I hope that by taking these snapshots of how faculty make community involvement a part of their very busy and demanding lives, the College can celebrate and honor faculty involvement. This installment features Professor of English and Black Studies Rhonda Cobham-Sander who was born in the Caribbean but now treats the Amherst area as her community.
Hanna: What kind of activities do you engage in related to your community?
Prof. Cobham-Sander: I currently serve on the Advisory Board for the Amherst Committee for A Better Chance (ABC). I was a host parent to an ABC student for four years. He graduates from college this year. In addition, I am on the Board for the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, which is the state equivalent of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
H: Being on the Board for the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities sounds like a demanding responsibility. What is it exactly that you do?
R: We fund programs throughout the community for projects that are related to using the humanities to develop civic forums. Recently, we funded a series of events around the theme of liberty and justice for all. One of our speakers was Taylor Branch, a historian who has written about Martin Luther King, Jr.'s legacy. We also fund a program called the Clemente Program that creates humanities courses for people who want to enrich their education. They tend to be mostly men and women who really haven't had a chance to attend a university.
H: Would you say you were heavily involved in community work as a college student?
R: During the 1960s and 1970s, there was a great deal of civil unrest in Trinidad, which was where I grew up so I was very interested in working to eliminate social inequality in that context. The first public service activity I was involved in was volunteering in a hospital and working with patients in the social work office. It was my first exposure to people whose social conditions made it difficult for them to get the basics they needed for survival-food, medicine, access to education.
When I went to the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, I became involved with the campus trade unions and through them got involved in literacy programs for workers who didn't know how to read and write. The year after I graduated from college, I helped set up a program that used theater as a vehicle for community engagement. A friend of mine was the director and I was actually an actress in the first production. My friend went on to start an improvisational theater with working class women in Jamaica called the Sistren Theater Collective. I teach some of their work in my classes now.
H: Do you do similar work at the College?
R: When I first got to the U.S., most of my community service had to do with fundraising for projects for my friends back in the Caribbean, but I realized that if I was to live here, I would have to get involved with this community. My first sustained effort to do this was by teaching the course in the English Department called "Reading, Writing, and Teaching," which took Amherst students into the classroom at Holyoke High School.
It made a huge difference to what I was doing with my life because it required me to use what I did as a career to help students with their community service. I joined ABC in part because I wanted to find out more about the Amherst community. I joined the Board of the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities because I wanted to find out more about Massachusetts.
Becoming involved with the world outside of academia was crucial to my sense of what it meant to be part of American society. Currently at Amherst College, I am Special Assistant to the President for Diversity and Inclusion. I work with the faculty and staff to think about how diversity affects hiring practices as well as education and to try to create a work force that is as diverse as the student body. In this job I've been able to combine what I've learned while working in the wider community around issues of social justice with my professional life.
H: Is there a particular organization you would like to be part of in the future?
R: I would like to be involved with Habitat for Humanity. I like the challenge of making something happen and also of leaving something behind from which others can benefit, even if no one knows of my contribution. I want to be able to look back at what I helped build and say to myself, I was part of making that good thing happen.
H: What advice would you give students who are interested in getting involved in this work?
R: Community involvement complements and enhances all aspects of your life and it should be an ongoing commitment. It does not work to put off getting involved until you think you're rich enough or when you have enough time in your life because that day never really comes. On the other hand, it's also important to be very selective in what you do so that the projects in which you're engaged in get the benefit of your full attention.
A lot of students think about community service as a good way to build a resume so they become involved in many things at once. But a lot of real people can be badly hurt if you mess up on a community service activity, so focus on a few commitments that mean something to you and stay true to them.
H: Are there any upcoming events that you would like students to know about?
R: Yes. The ABC house will be having their 35th Annual Fall Foliage Walk on Oct. 14, 2006. Walkers get others to pay for the number of miles they cover along a set path, and if we are lucky we'll have a wonderful fall day for the event.
This is our biggest event of the year and it raises money that the program needs badly. If you want to be involved in the walk or if you'd like to sponsor a walker you should get in touch with me.