Parental Involvement-A Family Affair

Barriers

They just kind of brushed us off…‘You guys are too young, you are freshman, there’s not enough time, its too big an idea’…and it just drove us down,…we felt like people didn’t believe in us, the power of, for freshman of someone just believing in you is so meaningful. And, it is impossible to describe, um, and we just kind of closed up and tried to be very private about our meetings and get a base built.

Nickers and Roy also had a leadership class together. When they shared their vision with the faculty member teaching that class, they were disappointed when he remained noncommittal. The group continued to share their vision with others in the University and felt they were, as Nickers puts it, “Ok with it, but didn’t really do anything.” Roy commented this lack of belief “wore on us.” After those on campus were telling them “no” or not supporting them, Roy and Mackenzie flew to California to meet with the author of an influential book to share their vision and ask her permission to utilize the Make a Difference name for their trip. During that same trip, they also met with Jack Canfield, editor of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, believing that he also would want to hear of their vision. Roy says about these meetings,

For me, it gave me validation that it was OK to dream big and make things happen. I don't think we met with these people knowing that the outcome would be that way, but it did lead to that result. I think we just wanted to meet with well known people. Their support gave us confidence.

Mackenzie said, “For me it was about energy and just DOING something... it provided a FEELING of success.”

Along with the frustration over a lack of support and belief in their dream, the second barrier involved issues of bureaucracy within the University. When asked what he thought were barriers, Pete shares, “The student activities office--I don’t know if we feel was that supportive. They actually questioned us a lot and actually made things more difficult for us quite often.” Roy echoes this frustration:

The student activities office was miserable to work with, constantly saying, ‘Just look at the website,’ or ‘We can’t help you,’ and they just made things continually harder because as we read their, their rules and bylaws, we worked past them and we were always in congruence with their bylaws. We started doing things they didn’t want but then they held us negatively accountable.

One of the interviewees made a comment about the founders in relation to their style of interaction saying, “Sometimes I think they are passive-aggressive, but sometimes they are upfront.”

Osteen’s (2003) research found that students trying to effectuate change were frustrated with the bureaucracy on their campuses. Rather than just complain, SLP tried to do something about some of the university rules that seemed unfair or unjust to them. One of their advisors talked about frustrations in dealing with the money they had to keep with the University, and challenging that rule by writing up a proposal that went all the way to the Controller’s office, before finally being denied. The students’ questioning of the system caused one advisor to express some of his frustration with the founders,

It was kind of framed as we were trying to keep them from pursuing their dreams because they wanted to do this fundraiser, and like the University can’t, doesn’t do fundraisers. ‘We can’t use university funds, I know it’s your money but it’s in a university account’ and we can’t do that and you know, they were framing it as we were stopping--trying to stand in their way--and its, like no, but this is just the rules.

SLP chose as an organization to change its status as a group, in order to get around this campus rule, and ended up getting an off-campus bank account.

In retrospect, Mackenzie commented that if it were not for the “no’s,” SLP would not exist. If another group would have said “yes” to them, then they would have been subsumed and would not be the student movement they are today.

Since the founders were all freshmen when SLP started, their academic curriculum coincided with aspects of the group formation. They took classes and shaped their majors to help them further their vision. Two of the four also talked about high school teachers who were very instrumental in their lives, and in shaping who they are today. Mackenzie shares about her high school morality teacher, “I would actually say a lot of any group dynamics knowledge I have, had come from his courses as well as just retreats.” Roy shared about an 8^th grade algebra teacher saying, “She taught me how to learn.”

In terms of the educational impact of their college experience, Mackenzie says: “If we didn’t have school coinciding with SLP’s goals, I have no idea where we would be. We are very much indebted to the formal education.” Roy talks about taking classes that would benefit SLP, “It was…a very intentional organization.” Nickers comments, “I think one of the things, we have just gone out and learned a lot of different things, and it is almost a conglomeration of all these different things put together.” He elaborates,

We each have our own area that we have taken on. Marketing, definitely for Mackenzie, Pete, with the non-profit stuff, and my area would be the accounting system. I was actually a finance and entre [entrepreneurship] major but I also had an accounting minor, and the sole reason I did that accounting minor was to learn about accounting and try to apply that to SLP.

They even took an organizational development class when they were organizing the trip and used the MAD tour as their project. Mackenzie remembers,

It [educational program] helped SLP, and helped us form SLP, in a sustainable fashion. You know, we took a class on operations management, which meant making things a process. That same semester was the semester we toured ten college tours, and it was a process. One semester we all took strategy courses. I got really into strategy, the boys got really into strategy…and you know, thank goodness…if it wasn’t for this past summer’s strategizing, I have no idea where we would be right now… Pete and I took a non-profit (class) intentionally together.

Since leadership is such a strong component of SLP, I asked which leadership classes the founders had as undergraduates. Nickers took one leadership class fall semester of his freshman year and, had it with Roy. He says, “It was through this class that I got to know Roy, and also have our first chances to present our idea in front of a group.” Pete exclaims, “I never have taken a leadership class in college, I guess unless you count SLP 101 through SLP 5100!” He made this comment referring to the leadership skills that he gained from being involved with SLP. Roy has a leadership minor. Roy, however, did not credit these classes as having an impact. Regarding his academics, he says, “I didn’t feel like the school met my needs…which might be too much to ask…This entrepreneurial spirit of social good never was really talked up.” He goes on to say,

I was just frustrated at the fact that service was towards the corporate success, and which is fine, but there’s a lot of small businesses--there are obviously a lot of non-profits--that I felt like the teachers could not always connect with students. Like, I was trying to ask them personal questions and they couldn’t really like, change, their mindset into like, a simple task. It wasn’t “big picture” in their class.

Pete added a second, self-designed major of non-profit management as part of his major. Mackenzie mentions other tangibles that were acquired as part of their academic preparation, “The business school presentations, I mean it was very obvious that Pete and I were extremely comfortable with PowerPoint, in business suits, doing a team presentation.” She summarizes, “It doesn’t matter what you put in the world, it matters how you’re perceived. So that is important to me. I believe that the business school was able to give me…a logical backing to things that I had already.”

This group of college students was motivated to start SLP in an environment that was not overly supportive of their dreams. Starting from an initial idea they had a solid sense for the creation of an organization. The skills for the creation came from previous leadership opportunities and experiences. Each of the four founders brought special skills to this endeavor. Roy had his camp background; Mackenzie had her retreat experiences including a large emphasis on reflection. Pete had a commitment to service that was supported by experiences the others had. Nick had a commitment to detail and a willingness to do much of the work that needed to be done.

All of the founders came from intact families that were supportive of their dreams and efforts. Barriers to the development of this organization were met with some frustration. However, rather than giving up, the founders confronted various issues and worked within the system to change institutional policies. The four founders took their business program and applied principles from their classrooms to the creation of the organization. They actually were involved in the purest form of service-learning. By applying many aspects of the curriculum to their own organization they learned while providing service (albeit to their own organization). When he found the curriculum lacking Pete worked to institutionalize a new academic major.

This is a new generation of students that are used to being able to tailor life to their specification (Prensky, 2001). They have a belief that they can solve the problems of our society as the “next great generation” (DeBard, 2004). However, if we continue to discount their abilities will we squander the opportunity to learn from them? This generation has also been trained to be much more collaborative in their relationships. Their social networks are much more influential than even ten years ago. Their ability to manage and manipulate technology to create social change is a major factor not to be discounted by university leadership.