Reflect on your experience with this course. What have you learned about yourself (through the readings and through your interactions with your classmates)

This was an interesting class for me…I guess wasn’t really sure what to expect with this class. I didn’t know if it was going to be all service hours or learning about different ways people serve. In the end though I am glad that I took the class because I did learn more about myself than I thought I would have. I found that despite the efforts that I put forward I really don’t do a good amount of service for the community. Sure I consider myself a good person that helps out the community, but I really do pay attention to anything. I am what I was once told as a PCP (Parking Lot-Classroom- Parking Lot) student. I went from the place that I needed to go without really paying attention to those things around me. If nothing else I have become more aware of the things around…not just the things that need to be changed, fixed or just all around suck, but those things that hind underneath it all. The things that no one else notices…take a really bad looking building that people complain that they have to live next to or pass on their way to work. There may be a reason for that building…someone living there for one reason or another. Not saying that we shouldn’t change the building or make sure that it is safe and all that. Just that we need to take the time to look deeper than what is just on the surface. Thanks for helping me learn to take a deeper look at things…

What has been a significant moment involving service for you (whether something you have done, or something you have seen someone do)?

I would have to say that the most significant service project was when I went to Mississippi 2 years ago. For this project I traveled to Lakeshore, Mississippi with several other students from my leadership group call LINK. A little about Lakeshore…it was a city that was struck by Hurricane Katrina, but nothing was done for them really since they were not a ‘big community’. The reason that this was significant to me was:

1. The stories that the people told us. They were so glad that we were there to help them…that we were there to listen to them and help them. It had been so long since someone had just listened to them.
2. The way our group worked together. We may not have all like each other, but we worked together to help people. People that we didn’t know…people that didn’t ask for our help, but needed it.

I guess this was really the first time that I really got a look at something that I considered service. I had done things through my church and that was meaningful to me, but this was just different. I can’t explain what was different about it. Maybe it was where we lived and where we saw. Maybe it was the fact that the Casino in the community was about the only thing that had been completely restored. Maybe it was the fact that 2 years after the community was hit it was still in ruins. It was just one of the most significant experiences in my college career.

Reflect on the “19 Indicators of Civic Engagement” that we discussed
in class. What has been your experience with any of the 19 indicators?

I think that this was a really interesting topic….despite me reading on the way to school at 7:30 am on my iPhone (btw…never attempt that…its dangerous and makes you slightly sick to your stomach.) My whole question about the survey and what results that were collected was how they formulated the survey. I ask my professor about how they did the survey…and he honestly wasn’t sure. If you look at the survey the way you phrase the questions on the survey really may determine what results you may get. That is true of any survey (as I have found out from my research methods class)…but I really think that this survey really relies on governmental issues. Granted yes I do believe that the 19 indicators are  truthful in what they state about civic engagement, but I do feel that there is a very governmental approach to it. Is that a bad thing?

To me I think that yes government does play a vital role in civic engagement, but it is not all about government issues and what is not being done in the government…boycotting and buycotting. I feel that civic engagement should be above the government. I guess what I am trying to say is that I really don’t consider governmental civic engagement as ‘real’ civic engagement. Now that is only my opinion and maybe I can not be truly unbiased option since as I found I really don’t participate in what the survey was trying to get at. Maybe it isn’t just me…from the surveys in class and the surveys that we took around campus it really doesn’t seem like anyone cares about governmental civic engagement….but then again that’s just my opinion….

What has your experience with your organization been like? Do you see
room for the organization to improve in the community? What have you learned from your
organization?

As of right now I have not gotten very far with my organization. I am not how everyone else in the class is doing, but I am having a really hard time with this project. I know that we have VKSU which helps students with finding volunteer opportunities…I just wanted to try and do this one on my own.

