Social Impact - Jumbo Style

By Susannah Murray ’24

Tufts students visiting Peru.

Any Tufts student can tell you that our school is an undeniably civically-minded institution. Our collective passion for social change exists among individual students, lays the foundation for groups we organize and commit to, and goes all the way up to the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life. Tisch College is unique to Tufts, and it seeks to develop Jumbos into active citizens who are committed to improving the social and political frameworks of Tufts, the US, and the world. In building civic studies as a new academic discipline, Tisch College began offering a civic studies major in 2018 (believed to be the first program of its kind in the world!) and an entrepreneurship for social impact minor. But beyond the classroom, Tisch College has opportunities for students from all backgrounds and interests looking to gain civic experience, from speaker events to research to structured programs. One of these programs open to admitted first-year Arts and Sciences (A&S) students is the Tufts Civic Semester.

The Civic Semester program takes place during a student’s first semester at Tufts. Grounded in social justice work and designed to set students on a path of lifelong civic engagement, it pairs academic courses with learning from and with community organizations in the areas they are visiting. In the years the program has been running, students have spent the semester in both the American Southwest and Urubamba, Peru. It is an opportunity to travel and see a different part of the US or the world for both domestic and international students while engaging with those new communities in a deep and meaningful way. Sherri Sklarwitz, the Director of Student Programs, says the program gives students “the chance to think about their own identity and the ways they can create social change through connections with each other, connections with community partners, and connections with nature.”

Jumbos participating in field work through the program.

Civic Semester began in 2019 with its first group in the Sacred Valley in Peru and added the American Southwest this past year. In the fall of 2022, the program is planning to only run in the Peru location. The cohorts themselves are made up of just 10–12 students, and they spend the entire semester together; working with each other in their classes, the house they share, and the community they join. The program involves a full semester of classes, but students start in the middle of the summer so they have more time during the traditional fall calendar to do their other activities with a more manageable course load. Jessye Crowe-Rothstein, the Tufts First- Year Global Programs Manager, says they “try to build academics to mirror both the place and the language skills they might need [and] the types of visits that they are doing on the ground.” A student’s typical day (though it definitely varies throughout the semester) can involve some combination of schoolwork, exploring the surrounding nature, and visiting and working with their community partners.

The academic courses that students participate in provide the perfect background knowledge for this community work as well as space for reflection that is tailored to the location. In the Southwest, the main program themes center immigrant rights, indigenous sovereignty, and environmental sustainability. Most of the community organization visits are with groups that focus on those specific issues, and the classes align with them as well, with students taking environmental studies or Latinx history courses to craft a fully integrated learning experience. In Peru, students do in-depth study in community health, arts and culture, and the environment and agriculture. Many classes are focused around language, culture, and the history of the region. The location of a student’s Civic Semester is central to the experience. Isaac Leib, a current first-year student who spent his first semester in the American Southwest, remembers the spaces he traveled to, from the Chiricahua Mountains in Arizona to Truchas Peak in New Mexico to El Paso, Texas, as being infused with meaning and just as impactful as the academics.

Tufts students working in a garden.

these connections is through the intentional community building aspect of the program. Students are placed into these small groups and form deep friendships. Then, once returning to Tufts, they have a group of people to travel through college with. From an outside perspective, Jessye Crowe-Rothstein has seen the importance of this experience “coming back and know[ing] that you have this group of people who’ve done something similar, and understand that transition. You get to join this network of other like-minded students, which has been, I think, really impactful for a lot of our students.” After spending so much time together, working as a cohort on everything from big civic projects to cooking dinner with local produce, students start their second semester at Tufts with a strong core group. “I’m still a freshman,” Isaac Leib said, “but I see the people I traveled with remaining some of my closest friends for a long time to come.”

Tufts students working in another garden with an incredible view of mountains behind them.

Crowe-Rothstein finds that many students interested in the program worry about “missing out” on their first semester at Tufts and coming back in the middle of the year without their friend network picked out. Not only does she find that students come out of the program with a wide-reaching and strong community, but also that most second semester first-years who didn’t go on a Civic Semester trip are still figuring it all out, anyway. Civic Semester students find camaraderie with the rest of their class year as everyone tests out different majors and finds student groups that align with their interests and personal goals.

A southwestern US landscape.

In fact, a Civic Semester experience can often aid students in their journeys to find what they’re passionate about. Waideen Wright, who went to Peru in 2019, said that “grappling with a language I’m not fluent in taught me to make mistakes openly in order to learn, grow, and connect with others… Thinking about how those awkward moments shaped my most meaningful memories, I felt encouraged to venture out of my comfort zone in many situations in terms of academia, extracurriculars, and friendships!” The experiences students have while on Civic Semester can both instill confidence and leadership skills and provide meaningful moments that will guide the rest of their lives. Tackling these different issues often influences understandings of what students are bringing to their academic courses and also their own ideas about what they might want to pursue in the future. Isaac Leib remembers Flowers and Bullets, an organization in Tucson that created a community farm on the plot of a closed elementary school. Seeing the transformation of the space inspired his own thinking when returning to Somerville as well as aspirations for his hometown. “The amount of motivation and direction the Civic Semester gives you in terms of what you want to do with yourself and your abilities in college and after college, and what truly matters to you, is priceless,” he said. The kind of civic engagement students participate in while in Peru or the Southwest doesn’t stay there—it is carried with them and continually engaged with while at Tufts and beyond.

Jumbos getting their hands dirty.

If you are excited by all this and want to learn more about how you could be involved, you are exactly the kind of student the Civic Semester program is looking for. Crowe-Rothstein says that “core to the experience and to what we’re looking for is a really strong interest in social justice issues and really wanting to dig into these complex and challenging issues that the communities you’re going to be in and the larger world are facing.” Sherri Sklarwitz adds that “all participants have a strong desire to learn about communities and the ways they can support communities, even though each person brings their own unique passion to this work.” If this sounds like you, Civic Semester could be an amazing opportunity to grow into an agent of social change at Tufts! In addition to finding your unique path on your civic journey, you’ll be able to join a group of incredible and diverse students who, like you, are all looking to leave the world better than they found it.