“Local colleges involved in towns,” was the front page article in the September 5 Rochester Democrat & Chronicle. It cited The College at Brockport as one of several area colleges increasingly offering their resources “on issues of economic development, poverty, and college completion.” In addition to this major outreach, college-community relationships are also enhanced by students volunteering in the community.
An example at The College at Brockport (“The College”) is the Saturday of Service each fall. In its seventh year, the project sends out the new freshman class on a day of work assignments in Brockport and the Greater Rochester. Also, fraternities and sororities have volunteered locally for many years.
In contrast, student internships are a longer-term volunteer service that mutually benefits The College’s academic departments, individual students, and the Village of Brockport. For many years, students have bolstered their major studies with solid experience working on significant projects in the Village. The internships have been initiated and supervised by Margay Blackman, since before she became Brockport’s mayor.
Margay Blackman: Mayor and retired professor creates Village internships
Mayor Margay Blackman retired in 2007 as professor emerita, after 30 years in The College’s Anthropology Department. Since 2005, Blackman has been enlisting student interns from The College. With the campus contacts developed over three decades, and elected to the village board in 2011, she has over time located 10 interns with appropriate majors and interests to serve the Village. With the Village’s growing reputation for excellent internships, in some cases a college department has contacted the mayor first.
The first intern made a major contribution while Blackman was a professor. One of her Anthropology students, Mark Beckwith, wanted to do an internship in forestry. She placed him with then-mayor Josephine Matela to study the Village’s public trees. By the end of the 2005 spring semester, Beckwith had created the Village Tree Board, which Blackman chaired from 2006 – 2011. In 2009, resulting from Beckwith’s initial work, the Village became a Tree City USA, a status it has maintained every year since.
Since then, other students have served as interns. The following list indicates the students’ academic department and wide variety of service:
•Kenyatta Davis – Communications (Code enforcement and off campus housing) 2011.
•Anna Rose – Communications (Marketing downtown businesses to students) 2011.
•Tanya Raycroft – Public Administration (Establishing a village court) 2012.
•Jennifer Packard – Anthropology (Historic Preservation) 2012.
•Lakita Marshall – Communications (Preliminary website design and content) 2013-14.
•Sam Tanner – Political Science (Active Transportation planning grant and LBHW event) 2014-15.
•Hannah Smith – Political Science (Bringing local government to fourth graders) 2015
•Richard Swift – Political Science (Study and hold a forum on Brockport Dissolution) 2016.
Justin Sullivan: Using his major to enhance Brockport’s media presence
The current intern in the Brockport Village office is Justin Sullivan, a senior communications major. His work includes media relations and developing the first-time social media for the Village. The internship for a semester typically earns three credit hours, requiring at least 120 hours of work. The student receives no financial payment.
Sullivan is very enthusiastic about his career preparation on campus and in the Village office. “The College has an amazing journalism and broadcasting program. There is also very good extra-curricula experience,” he said, citing the campus newspaper and the radio and TV stations. His work for the radio station and The Stylus had him observing court sessions, attending government meetings, and interviewing the mayor and trustees. With this background of interest and experiences, he and Mayor Blackman agreed on starting the internship.
“I am looking forward to everything I am going to learn this semester,” he said about his Village government experience. “It’s not like internships where students answer the phone and organize desks. I am actually getting real hands-on experience, writing, doing the research, connecting with people.” Recently he contacted Seattle to obtain the city’s social media policy and their permission to use a modified version as a model for the one he will help develop for the Village. He gave a presentation to the Village board on the proposed social media model at the September 26 public meeting.
“By the Village having the social media presence, they can connect not just with village residents, but with younger people (at The College) to have an understanding of what’s going on in the local government,” Sullivan said. Erica Linden, the Village’s Deputy Clerk/Treasurer, also emphasizes the importance of the Facebook page being planned. “We have a web page, but we are not interacting with residents,” Linden said, “and we are not getting out alerts such as what streets are being paved or other important happenings.” She is in charge of the social media project (which may eventually include Twitter) and welcomes Sullivan’s assistance, as she manages a wide variety of other office operations.
Linden and Mayor Blackman share supervision of Sullivan. The three meet every Tuesday. The conversation includes updates on the Facebook project and activities that might be publicized through press releases. Sullivan’s ideas and work on press releases will be a major help in the busy office. “In the midst of keeping everything running smoothly, we don’t take time to think about all the newsworthy things that are happening in Brockport,” Linden said.
There is a mutual admiration between Justin and his mentors. “Justin is a very bright young man,” Linden said. “He has a drive and a passion for this particular kind of work. He thinks hard about these community connections and gets things done in a timely fashion.”
“I love putting my journalism skills to good use in this public relations internship,” Sullivan said. “I want to leave Brockport in May and be able to go in any direction such as broadcasting, public relations, or writing. That’s why this internship is so beneficial to me. It’s really an honor to be here.”