Right now I have tried to contact 3 organization and put in 2 applications and thus far I have zip…zero…nothing. On the plus side it was a nice to go through the process….kind of what I will be doing when I graduate in May, except looking for a job

My main organization that I want to work with right now is the Chattahoochee Nature Center (CNC). My application has been processed so I am just waiting to see when I can start working for them. So right now it is just a waiting game to see what happens next. To answer the other questions that were ask I really can’t speak for what the organization needs help with other than what they put in their application. It seems that they just need people who are interested in helping  in general…and those people who like to get into the outdoors.

A bit of the history behind the CNC. “The Chattahoochee Nature Center is located on the Chattahoochee River in Roswell and sits on a beautiful site comprised of 127 acres of native plants and gardens that showcase the beauty of Georgia.  It has a River Boardwalk, Discovery Center, wetland demonstration gardens and woodland trails that are home to over 30 species of wildlife. For 30 years, this facility has continued to grow and reach out to citizens as a place to explore new ideas and expand the awareness of the natural world.”

Go more in-depth into the Servant Leadership Model and the Relational
Leadership Model. What do they mean to you in your own words?

Service Leadership is the type of leadership that focuses on looking at the common good…how you can serve the community, each other and those in need. Service leadership to me is something that in a sense is bigger than you. It is looking at the community and understanding the bigger picture. This model is about understanding the resources at hand and using them to your best mean. It has to do with finding what you are passionate about and being able to do it.

What this means to me is the same principle that I have been told in the past, that through leadership you not only develop yourself, but others as well. Through the model you serve the common good, but through developing the community you learn to develop yourself and others. It’s all about serving the common good.

Relational Leadership is more about the relationships within the group. As a leader within this model you are there empower those who are working with you. In this model it isn’t just about serving the common good, but building a collaborative group. With that this model is more about the collaborative group recognizing the individual’s ideas, thoughts and processes. It’s about how the group actually does service not the service that they perform.

What this means to me is really a more representation of the individual. Its shows that it isn’t just about the leader and how much is accomplished, but how the group accomplishes the goal. To me this is a better rounded model as it is not completely focused on the end result and has a better time at really giving the individual the freedom to help the group move toward the end result.

What are your thoughts/responses regarding the Robert Putnam
article, “The Strange Disappearance of Civic America”?

I understand where the author is coming from I just think it is hard to compare how is was 30 and 40 years ago to how it is now. It is like comparing apples and oranges…yeah we are all people but the people back then had a different view of things. Civic engagement is just viewed in a different way. Doesn’t mean that we don’t have it on our mind anymore…we just have it on our mind in a different way. That new way of thinking just needs to be explored and defined a little more.

When reading this article it was hard not to agree with what the author was saying, but I find it hard to pin it down to just one thing like the author did. Yes, he did give several different reasons for why people are no longer civically engaged in the community, but in the end he tied it to the use of television. I am sorry, but I don’t see that being the ‘ultimate evil’ that it is portrayed like.

I do agree that people are less civically engaged than those of the past, but I believe that is because people are not doing the same type of ‘typical’ civic engagement as what was done in the past. Now I will be the first person to say that there are some lazy people out there in the world and that I may not do the most civic engagement activities as I could do, but it isn’t that I do anything

Some sociologists suggest that there is never a truly ‘selfless’ act. That all of our actions are based on the idea that we act because it makes us feel better about ourselves, not because it’s the right thing to do. “I walk by a piece of trash and pick it up, not because littering is wrong or it makes the grounds look bad, but because I don’t want to feel guilty for having walked over it and not picked it up.” What are your thoughts on this? How does it change your attitude of service? Does it? Are there acts that are truly selfless?

I think that this is a completely true statement. Now I don’t want to sound like a complete pessimist in saying that I don’t think that there is ever a ‘selfless’ act. I just believe that there is always something in the back of our heads, our telling subconscious, telling us to do something for one reason or another. We do different ‘act’s’ to get attention, for a sorority/fraternity, for required community service or to just make ourselves feel better. I am guilty of doing all of these things as well and I know that there are people in the world that do things because they just feel it is the right thing to do, but I ask…if you get a feeling that it is the right thing or if you feel good about it, then can it truly be a selfless act?  The way I think about it is if you get any type of good or bad feeling, or a feeling in general then it can’t really be selfless.

