Return Excitement

At this point in our Periclean careers, we have come to expect that our best-laid plans will fall apart the most and our smallest plans can become our greatest accomplishments. From each of these we have become more resilient and become better through self-reflection.
Our first day back was no exception. We were thrown right back into discussions of our partnerships, both locally and in Honduras. Our committees got right to work with planning and feasibility discussions. But to set the tone for the day we began no other way than with some imparted wisdom from none other than Dr. Tom Arcaro himself. Dr. Arcaro led with updates ranging from the exciting news that our Periclean Winter Term class has been approved as an upper level GST to the reforms to the class syllabi and our class identity. In terms of the Syllabus, Periclean is moving towards a more formal tone and inclusion of 9 core principles, with each class embodying a theme:
• Sophomore Theme: letter writing to elected officials
• Junior Theme: grant writing
• Senior Theme: putting it all together, organizing SURF sessions for producing research and arguments
After this update on the Periclean program at large, we came back to our committees and the work of each of the 4 groups: Summit in Honduras, Hope for Honduran Children, LUPE, and People, Planet, Profit

Summit in Honduras
Updates from each were shared from the Summit in Honduras committee regarding our recent separation from our partner and the address of communication, next steps and alternative projects.

Hope for Honduran Children
We are working towards a feasible project with the NGO and partner, proposition of a transition home expansion project and sustainable sponsorship of sending a Honduran student to Elon for a semester. The class will reflect and decide the following class.

L.U.P.E.
Casey and Anna have developed an ESL class in which students can volunteer at LUPE and have created an incredible pre-planned lessons guide for these volunteers. Way to go ladies!! The committee attended a board meeting for the program and relayed passionate excitement along with many ideas for the programs future including summer camps and their own space. The committee will continue to focus on grant writing and youth development.

People, Planet, Profit
The committee has been hard at work on both programming as well as outreach. The event blurb has been included in the Spring Cultural calendar and 2 grants from the Love School of Business and Fund for Excellence Grant have been awarded! Additionally, registration and event media has been in the works including a live website and promotional materials.

It has been an exciting first day back and with so much to accomplish and work toward this year, we are eager to return to our commitments as Periclean Scholars in our Capstone year.

A Wonderful Closing to Fall 2014

This was an exciting last day of class both in terms of planning and reflection!! First, we are still waiting to hear back from Karen on behalf of Hope for Honduran Children regarding our decision to partner in a capacity that does not include taking on the Transition Home in Casa Noble. After thoughtful discussion we have decided it is not our most feasible option and instead are still brainstorming our contributions to the partnership, in addition to ongoing Pen Pal correspondence and being English language friends. English language friends is a sustainable idea since we are already fundraising for English classes for the boys, we might as well also enable them to practice and allow us to see how they are progressing as we work together. We filmed a Christmas/Holiday video to send back to the boys of Casa Noble, which we recorded in Spanish and are in talks about trying to find a way to send our pen pal letters at more frequent intervals.

Transition Home Happy Holidays!

Also, this week we heard a report back from the group who had a Skype call with Maggie about our future work with Summit in Honduras. Maggie was very positive and encourages more email correspondence between our organizations. In terms of a partnership, Maggie was enthusiastic that instead of beginning new, large-scale projects it would be better for us to focus on smaller, existing projects to make them more sustainable, perhaps an art project or something along those lines. We are excited to increase communications in the near future and cement a project soon early next semester.
Our third partner is LUPE and after our dinner meeting at Mex/Am we have already begun brainstorming how to work between our groups as well as encourage community outreach efforts through involvement of other members in the Elon and Alamance community. First, Olga, a member of LUPE, has a 15 year old daughter named Jacqueline that is very adamant about needing tutors for various classes, including math, biology, and chemistry. Jenna is working with the Education and Teaching departments on campus to hopefully being an ASL class where students can volunteer to tutor beyond middle school, and now into high schools of need. After break we plan to continue working on this educational betterment initiative and are excited after the very positive feedback we received from members of LUPE.
In terms of the CSR Summit for next year, rather than the Fall we feel it will be most feasible if instead it takes place Spring 2016, so we can first focus on implementing and planning with our partners and by the time the Summit comes to fruition the entire class will be back together. Also, we will return to class in the spring with SMART goals drafted over Winter Break and will determine candidates for the 3 Pan-Periclean committees.
Lastly, we were lucky enough to hear about Savannah and Caroline’s abroad experience in Guatemala, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. They shed some light on the very interesting political and cultural climate in those Central American regions with eye-opening first-hand accounts and provocative questions about the gaps in our US education system, in terms of education about our government’s past involvement in warfare and mass atrocity. They compelled us to understand the differences in relationship between citizens and their authority, the mixed feelings of indigenous peoples with a colorful history and pattern of violence and variety of framing various issues have received throughout history. Looking into the Sandino-era reign in Nicaragua and the CAFTA agreements would really aid in a well-informed discussion about Central America and US relations. Thank you everyone for your hard work this semester and have an incredibly restful Winter Vacation!!

