“To what extent is your sense of self shaped by your culture, circumstances and location? How does where you are living and working influence what you dream? Does performing service, and writing about your experiences, change your ideas about who you are?”
As part of Professor Presser’s UW 1020, students got to dive deep into these questions within the domain of consciousness studies, an interdisciplinary field that includes psychology, philosophy, physics, cognitive science, and more. Still a rapidly evolving area of study, scholars worked to develop their own opinions and theories on the expansion of human consciousness. Rather than learning through traditional lectures and discussions, students had a chance to explore these theories outside of the GW bubble with a community organization
This semester, students made over 900 impacts in Professor Presser’s 4 sections serving in their local D.C. community. For many, this was their first time getting to do service in-person since the COVID-19 pandemic began, making it especially enjoyable.
For information about Community Engaged Scholarship at GW: https://go.gwu.edu/cesc
Spring 2022
Professor: Pamela Presser
Students Reporting: 68
Total Impacts: 953
| Community Partner | Project Description |
| Free Minds Book Club | With the Free Minds Book Club, students helped give written feedback to incarcerated youth on poetry and writing projects with other volunteers. Students also attended writing circles where they gave advice and ideas on writing projects via zoom to authors of poems and stories. |
| Latino Student Fund | As part of the LSF tutoring program, students helped reinforce math and English skills for PreK through 12th-grade students. Students met weekly as either a tutor or mentor with an individual student, building close relationships with the student throughout the semester. |
| Little Friends for Peace | Students had the opportunity to either participate in virtual peace circles with D.C. Public School students or with incarcerated citizens in Alexandria, VA. As trained volunteers, students were able to get the chance to learn about peace and conflict resolution through direct service. |
| Smithsonian Transcription | Students worked with and transcribed historical documents including field notes, diaries, ledgers, logbooks, currency proof sheets, photo albums, manuscripts, and biodiversity labels to help more people learn from these historic documents. Doing so helps make historical documents and biodiversity data more accessible. |
What scholarly projects were students assigned that connected to their community engagement?
Students worked on collaborative projects, an annotated bibliography, and a journal in which they engaged in meta-cognitive writing. As part of the curriculum, students also completed a final paper combining research on service and consciousness, which also pulled from students' lived experiences serving in the D.C. community. Class texts were drawn from several genres and included academic essays, autobiographies, and graphic narratives for students to draw connections from.
Quotes from students:
“I really liked this experience because it allowed [me] to take the perspective of people with much different lives than my own. It reminded me to not take anything for granted.” - A student serving with Free Minds Book Club
“This was a completely new and different experience for me but I thoroughly enjoyed every single part of it. I found it easier than when working with documents because I could just type as I listened and it was definitely comforting and a pleasure.” - A student serving with Smithsonian Transcription
“Through this type of research, I was able to understand that it takes a whole community effort to transcribe these historical documents to make them more accessible. Changing hard copies to digital text opens up many research opportunities for the future. It is very rewarding to be a small part of such a big community. Overall, I really enjoyed this process and found it to be very fun and rewarding.” - A student serving with Smithsonian Transcription
“I thoroughly enjoyed the work that I did and am hopeful that the time I spent will be repaid to the kids who benefit from Little Friends for Peace. I addressed envelopes to potential donors to Little Friends for Peace.” - A student serving with Little Friends for Peace
Fall 2019
Professor: Pamela Presser
Students Reporting: 16
Total Impacts: 339.17
Community Partners for This Course
The Store, Office of Sustainability, Martha’s Table, Charlie’s Place, Bread for the City, Miriam’s Kitchen, Central Union Mission, DC Central Kitchen, Reading Partners, So Others Might Eat (SOME), JumpStart, School Without Walls High School, ArtReach GW at THEARC, Food and Friends, Dumbarton Oaks Parks Conservancy, GroW Garden, 11th Street Bridge Park, Ohel David and Shlomo, GW AmeriCorps VISTAS, Chai Lifeline, Inova Fairfax Hospital
Student Comments:
“I volunteered to help raise funds for a service called Chai Lifeline. Chai Lifeline is an amazing organization in which they take care of and raise funds for children with disabilities. I personally knocked on houses and spread the awareness of the organization in order to help raise funds. Additionally, I helped my parents set up for the fund raiser they hosted in our home. It was a very special and moving event.” Student serving with Chai Lifeline
“This was my first-time volunteering for Martha’s Table. The place is well-organized and the people there are kind and helpful. This definitely won’t be my last time there.” Student serving at Martha’s Table
