Goucher Clubs Increase Their Involvement in Baltimore with the Old Goucher Neighborhood Collaborative

Release date: May 03, 2006 |

From The Quindecim

Tyler Adams

Posted: 4/19/06

Goucher College's mailing address reads "Baltimore, MD." This helps connect the college to its neighboring major metropolis, an advantage often stressed in the Admissions Office's efforts to convince prospective students to apply and enroll. However, Goucher is actually in Towson, which, while only a short bus ride north of the city, is far enough away to restrict many students from visiting the city regularly, if at all.

The Old Goucher Neighborhood Collaborative Club (OGNCC) is trying to change that.

This Saturday, April 22, OGNCC will sponsor Spring Into Service 2006, shuttling busloads of Goucher students to and from the Old Goucher neighborhood in Baltimore. The former neighborhood of the college's original city campus is part of the inspiration for OGNCC, which has become one of Goucher's most active clubs since its inception two years ago.

The goals for Saturday include cleaning and beautifying the neighborhood, with students working at a playground and community green. The club and its co-sponsors hope that Spring Into Service will re-establish Goucher's presence in the Old Goucher neighborhood and, perhaps most importantly, get Goucher students off-campus and connect them to an off-campus community.

"What we're trying to do here is build up enthusiasm for getting students involved in Baltimore City," says Goucher Assistant Professor Rob Koulish, who is also OGNCC's faculty advisor and Goucher's France-Merrick Professor of Service Learning. The native New Yorker works closely with club President Ella Aroneau, '08, and Vice President Sofia Jasani, '09, but stresses this isn't his brainchild. "This is student-inspired stuff that's going on here."

The students' ideas have grown into big things already. Jasani co-founded OGNCC in 2004. A thoughtful student spotlighted in the College's newly redesigned website, Jasani actively pursues many varied interests. "Giving back to the community," as she says on the site, is chief among them. "This should be a fun, inclusive way to further the mission that [OGNCC] and the College represent and strive for, or should be striving for," she says.

The Goucher student body contains a number of vocal students that take issue with the inclusiveness of the college. OGNCC serves as an alternative to that school of thought. "We've had a lot of opportunities for [Goucher] students to go out and get to know the city," says Jasani.

OGNCC and Goucher Leadership Scholars (GLS), also a relatively new club, have packed Spring Into Service with incentive for students. Participants will receive goody-bags stuffed with snacks, water, and a T-shirt. Furthermore, it will not be all work and no play at the sites - face-painting and bubbles are expected. The buses will circulate between Pearlstone Circle and the playground at 11 am, 1 pm, and 3 pm, with a final bus departing from the site at 4 pm. Representatives from OGNCC and GLS will be tabling this week in Pearlstone Atrium in an effort to register students for the day.

Goucher Leadership Scholars (GLS) is a club that was just founded in the fall of 2005. They will cosponsor the event with OGNCC, People's Homesteading Group and Mayor Martin O'Malley's Super Spring Sweep Thing. The new organization focuses on getting more student input in leadership programs at Goucher. Spring Into Service is one of the first events GLS has sponsored.

While GLS has made major strides in improving leadership in its first year, most of its efforts have been focused on the campus community itself. OGNCC, by comparison, arguably does more in Baltimore than any other club here. Expanding Goucher's community is key to the club's mission. They share space with nonprofit community-based organizations such as Wide Angle Community Media (a collective that runs film workshops and shoots documentaries) in the COLAB, a building in the Old Goucher neighborhood. This Sunday, April 23, OGNCC will show 2 episodes of the HBO show The Wire, continuing its connection of Goucher to Baltimore.

Spring Into Service means a lot of things, but many feel it is the beginning of an annual tradition that will not only serve to help a community, but to create one. "I want to see community residents and Goucher students working side by side, getting to know each other and just talking, becoming community members together," says Koulish. "We really want the community to see Goucher involved."

Goucher is already involved. OGNCC and GLS hope that Spring Into Service will advance not just the cause of the clubs, but of Goucher itself, entrenching the college further in the community in which that it was originally based. "We're encouraging students to explore the community and learn about how they can most productively fit into it," says Jasani. "I hope I'm not sounding too sentimental, but I am so proud of how far this club has come in just one year."

Media Contact Service Learning sawallac@goucher.edu 410-337-6251