: Serving to Learn program, an annual tradition requiring all UP freshmen to volunteer for a day. Then the freshmen gather to reflect and discuss the experience in small groups.

This year, Fr. E. William Beauchamp, C.S.C., president of the University, decided to have a large group of freshmen work on campus and University-owned rental houses for the required service day for the first time.

"The idea is building community," Beauchamp said. "One of the communities that our freshmen are part of is this community. I thought it would make sense to make some of them participate to make some of them aware (of that)."

"(I think) it was kind of just to get students kind of connected to the UP community," Building Community coordinator senior Rachel O'Reilly said.

Typically, the entire freshman class buses out to several locations to do community service projects for nonprofit groups. Among the community organizations UP partnered with this year were Portland Public Schools, SOLV, Portland Community Gardens, the Rebuilding Center and others. Locations of the service projects included Baltimore Woods, Roosevelt High School, Sauvie Island, Forest Park and Friendship Park in Vancouver.

But 100 freshmen stayed on or near campus to do service under the charge of Physical Plant.

"We're really excited to be able to work with some of the freshmen," Physical Plant Office Manager Sandy Galati said.

The freshmen worked on yards of UP rental houses and the grounds behind Merlo Field and pulled ivy behind the tennis center.

Some freshmen said their time would be better spent working at an organization with a need for volunteers.

"I think I would be more fulfilled if we met the person or it was someone who was in need of our assistance," freshman Brooklyn Crape said. "I felt like I was kind of excited about this (service day) and to see what we were doing, so it was kind of a letdown."

Freshman Logan Griffith agreed.

"Here at the school we have a lot of money and stuff, but some of the other places … really need your help," Griffith said. "I feel like that's where we should be helping."

Some of the houses' student renters found it odd that fellow UP students were working on their yards.

"I think it's strange that they're doing it here because the school already pays people to clean our yard for us," junior Taylor Cothran said, as freshmen worked on her UP rental house. "It seems like there are other places (that) would benefit more from the service."

However, some freshmen were glad to do their service on UP's grounds.

"I think it's really awesome that we can impact the surrounding community," freshman Suzanne Redfield, who worked on UP rental houses' yards, said. "We're right next to it so we can see the difference that we made."

Some freshmen said they believed staying on campus actually better served the mission of the Building Community: Serving to Learn program.

"It's actually building community because we're at our community," freshman Allison Watson said.

Others, including upperclassmen working alongside the freshman groups, were excited to be working with Physical Plant.

"We are helping out P-Plant," Corrado RA senior Katie Warmack said. "I think just in general we're helping out the UP community. When we have guests of the University come they can see we take pride in the University."

The Building Community: Serving to Learn program received multi-state television news coverage last weekend on Northwest Cable News, which is broadcast in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. The report mentioned the work UP students did at Pittock Mansion, Forest Park and Tryon Creek State Park.

Some freshmen regret that they did not get the experience of doing their service work off campus.

"It's a shame that this doesn't impact the greater Portland community," freshman Julia Anderson said. "And I thought that's what the big overall message of the service project was, rather than just weeding houses."