Exciting First Day Back: August 26, 2014

Our first day of class is complete for the new 2014-2015 year and the “welcome back” and “how was your summer?” questions dissolved quickly into one of the most productive sessions to date. With a smaller cohort it is always interesting to predict the general mood and productivity level of the class with a high level of uncertainty. However, luckily, this was not the case. We jumped right back into one of our most planning-intensive events to date with immediate delegations of class members into small groups (committee-esque) each taking on different roles in our upcoming Periclean-in-Residence.
photo 1
A long-term legacy of Periclean involves the integration of our correspondence with partners and long-distance organization into the on-campus, out-of-class conversations about relevant topics we study. For us, our week full of exciting events involves five key players: our two partners Maggie Ducayet and her husband of Summit in Honduras, Karen Godt of Hope for Honduran Children, Dr. Carmen Monico of the Human Services Studies program and Guatemalan native, and a representative of the UNC Greensboro Center for New North Carolinians.
(Read more about this great program here: http://cnnc.uncg.edu/sustainable-communities-regional-planning-project/)
Periclean_IR
This is the promotional flyer for the Periclean-in-Residence Panel
The class schedule surrounded three main points of focus: Logistics, Goals and Additional ideas. Primarily, we tackled ironing out specific details regarding the itinerary for our guests and their accommodations, such as the classes they would address, who they would be meeting with and the content of their discussions and presentations. After deciding on UNG Center for New North Carolinians, who focus on the post-immigration and assimilation process into resident life in North Carolina, as our final panel speaker we decided on a theme for the panel: Poverty, Injustice and Immigration in Central America. The more broad and encompassing title we felt enabled a larger picture for the discussion and would enable all expertise of each guest to be well represented.

We will continue more extensive planning with detail to come!!! And will continue next week with decisions about the roles of committees this semester and future events!
And just one more photo of our successful small group efforts hard at work! Great job guys

photo 2

Week 3: 18 February 2014 Classnotes

By: Arianna Brown
This week we worked on focusing potential partnership projects and specific committee goals. As a class we worked, outside of class on community outreach and growing notoriety of Periclean on campus and methods for doing so (ie. a table at College Coffee to gauge interest and answer questions as well as reaching out to Global and Elon 101 classes for a presentation). Our committees set SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, timely). Specifically for committees, such as Fundraising and Cookies-to-Go-Go, we discussed how our past trials have gone and what we need to change for future events and how things should be run. Similarly to that planning, the Hogares Sanos committee discussed plans for possible turnover of the program for post-graduation of our class to enable a sustainable continuation and transition of program direction, perhaps takeover by El Centro. The other committees, Librarian/Technology, Special Events, and Hope for Honduran Children are mainly focused on future plans and beginning our first, initial events which should be exciting to see unfold throughout the semester and over the next few years of our project and partner development. Hopefully, we will be able to evaluate the successes and shortcoming of our SMART goals and go back to problem solve for future events and planning.

Beginning Phase 3

On Monday, 10/28, the 2016’s had a Skype session with Karen Godt, one of the founders of Hope for Honduran Children. Her daughter, who is an Elon University graduate, also helped found this organization. Hope for Honduran Children is a small, grassroots organization that’s mission is to reduce poverty through social development and education. The organization supports 55 teenagers living onsite at Flor Azul Boys Community, 150 students in rural villages, and 30 students who have turned 18 and are entering technical training schools. Hope for Honduran Children would be thrilled to partner with out Periclean Scholars Class of 2016. They need new energy and all the help they can get. The 2016’s offered to sell bracelets made by Honduran women, with all profits benefitting Hope for Honduran Children’s projects. Several 2016’s are interested in participating in a trip to Honduras this March to get a better idea of what Hope for Honduran Children does on site. Our Periclean class is considering using our contacts at Honduran universities to plan a trip to Honduras in which we could organize a group project. This organization has definite potential for a partnership. Our Periclean class also recognizes that we are not limited to one partner.
On Wednesday 10/30, we recapped our conversation with Karen Godt and once again broke into small groups for discussion. We are beginning to more seriously consider potential partners for our work in Honduras. The next important step for us to take is to establish who to select, collectively as a class, as a partner and our area of focus. In small groups we discussed the various final projects of class members and how cooperatively people are working together toward common projects, like securing both local and foreign partners, creating a more effective online presence and working on different fundraisers and events to positively represent Periclean and our class as a whole. Still in small groups we discussed who we felt might be some of our best options for the potential Honduran partners that we have discussed thus far. With a decade of previous classes as a model who tackled the serious question of whether we want to focus on a specific issue and then find a partner based off of that or first find a partner and then address an area of need. Both methods are models used by different Periclean classes that have come before us. We addressed vital questions to select which will bring us closer to a definitive project by the end of the semester and will be deciding soon. We decided by the end of the day to due a bit more research on other potential partners but that Cargill, Vos Que Haras Por Honduras and Hope for Honduran Children are all organizations that have strong support from class members and we now just need to contact them and commit to see if they are willing to partner. We are excited about these opportunities for partnership and for everyone to commit to the same project or partnership.