#rooimpact

Roosevelt @ Harding visited Dallas for a daylong excursion to City Square to learn more about a unique approach to tackling poverty in the area. Sophomore Curt Baker reflects on the experience below: 

My mind is buzzing with ideas as I reflect on our recent adventure, a one-day excursion to CitySquare in Dallas, TX. Along with several fellow Roosevelters and representatives from the Social Work, Business, and Bible departments, I was exposed to the counter-intuitive and incredibly effective approach CitySquare has adopted as they tackle poverty in greater Dallas. 

Our group spent several hours with Larry James (CEO) and John Siburt (President/COO) discussing their holistic, housing-based ministry, touring their various facilities, and brainstorming ways to bring change to our very own Searcy, AR 72143, a small community but one not devoid of needs. 

Indeed, that desire to interact with the Searcy community in a new way is actually the origin of our trip. This group of 40+ students, each with our own stories and backgrounds, from various majors and emphases, is committed to doing something. United by a common but undirected pursuit, we decided that a Friday trip to Dallas and CitySquare would be worth missing our riveting classes. We were not disappointed. 

However, the details of CitySquare's model are not, in my opinion, the most significant lessons we learned. Although they have been wildly successful in their efforts, CitySquare is addressing Dallas needs in Dallas ways. The same format simply will not succeed in Searcy, being nearly as different from Dallas as possible. 

Rather, if we are to address needs and bring change, we must hold firmly to an oft-repeated phrase by Larry James: ‘If something is worth doing, it's worth doing poorly.’ This is not an endorsement of mediocrity. Rather, it is a call to action. 

How often does our meticulous planning cripple us? How often does the pursuit of perfection limit our effectiveness? Those of us who participated in that Friday visit will not be chained to extensive, flawless plans at the cost of actually doing something. 

We are committed to action.”

-Curt Baker

Chapter Profile- Roosevelt @ City College of New York

External Engagement Coordinator Hannah Zhang met with chapter head Moustafa Elshaabiny to discuss some of the chapter’s highlights from the past year. Take a look at their conversation: 

• How old is your chapter? o The CCNY chapter is three years old, founded in the fall of 2011.

• How large is your chapter? o 30–35 engaged members

• What does a typical chapter meeting look like? What do you focus on? o An average chapter meeting is about 15–20 people, including the executive board. Usually, we have different agendas for different meetings. The general body meetings usually focus on policy in the fall and impact in the spring. In our first meeting, we discuss what Roosevelt is and how we use policy to achieve impact, since many members tend to be new. After that, we plan what we will do during the semester, introduce 10 Ideas, and kick off the semester from there. We also use trainings like the Think 2040 and stakeholder trainings. We have peer-editing workshops and invite our alumni to come back and join us.

• What does an impact project look like for your chapter? o After seeing that a lot of the published policies don’t really get implemented, we decided to vote as a chapter on one or two major policies to focus on in the spring, putting the entire chapter’s support behind those projects. 

• Tell me about an impact project your chapter is focusing on this year. o This year, we had five policies published in 10 Ideas. We put these policies up for a vote, and the winner was a policy titled “Cognitive Enhancement Through Multilingualism: Better Preparing Our Students Through Incentivized Elementary Dual Language Immersion” by chapter member Josh Kemp. This policy was modeled on an education initiative in Utah including half-day English instruction and half-day instruction in a different language. Our impact project seeks to implement a similar program here in New York, and we’ve already started to reach out to stakeholders in Utah and New York. 

• What does your membership look like? o We have different people from all academic backgrounds, including lots of members from engineering and the sciences in addition to your average political science or humanities major. 

• How do you recruit members? Specifically, how do you work to create a diverse membership? o As an executive board, we are very conscious about the clubs and circles that we already belong in. It’s easy to recruit our friends and people we already know are interested in policy. That being said, at the beginning of this year, we looked at the groups we were already involved in, and decided to recruit beyond those groups. For us, the most effective recruiting tool was word of mouth—telling people about Roosevelt and what we do. This really brings a different type of member, not someone who is just here for the sake of being here, but people who really believe in our vision. 

