case; student representation on the Board. Friedland recounts, "we said you can have as many students on the Board as you like, as long as it is not eight [the number of faculty on the board]. If you want to have nine, ten, great, but not eight, because we do not want to be in an adversarial r.elationship." Any student can be a member of the Board if they attend the meetings regularly. If they miss two or three meetings they are out. This dynamic quality is encouraged. It keeps everybody from getting too comfortable. And it motivates the faculty to evaluate the effectiveness of the program in the same way they ask the students to evaluate ·the effectiveness of community groups. Above all, both the faculty and students hold each other · in high regard. Michael Vining says "the faculty are like gold. Rotkin is an incredjble resource for students." And Rotkin says, "I find that the students are much more selfdirected than other students. Interested.in social change, they think for themselves, and are more willing to challenge teachers. So in that sense they are great to work with." The students develop close relations with the faculty, as well as with each other. In the course of the two-year program a certain camaraderie develops. The networking and cooperation creates a sub-community of new organizers serving Santa Cruz. Michael at the Homeless Garden Project calls up Diane at the Drop-in center and arranges HIV testing for homeless trainees, and Diane calls up Eric at the Westside Community Health Center to discuss funding opportunities for AIDS education, and Eric sets up a tobacco cessation workshop at the Homeless Garden Project. The program naturally encourages the mutual support necessary to keep a community activist effective. 'Ultimately it's the steps on the two-year·pathway that make a good activist. Laying the theoretical foundations, developing skills for field study, going into the field, analyzing the experience, and consolidating the experience in a final project: .these all lead students toward a life of service. It's not, "I' 11 spend two years making the world a better place, to spend the rest of my life contributing to its Page 48 RAIN Summer 1994 Volume XIV, Number 4 demise", butrather "what can I learn in these two years that can help us all work together towards making our community life more fair•.meaningfufand sustainable." Where do students end up? Many return to the group they did field study with, many eo on to graduate school, and others end up doing work related .to their field study. Because of the mutual support developed in school, and the recognition of problems of activist isolation and overwork, few totally bum-out on activism. The CS Board is currently surveying students to track where they've gone, and what beliefs and attitudes th~y hold. ~There will be an updated report in the next issue of RAIN]. Looking through some of the returned surveys is very encouraging. David Harris, a 1984 graduate, now a Community Development Specialist for the city of Chula Vista, recounts his field study placement as being influential in postgraduate employment, "my internship with the Monterey County Pesticide Coalition provided me with experience to get a job with the Environmental Health Coalition. And the core cour~es and internship were structured so as to provide a solid theoretical foundation and understanding for such work." David is currently working to establish a 12-unit transitional housing program for homeless families, and a 15 to 20 unit emergency shelter. Susan Hutchinson, another '84 graduate, wrote that her "itttemship witli. the Center for Third World Organizing led to employment there, and that led to my current job with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, better known as ACORN. I probably would not have had such an easy time if it wasn't for the cqntacts made with Community Studies." What is important to remember is that regardless of where graduates end up, they maintain the aoility to ask the questions, "How is this work bettering society, and how can I work more effectiyely?" Imagine if everyone asked su.ch questions. In the end, Friedland states, "more CS students remain dedicated to finding ways to change our troubled world than students who don't go through our program.·These are I' • ~ ; • • • ', -~ . . . . ... > •. I . . .... ·. -. : .· . ;·~ .. . · .. . · ~ .~ ..... ~·: .. •• '.1 . ~ ·. : . . . -·· . · ,.
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