As far as changing the attitude of service…I don’t think that it does. I mean really it depend on how you define service. If you are talking about serving the common good, then no it doesn’t change my attitude towards service had not change. From the several definitions that I have gone through no place in the definition does it say that service has to be ‘selfless’.  In fact in any of the definitions that I looked at on Webster.com I didn’t find anything about being selfless. I have always felt that doing a service to your community or to your country is a good thing, but that doesn’t mean that it has to be selfless. I have always been told that doing something good for someone else should be its own reward, but just because you get a good feeling from doing it I don’t feels that negates the act itself. Sure it may not have been completely selfless, but it still did some good in the world nevertheless.

After looking back at what I have written and thinking it over. I really have only heard of one act that I can truly say that I believe is selfless and that is to lay down you life for a friend or your country. I really can find no reason why someone could say that they did it for one reason or another. Yes you could say that people do it for honor, but really I can think of no way you could consider this act anything other than selfless. Other than that I really think, as I said earlier that people have some kind of subconscious voice telling them to do one thing because it will make you look cool, feel good or make up for something else you have done.

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What is your idea of leadership? How do you know it when you see it? How do you see it in yourself? What areas do you feel you need to work on? How do you see the idea of ‘service’ complementing leadership?

My idea on leadership varies on the situation you are looking at. If you are in a business situation it is generally a common theme that the leader is the boss, the person who tells everyone what to do and handle every little problem. In the church setting it is generally looked upon by that the priest, as in a Catholic Church, as the spiritual leader. In a school setting it is generally the student body president, the one with the loudest voice that is seen as the leader. My version of leadership is more of a combination of spiritual, business and student. Leadership is being the person who can be the take charge person, the ‘go-to’ guy, but is also there as a group participant a person who can be in the background being a supporter, generally referred to as a follower.

As there are different versions of leadership, there are also different versions of how leaders are viewed. Depending on the situation and the person’s background you can view basically anyone as a leader or in a leadership role. Generally how I determine if something is leadership is if it is something that I can see, something tangible. I need to be able to sink my teeth into it and really know that it is something good and honest. I have a hard time sitting there and being told that something is leadership, I need to be able to experience things in order to really understand that within every action there is leadership. You just have to adjust the ‘normal’ view to be able to see it.

Leadership and myself….that is a question I have been trying to answer since I have started in some of my leadership organizations. Really, I don’t see myself as a leader or really having leadership…who really does? Leadership and being a leader is something that someone else puts on you. Say I stand up in the front of the class and I am talking to that class as their Peer Leader, yes by definition I am a leader within the class, but none of that would matter if the students didn’t give me the role of being a leader within the class. I can sit here and go on about how I have been a Peer Leader, Peer Advisor, Trip Leader and LINK Facilitator and talk about how I saw certain traits that showed leadership, but without the support of that leadership role, no leadership role would exist.

The areas of leadership that I need to work on are generally accepting a leadership role when it isn’t specifically given to me. We have been programmed as a society to see that leadership is a title and that nothing else is shown as leadership. I have been given roles and taken on roles that put me into that leadership position, but rarely if I am not given a ‘title’ do I take on as much of a leadership role as I may have otherwise. Through everything I have learned here at Kennesaw it has become very clear that sometimes it is the people who don’t have the titles, who aren’t put into that those positions that turn out to be the best leaders and end up showing the most leadership within a group.

As far as leadership and service go…I think there is nothing to be said other than they go hand-and-hand. Nothing else really compliments leadership other than serving. Now it is where you define service. Service is the cornerstone of every great society and behind every great leader, but do you define service as doing something for the common good or by just doing something. Service can be done for just you, but then are you really serving as a leader or showing leadership.

Just my thoughts…