Shining Examples
Evan Neuens
Voluntarism and community service have always been a part of the Lawrence tradition. The creation of the Pieper Family Foundation Professorship in Servant Leadership both honored that tradition and propelled service to a new level at Lawrence.
If it’s a priority of liberal education to cultivate a sense of social responsibility in our students, we believe there should also be sustained efforts to engage them in the practice of moral values. But that begs a number of questions: What kinds of opportunities can we provide that allow students to put values into practice? Should opportunities to put values into practice be integrated into the curriculum? How can these opportunities be cultivated and coordinated?
Alan Parks, the inaugural Pieper Family Professor of Servant Leadership, wrestles with these questions in his role as Director of the Office of Engaged Learning. Parks continues to teach courses in the mathematics department but also works to facilitate student and faculty collaboration that applies what’s taught in the classroom to community service projects. His first year in this role was so successful that the Suzanne and Richard Pieper Family Foundation made an additional gift to their endowed professorship at Lawrence to provide greater support for service outreach.
That additional gift is helping to support a service project that Evan Neuens ’09 has undertaken in collaboration with the Appleton Fire Department. The Appleton fire chief approached Parks in 2007 about having a Lawrence student assist the department with evaluating and enhancing fire safety education efforts targeting lower income households and the elderly. Neuens, a mathematics-economics major, is working with fire department data and professional research literature to help the department quantify its community work and identify areas where changes would help improve community fire safety. Said Parks, “At Lawrence we want our students to see that they can use their academic studies to help solve practical problems in the larger community. We hope that work on this type of project will help students refine their academic interests and that it will draw them to use their gifts and abilities to serve others.”
Both university’s collaborative learning opportunities focus on community engagement - not to mention the generous contributions of alumni and friends - make it possible for Neuens and other students to take what they’re learning and apply it to real life challenges…and in this case, be part of developing a real life solution.
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