If we want a more immersive experience in CEL or through other means, students must voice (and band together) to say that we want to be involved both on campus and in the larger community. Our community neighbors in Trenton and Ewing are rightly skeptical of our intentions and we should be cognizant of this fact and understand the historical context that makes this so. Our intentions should not be to help others. While this sounds nice, it isn’t completely accurate. We believe that helping others is great, but that exchanges, especially social exchanges, flow both ways. It is far more effective for us all to be both teacher and student, giver and receiver, speaker and listener.

1.Trenton Hall History and Discussion with Dr. McGreevey

Dr. Robert McGreevey presently teaches Modern History of the United States and the World at The College of New Jersey and received his PhD from Brandeis University in 2008. Dr. McGreevey spared some time with us to discuss the Trenton Hall exhibit. He put the history of Trenton in better context. We see the stark contrast between the college previously being located in Trenton and having a large portion of the student body from Trenton and today being located in Ewing and having less than one percent of the student body from Trenton. Dr. McGreevey and his students are a relevant resource for us because they have a lot of knowledge regarding the history of Trenton.
March 1, 2019 12:30 pm _ conversation with Dr. McGreevey
1930
Things would be different had the college remained in the city. For the first half of the college’s history it was very much an anchor institution (moved due to growing and looking for land).

Would be nice if we still had a footprint in the city (even if it’s just a single office). Previously there was a last standing tcnj administration office in Trenton, but after TCNJ left the space the move to Ewing, and out of Trenton, was complete.

In the 20s, significant percent of students were from Trenton and that number is currently less than 1%. Historically the college played the role of taking in students from Trenton. Dr. McGreevey acknowledged that redirecting spending to fulfill some of the recommendations laid out by the TCNJ Social Justice Commission would be one way to change this statistic. The overarching goal of the Report from June 30, 2017 was to build a path for students from Trenton to attend TCNJ.
An interesting idea brought up by Dr. McGreevey was having historical (weekend) tours for students in TCNJ. The idea would presumably be to hop into a white TCNJ van and get a tour of the community. Later on in our research we found out that Dr. Hu’s Communications class did go on such a tour and we will later mention some paraphrasing of pieces of their reflective essays.
Dr. McGreevey mentioned that a lot of families have ties/roots in Trenton, but no longer live there (E.g historically Italian, Black and Jewish communities). Connecting them might aid efforts to connecting TCNJ to the community. And on top of this point, the experiences of Dr. Hu’s students proved to be beneficial in and of itself. Here is a brief timeline.

2.CEL (volunteering in the community is a way to learn from a community and to help it)

March 1, 2019 12:00-12:30- Interview with Brittany Aydelotte, CEL Project manager
Ms. Aydelotte has been a leader of the CEL program since 2006 and sees the program as just a small piece of the community engagement on campus. She has a strong connection with the city of Trenton as an employee of Trenton High. This position gives her the ability to more accurately and closely asses problems facing some young people in the Trenton community as well as how effective TCNJ's community engagement programs are.
Even though Ms. Aydelotte believes that the CEL program is helping to make the college an anchor institution, she still believes there are many areas that can and should be improved. One thing she is trying to do is increase the number of students who participate in extra CEL days after their required service. Ms. Aydelotte thinks that if a student is more open minded on the offset than they will be more likely to return to the program after their required days are up. A students open mindedness can be affected by aspects as the weather or their assumptions going into the day. She hopes to find a way for students to suspend these assumptions as well as getting students into CEL activities that relate to their major or interests.

3.Conversation with Dr. Hu (communications) guides for non-profit volunteers to communicate, understand, and learn from people they are serving.

