Campus Name
Amherst College
Amherst, MA (see Serve 2.0 Mini-Grant Map)
Campus Contacts
Oscar Lanza-Galindo / olanzagalindo@amherst.edu / 413-542-5356
Student's Name: Name / Email / Phone
CCE, Amherst College, PO Box 5000 • Amherst,M MA 01002
www.amherst.edu/academiclife/cce
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Issue Focus Area(s)
Education/Youth Development
Brief Overview
Amherst proposes to create a collaborative Social Media Tools Training Program that will provide recommendations, strategies, and tangible tools with which to understand, reach and mobilize millennial generation students through Social Movement Media. The Center for Community Engagement (CCE) plans to utilize technology to enhance programs through communication strategies and information distribution methodologies. Social media tools continue to develop as one of the primary choices for mass communication for most college students. This funding will allow them to implement and integrate social movement media tools (such as blogs, microblogs, Wikis, social networking, and social bookmarking), as well as train student volunteers and Community Partnership Directors about how to best use these sources for recruiting and retaining new volunteers. By integrating social media tools, they believe that they can enhance and strengthen college student community service and civic engagement at Amherst College.
Through the Serve 2.0 Initiative, Amherst plans to focus on our relationships with two of our primary community partnerships, El Arco Iris (Holyoke, MA) and the Pipeline Project (Amherst, MA). Both of these partnerships focus on after school academic tutoring and enrichment, serving elementary and middle school youth. The Serve 2.0 Initiative will provide Amherst College Bonner Community Engagement Leaders with resources and tools they can use to continue building strong and sound relationships amongst volunteers, Community Program Directors, program participants, and the Amherst College community. By creating an additional avenue for collaboration and learning opportunities, they believe that Community Program Directors and Bonner Community Engagement Leaders will develop a more intimate and professional understanding of each other and the work they do. Community Program Directors will learn how to utilize social media to reach to a wider volunteer pool; Amherst College Bonner Community Engagement Leaders and student volunteers will be able to put leadership skills into action as they create and develop materials for trainings.
Key Community Partners
Please feel free to add a sentence description for the partners.
(see Serve 2.0 Mini-Grant Map)
If a partner is missing from the map, email Ariane Hoy
Social Media Tools to Be Used
Facebook, videos, YouTube, blogs, Meebo, Wiggio, Bebo, Jing, Ning, Slide, flickR
Context and Rationale (Explanation of Tools)
Many organizations and institutions find themselves facing economic hardships. Despite these limitations, there are a large number of free or low-cost technological resources that can be used to reach, communicate with, and mobilize students eager to become engaged community citizens.
Social Media tools can be of significant value for several reasons. First, they will allow the CCE to enhance the scope of the El Arco Iris and Pipeline partnerships by providing a creative outlet through which partners can update recruitment, retention, and program information materials on a regular basis. Second, Social Media tools will improve the quality of partnerships through near-instant access to program evaluation and feedback channels. Third, Social Media tools allow Bonner Community Engagement Leaders and Community Program Directors the opportunity to create program-specific content, such as video podcasts of tutors trainings, which they may market and promote to identified audiences (i.e.: potential tutors, contributors, program participants, and funders).
By creating a Social Media Tools Training Program, Bonner Community Engagement Leaders, CCE staff and Community Program Directors will have the opportunity to capitalize on the most current on-line networking trends and adapt them to best fit their respective organizations. We plan to utilize a train the trainers model. CCE staff will work in conjunction with two (2) student Serve 2.0 Interns to create a training program and manual. Bonner Community Engagement Leaders and key staff at our partnership program will be participants in training sessions and work together to develop a plan for how they will continue to use Social Media tools in their partnership work. All participants will learn technological skills, increase their understanding of social media tools, and actively participate in the implementation of specific social media tools, which they identify as tools that will strengthen their partnership. Our goal is to help train students to train others and help them to become more comfortable with technologies that, at first, may seem confusing or intimidating. All participants in the training program will benefit as they cultivate deeper relationships with one another in an environment where they are co-learners. Community Program Directors will develop stronger relationships with the Bonner Community Engagement Leaders who bear primary responsibility for assisting the recruitment, retention, and development of tutors for their respective programs. Serve 2.0 Interns will benefit by developing their organizing, public speaking, and facilitation skills.
Link to Campus Organizing Strategies
Amherst's strategy is to develop and implement a train-the-trainers program that will build the leadership and technological skills of students and community partner staff to integrate web-based tools effectively. Two student interns will be the lead organizers of a training program and will create a manual.
Goals of Initiative
- The primary objective for securing funding through the Bonner Serve 2.0 Initiative is to create Social Media Tools Training Program for Bonner Community Engagement Leaders and Community Program Directors. The training program will be created by Oscar Lanza-Galindo (CCE Program Associate for Student Leadership) and two student interns.
- Bonner Community Engagement Leaders and Community Program Directors will develop a deeper understanding of how Millenials use Social Media tools. The training program will provide an opportunity for hands-on practice and create a support network for the participants.
- Participants will develop a richer understanding of how to capitalize on social media tools to conduct outreach, recruitment and retention of Amherst College student volunteers, as well as develop different avenues for information distribution and program analysis.
- Participants will share their experience with social media with one another. Furthermore, participants will brainstorm solutions, share strategies to reach program goals, and learn from one another.
- The Social Media Tools Training Program will provide participants a venue to determine which Social Media tools are pertinent to the their work, technical assistance on implementing those tools, and a venue where they may further develop their professional and personal relationships as collaborators with common needs, goals, and objectives.
- Finally, after the Social Media Tools Training Program has occurred, it is our goal to have instructional videos available on-line for those who participate in the training program as well as for others to use at their discretion.
Key Activities and Timelines
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