• What do you think is most effective in recruiting and retaining members? o What I find most effective is telling personal stories and making connections. When people hear why we do what we do, they want to be involved. 

• How do you communicate with your members? Email? Social Media? o We use Facebook and email. We don’t have an official newsletter, but we use emails a lot. Emails are effective, but they bring the kinds of members who aren’t motivated and committed at the beginning, so we really try to use this kind of communication as a “first step” in recruiting. It’s up to personal connections to retain members, I think. We’re also big on publicity. Last year, we brought in a publicity person who was a film major. She made a plan for videos, photos, and flyers to promote our work. It’s been pretty successful from there. One of our effective practices with social media is posting photos of all our meetings and tagging members, which tends to spread posts on Facebook and make people aware of Roosevelt. 

• What is unique about Roosevelt, compared to other groups on CCNY’s campus? o A lot of members tell me that they find Roosevelt unique at CCNY because our meetings are much more structured and we actually have concrete projects in mind. They say that professionalism is really what makes us stand out as a campus group. 

• Do you have social events outside of your meetings? o Because CCNY is a commuter school, we don’t have as many organized social events on campus as other schools, but we’re a social group. We get together to eat or go out, or hang out at our apartments. In addition to that, we bond a lot through working together on a project and depending on each other.

• What was one of your favorite events this year? o Definitely the policy workshop that we hosted in the fall with other local chapters. We worked really hard to create the sense of a Roosevelt network and show that we’re not just CCNY, but also other school from around the New York City area. CCNY members got to bond with students from other chapters, and the policy workshop was very helpful for members writing 10 Ideas pieces. It was a lot of work to put together, but I think it was the event that really kicked off the year in terms of cross-chapter collaboration.

- Hannah Zhang

External Engagement Coordinator 2014- NorthEast region

Chapter Profile- Roosevelt @ Wheaton College

The Roosevelt Institute at Wheaton is one of the largest and most active chapters in the Northeast. Maintaining an active membership of 60–80 members, Roo at Wheaton is a great example of a model Roosevelt chapter. I chatted with Sarah Estrela, the outgoing President, about the chapter and what makes it special.

What was clear right off the bat was how large and well-organized the Wheaton chapter is. With an email list of more than 150 names in a student body of 1,600, it has an enormous presence on campus. They do not have weekly general meetings, instead holding fireside chats or other special events. Estrela says the focus is on “policy issues and current events…We do our best to break down current issues that are going on. Some past examples of these include fireside chats on Ferguson, climate change, [and] women’s rights in Afghanistan. We usually end these discussions with a talk about policy solutions.” The college does not have an active political union, and Wheaton Democrats and Republicans are only active during election years. This leaves Roo at Wheaton as the only major student organization focused on current events and policy.

Roo at Wheaton also has a well-established policy-writing program. One week in the fall, a policy workshop is held instead of a fireside chat. Every interested writer has a 1-on-1 meeting with an experienced policy writer in the chapter and receives constant help and encouragement from other members. Wheaton college students are frequently featured in RICN’s premier policy journal; this year, sophomore Liam Grace-Flood’s piece on reducing discriminatory college admissions practices was published in the education policy journal. The chapter is also considering starting its own policy journal.

The Wheaton chapter has also undertaken several Rethinking Communities projects aimed at improving the beneficial relationship between college and community. Chapter Secretary Saba Mundlay has been studying food waste at the college and created a budget management stimulation for students to realize the dangers of wasting food. Liam is working to extend the reach of Wheaton College’s radio station to the surrounding community and has launched a Roo Raises campaign to help cover the needed upgrades. Liam is also working to foster a partnership between the Wheaton Student Art League and a local elementary school.

Wheaton’s signature event is WheaTalks. Modeled on Ted Talks, it is a yearly event where several people give talks on a variety of topics.  Estrela explains, “From the onset, we wanted to bring out different facets of Wheaton through students and their passions and ideas through short talks…In the first year of the event, there was standing room capacity. It’s grown every year.” Now in its fourth cycle, WheaTalks is truly “a staple of the Wheaton community,” bringing together students, professors, staff, and community members to enjoy entertaining and informative presentations. This past year the theme was “Share your idea.” Highlights included a professor talking about humans developing technological dependence while using a yoyo, an ROTC cadet talking about women transitioning into combat roles in the U.S. military, and Mundlay giving a talk on the power dynamics involved in international food policy.

