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First Year Trip - Campus Examples

Page history last edited by Rachayita Shah 6 months, 2 weeks ago

Front Page / Bonner Program Resources / First Year Trip / Campus Examples

 

 

First Year Trip


Overview  |  Guides  |  Campus Examples  |  Documents to Download


 

Below are a few examples of First Year Trips from campuses that may be helpful for planning. These have been drawn from annual reports and other information shared with the Bonner Foundation. Most of these schools creatively connected the experience with a course. Doing so can accomplish a few things including:

 

    • Engaging faculty and partners as co-educators
    • Offering credit or academic incentives
    • Providing additional education and reflection opportunities
    • Serving as a foundational element in the student development journey

 

  • Allegheny College

The first-year trip at Allegheny College has been an amazing experience to not only travel to a different community but a neighboring one that students can always visit during the program with a different perspective. The trip includes a session on the history of Erie, an explanation of the demographic similarities and differences to Meadville as well as other areas, and an examination of existing organizations and non-profits tackling similar issues. To successfully lead the first-year trip, there needs to be conversations happening before, throughout, and during the trip. The document below includes information about the schedule, timeline, and various planning materials to help the trip go as smoothly as possible from a logistical side.

 

  • Berry College

The Berry Bonner Scholars Program(BSP) was excited to reinstate the First Year Service Trip in May 2022. Historically, these trips have provided students with opportunities to reconnect with one another and reflect on the year while planning for the future. Generally, the program staff seeks to take students to a geographic location that may be new to some, but within a 5-hour radius of Rome, GA. The idea behind this approach is to get students acquainted with the area and learn about the needs of the communities in the neighboring states. The staff works to establish on-going relationships with community partners in those locations to combat the "voluntourism" model. Often, staff reaches out to other Bonner colleagues in those areas and dovetails trip work into ongoing work of other institutions. The service work is generally scheduled to provide opportunities to have students engage in service different from their community experiences in Rome. For example, this spring, students worked on projects such as assisting in a community garden, cooking lunch for veterans experiencing homelessness and community restoration (litter pickups and work with Habitat for Humanity) followed by reflective conversations about the issues and the work ahead. 

 

  • Brown University

Civil Rights History trips are known for being informative and transformative. Maryville College takes their Bonners to Georgia for a first year service trip focused on connecting historical struggles for Civil Rights to current challenges such as race, imprisonment, and immigration. Brown University takes their sophomore cohort on a week-long winter trip to Jackson, Mississippi to better understand the Civil Rights History and impacts it has today. 

 

For the past five years, the Bonner Program at Brown University has offered a Bonner Trip for students who have had at least 1 year in the program. In preparation, Bonner sophomores attend weekly civil rights workshops, education sessions about Mississippi, and learn about the partnership between Tougaloo College and Brown University. Since 1964, Brown University has partnered with Tougaloo College. The Bonner leadership team prepares students with context about the partnership between an Ivy League school and a Historically Black College or University (HBCU) while also exploring the power dynamics and opportunities within that relationship. As a part of this trip, students experience community engagement with residents, learn how to perceive information and ask questions, and meet students from Tougaloo College. This journey not only explores history, but also shows students to recognize and value the assets that are nearby. Bonners come back from this trip with a new appreciation for community and greater knowledge of both racism and social injustice.

 

  • Macalester College

The First Year trip for Bonner students at Macalester College is tied to a course - EDUC 225 Education, Community & Cultural Survival, and a great example of a long-term partnership of over a decade. The process of connecting community-engaged learning with academic coursework involved both professionals in higher education as well as community leaders grounded in New Orleans. What began as a difficult conversation about post-disaster (Hurricane Katrina) carpetbagging has emerged as a necessary ritual of remembrance and relationship, contributing to essential dialogue of disruption and how people build/co-create something different together.  

 

  • Maryville College

Maryville College's First Year trip is embedded in a semester-long class called "The Road to Justice," in which all the first year Bonners, plus a few other students, study the history of the Civil Rights Movement and contemporary justice issues, including race, incarceration, and immigration. The trip over spring break includes visits to Birmingham, Montgomery, and the Stewart (ICE) Detention Center in south Georgia.


The trip and the class are well received by students. The highlight of the previous trip was visiting detainees in the Stewart Detention Center in south Georgia. They had worried that the students would find this experience very awkward – to have to deal with many security rules and delays, and then to be paired with men from different countries, across a glass barrier, and often across language barriers. But the students gave themselves to the experience, and several continued to write to the men whom they had been paired with. Another organized a group of Spanish majors to make another trip, for similar visits. They believe that moving the first year trip to earlier in the year helped the class seal relationships with each other and get a sense of the possibilities in being a Bonner. 

 

  • Rollins College

Some First Year immersion experiences can also dovetail with course credit and can involve students in other campus service programs. This is especially a nice option for Bonner Leader Programs that don’t have designated trip funding. Rollins Bonners are required by the program to attend a First Year Immersion, which involves a credit-bearing course (2 credits) during the College’s Intersession period.

 

In 2022-2023, the Bonner Leaders participated in the seventh annual first-year immersion experience with the Hope CommUnity Center. First-year Bonner Leaders and Alfond Scholars (students who have been awarded a full academic scholarship to Rollins College) came together for a week to learn about immigration rights. The purpose of this service immersion was to expose Bonner Leaders and Alfond Scholars to critical culture, social-political, and structural issues in the community through a week-long experience of civic and community engagement. Students participated in meaningful discussions surrounding immigration policy in the United States, the status of DACA, the impact of pesticide exposure to vulnerable migrant workers, and the intersectionality of issues surrounding immigration, poverty, and agriculture. 

 

In 2015-16, students traveled to Sarasota, Florida to learn more about the ecological impact of human activity on Florida’s delicate coastal environment. In collaboration with several local non-profits, the students explored some of Sarasota’s wetlands and coastal areas and saw first-hand the negative effects of rapid, unsustainable development on the environment.

 

  • Siena College

Siena Bonners participate in their First Year Trip the summer after their Freshman year. This trip is tied to a writing intensive course that they take in the fall of their Sophomore year. Currently, the location is in Phillipi, West Virginia where students serve in surrounding communities and learn about rural poverty. This allows them to gain a new perspective because our sites in the Capital District of Albany are serving urban populations. This course aims to provide students with their first research focused, writing intensive opportunity to gain these relevant skills which will help them when they complete their Capstone. Our previous site was in Presque Isle, Maine where students also studied the indigenous populations of that region. You can take a look at the syllabus below.

 

  • Simmons University 

Simmons University's first-year Bonners collectively plan their First Year Trip. They use a Bonner Meeting to brainstorm different locations and issue areas that the group is interested in. In Spring 2023, the group decided to focus on the complexities of housing, homelessness, and gentrification in Washington D.C. They used several Bonner meetings as open working sessions for the group to research/present out on their individual pieces including community partners research, the history of the land and those who occupied it, current and past demographics, civic leaders and policy makers we could speak with, and more. They also collectively created a group charter with a mission statement to guide their intentions of the trip. See the group’s itinerary below.