Communications students at TCNJ have conducted ethnographic studies of the Trenton community. There main purpose was to study nonprofits in the Trenton community and aid volunteers and employees of these nonprofits in providing service to their clients effectively.
They were able to assist members of these organizations in their intercultural communication skills and providing guides for volunteers on the intercultural community they will be serving. The organizations referenced here are: Homefront, Meals on Wheels, TASK and English as a second language (ESL) for eastern European and Latinx populations.
Communications students also were able to experience an interactive tour of relevant neighborhoods of Trenton. This caught our interest, since we have earlier mentioned this as a good idea for implementation to connect the campus community to the Trenton community. The specific tour in question visited a bakery and a Polish church, among other destinations. In their reflections many students enjoyed the multicultural experience, finding hidden gems, challenging their stereotypes, and recognized our need for multiple vantage points. Some students acknowledged that they were nervous in certain areas as they drove around in or stepped out of the white TCNJ van. They were uneasy being in an environment different than their hometowns and one that has suffered from being labeled as a violent place. All students felt they were more understanding of the cultural context of downtown Trenton and would like to go on more tours. One student’s reflection of downtown Trenton noted that they wondered how presence of TCNJ van is received there. In particular they felt that the van’s TCNJ logo was more likely to be met with apprehension towards the intentions of its occupants, as it is an institution that has historically distanced itself from Trenton, as discussed in the timeline.
The biggest takeaway from the intercultural communications course for volunteers to recognize is that we help by volunteering and the people we serve help us too. The work itself helps us to develop by bringing us physically into a place different than our own sphere.
TCNJ students should recognize that an ethnographic study requires many hours and multiple observational visits. Compare this to the current CEL practice that lacks consistency. Only a few hours on usually three or less occasions is not enough to gain a comprehensive idea of a new place. Even though many feel CEL, currently it is not so effective, but there self-description is very consistent with what we would like to see the CEL program become. And we are happy to see indications that the CEL program is heading in this direction of having full units devoted to community engage learning with reflection papers regularly. The missing ingredient is that TCNJ students, who privately express the desire and need to be engaged in a larger community are not speaking up in great numbers to make this a reality.
Community health communication
Not long term impact, but positive
TCNJ does not want to separate we want to associate (But this message may not be entirely clear for the historical reasons above)
Trenton share their points
In reflection students find
Relying too much on school, students should take more initiative
CEL office
Stud have the need and desire to connect more, but generally do not
The best way to connect with the TC would be to drop by, understand them by just being with the people of Trenton.

4.Excerpts from Advisory Commission for Social Justice

This is a TCNJ commission report regarding recommendations for the College regarding community engagement and diversity goals. In response to the discovery of the segregationist past of Paul Loser, by now recent TCNJ graduates, President Gitenstein “established the Commission to investigate TCNJ’s progress toward meeting its values and principles, and identified the cities of Trenton and Ewing as priorities for TCNJ efforts outside the campus.” We believe this report will be a valuable resource because we want to inform our campus about the goals outlined within it both to inspire them to take action and to hold the college accountable: we want to see what goals they’ve set and which they have followed through on and which they are still working towards. Have we established an outreach team for Trenton schools to initiate a “pipeline”. Increasing TCNJ’s presence in Trenton schools. Provide opportunities throughout the year for students from Trenton and Ewing to experience the TCNJ campus.Incorporate history of Trenton into undergraduate curriculum.There is more we’d like to touch on and read through more thoroughly in the coming weeks.


References

“Center for Community Engaged Learning & Research.” Center for Community Engaged Learning & Research, TCNJ, celr.tcnj.edu/2019/01/18/tcnj-bonner-scholars-travel-to-nola/.
“Shared Governance.” Governance, TCNJ,
governance.tcnj.edu/other-committees-and-councils/celc/.
“Advisory Commission on Social Justice”
“Facts and Institutional Figures”
“https://datausa.io/profile/geo/trenton-nj/”
Background Research:
Professor hu
http://wtsr.org/
https://si.tcnj.edu/
Possible point of contact: Lauren Skowronski, Program Director for Community Engagement skowronl@tcnj.edu.
https://celr.tcnj.edu/
https://liberallearning.tcnj.edu/resources/other-programs/community-engaged-learning/
https://search.proquest.com/docview/1710266850?pq-origsite=gscholar
https://celr.tcnj.edu/about/meet-the-staff/
Cel staff contacts