With an amazing relationship with school administration, a ten-member board size, and well-established and popular programming, Roo at Wheaton certainly has a bright future. It is also amazingly diverse, attracting not just the traditional political science majors but people from all academic interests. Case in point, chapter president Estrela is an Art History major. And what makes Roo students at Wheaton unique? In her words, students are “super-duper passionate…We are passionate about what we do, considering Roosevelt not just another organization but a gateway for us to get involved. It is easier to become politically engaged because of it. There’s a big learning curve involved, but we all maintain intellectual generosity.”

I can’t wait to see what this group of super-duper passionate students comes up with next!

- Joshua Ferrer

Have you been keeping up with events in Ferguson? Read reactions from Roosevelters to this week’s grand jury decision against indicting Darren Wilson for Mike Brown’s murder.

Interested in sharing your own response on the Next New Deal Blog? Reach out to Aman Banerji at [email protected].

Full text here:

In the wake of the announcement that Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson would not stand trial for the shooting death of Michael Brown, members of our Networks shared their views on what's unfolding in Missouri and what it means for us as a nation.

Marissa Charlemagne, Campus Network member and junior at Goucher College:

I was in a Roosevelt meeting when I heard the news of the non-indictment of Officer Darren Wilson. As I looked around the room at all the faces, at all the colors of those faces -- black, white, and brown -- there was not a sense of surprise, nor shock, nor sorrow. The room was silent and full of blank expressions. Then one white girl said, “the system does work; it just works for those who it's made for.”

On social media, I saw that people were talking about the riots, about the looting, about the police, and about Michael Brown’s family, but hardly anyone was talking about Michael Brown. We hear the words "institutionalized racism" and "systematic oppression" so much that they lose meaning. Based on our history, there will be another Michael Brown, and there will be another Darren Wilson, but will there be another movement for change? I pray not just for black people but all people; I pray that this world gets it together to see real justice and real peace for all the Michael Browns, and for all the people who are tired of living the struggle. Because I too sing America.

Riley Jones IV, Campus Network member and sophomore at Columbia University:

For many people of this generation, the Ferguson situation highlighted for the first time the supposedly dormant tensions of race and class. For others who come from communities where murder is not an uncommon occurence, myself included, it is simply one further injustice in a system of inherited economic and political oppression. In either case, this should serve not as an excuse to despair, but rather as an impetus to abide by the call that President Theodore Roosevelt -- cousin of our organization's namesake -- lived by: "Get Action." As students and alumni of the world’s best universities, we must do our part to ensure that every citizen has the right and access to opportunity that we have been fortunate enough to receive. Only through displaying our humanity in the gravest of situations, at the climax of our anger and the inexorable depths of our sadness, can we truly overcome the societal infirmities that led to the murder of Michael Brown, Jr. in Ferguson, Missouri.

Alan Smith, Roosevelt Institute Associate Director of Networked Initiatives:

In a statement Monday night, President Obama said, "There are ways for you to channel your concerns constructively, and there are ways for you to channel your concerns destructively."

With all due respect, Mr. President, there aren't any ways for the people of Ferguson to channel their concerns constructively. After months of peaceful protesting, after being tear gassed and intimidated, after the media has made them out to be hooligans and thugs, after countless pleas for justice (or at least redress), after trying to do everything in their power to stand against a system that is blatant in not valuing them, this community was just told, in no uncertain terms, that all that constructive action and those attempts at dialogue fell on deaf ears.

Please, don't ask them to wait more. Don't ask them to "be constructive." That ball is not in their court. They are mourning, they are scared, and they are hurt. And we've made it very clear to these protesters that nothing they do or say makes even one iota of difference in how this discussion unfolds.

Katie Kirchner, Campus Network member and senior at American University: