By Julia Parmley
For student Andi Israel, GW's urban setting serves as the perfect classroom.
“Having grown up in metropolitan Los Angeles and then moving to Washington, D.C., for college, I have always had an interest in the social inequalities of cities,” says Ms. Israel, who volunteers at local nonprofit Miriam’s Kitchen and is conducting a research project on the city’s homeless population. “GW has afforded me many special opportunities. I don't think that I would have been able to develop such close ties to an organization like Miriam’s Kitchen had GW not been located in such an urban center.”
Ms. Israel’s public service is directly connected to her coursework as a human services major in GW’s Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. “The human services program is unique at our school,” she says. “Service-learning opportunities are made possible by GW's location and connections to myriad community-based organizations. I could not have found this program or this accessibility in many other schools.”
Through one of her courses, “Human Services for Community: Empowerment for Social Change,” Ms. Israel is developing a manual and curriculum for a new life skills program at Miriam’s Kitchen, enabling her to apply techniques and skills learned in the classroom.
As a Gamow Undergraduate Research Fellow, Ms. Israel is working with Professor of Sociology Gregory Squires to examine the values, goals and self-perception of select homeless individuals in the District, focusing on what she calls the “us-versus-them perspective” for a project titled “The Current State of Mind of Washington, D.C.’s Homeless Community.”
Ms. Israel will present her research findings at the 2010 Urban Affairs Association Conference in Honolulu in March. “I recently found out that my proposal was accepted, and I'm very excited about this opportunity,” she says.
For Ms. Israel, who in 2008 was named by the local community group FRIENDS as a “Winning Neighbor,” being part of the GW community and the District community is one and the same. “Service is about being a community member. It’s about being aware of others’ needs and working to fulfill them,” she says. “Participating in service projects does just that: It expands awareness and harnesses action.”