Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Announcing the 2014-2015 CBL Community Engagement Awardees!

Posted by hannah.cherry

This year two students were selected to receive the 2014-2015 CBL Community Engagement Award! Congratulations to Ian Redding and Delany Larimore!

Ian Redding

During Fall 2014, Ian Redding was enrolled in HST 240 Oregon History with Professor Charlie Presti. Presti believed that Ian was an ideal candidate because his service and reflection exemplified the power of Community-Based Learning. For his CBL assignment, Redding volunteered with the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center. Here he reflects on how his project connected to the class:

My time volunteering at Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center helped me understand that Oregon’s early Nikkei community exemplified this theme of overcoming hardships in the face of extreme discrimination…During the time I spent at ONLC, the temporary exhibit featured art that was created by internment camp prisoners while they were there. To see such beautiful works made by people during such trying time was truly inspiring. Oregon’s Nikkei community is a wonderful example of people overcoming obstacles, even extreme social injustice, to thrive in our city and state. 

By being placed in the community, Redding was able to explore and better understand the themes of his Oregon History course. The experience had an extremely positive impact on his academic growth and he shared that “interactions with real people, cannot usually be gained in a classroom setting, and therefore Community-Based Learning had a tremendous impact on the quality of my PCC education.”

Delaney Larimore

Delaney Larimore completed community-based learning during a Winter 2015 course, Social Change in Societies (SOC 205) with Professor Lisa George. George described Larimore’s project as “exemplary” and that her reflections “evidenced verstehen perfectly while remaining academically engaged” (In sociology, there is a concept known as verstehen – which means understanding a social phenomenon from the standpoint of the people involved). Larimore volunteered with Rose Haven, an organization that serves homeless and abused women and children, where she organized a clothing and hygiene drive to help the 60-90 women and children they serve daily. In her award application, Larimore articulated a major challenge of volunteering and how to take actions around social issues:

One obstacle that I think any volunteer or person working in social change faces, is making sure they aren’t stigmatizing the needs of those their helping. Specifically in my experience working at Rose Haven, I wanted to make sure that when I helped a woman pick out clothing, or put together a hygiene bag, or any other service, that I wasn’t imposing my own idea about the needs of those living homeless. It was very important to me that I treat each woman individually and not based on stereotypes.

Larimore shared how impactful the CBL experience was in understanding how to apply classroom knowledge to the community. “This project sparked in me the belief that if every student was able to connect theory and praxis, like I was able to with my project, being an activist would be a part of each of our identities and we would live more equitable lives.”