Stephanie Grant and I are Mathews Center interns at Auburn University and we are working with an incredible group of students at Booker T. Washington high school in Tuskegee, AL. We are addressing the issue of the drop out rate in Alabama schools in an effort to understand the problem. We are working together to [...]
If you have been reading these notes from me, you may be wondering, “OK, the type of talk we do may determine how effective we are in acting, but how do we talk more effectively?” How is, indeed, the question that moves us from wishful thinking to positive “make-a-difference” choosing together and acting together in [...]
On September 2-3 Jean O’Conner-Snyder interns and staff participated in the 2010 Rural Health Conference at the University of Alabama. Put on by the College of Community Health Sciences, the annual Rural Health Conference is attended by health care professionals, community leaders, researchers, government officials, policy-makers and representatives of faith-based organizations who come together to [...]
On Tuesday, April 23rd, twelve students gathered at the University of Alabama to participate in a National Issues Forum on Americaʼs Role in the World. The issue book used for this forum offers different approaches to answering the question, “What does national security mean in the twenty-first century?” By participating in this forum, Alabama students [...]
The work of the Mathews Center is rooted in the idea that when it comes to working for positive change in communities, there is no such thing as failure, if citizens approach their work as learning opportunities along the road to change. For the 2010-11 Alabama Issues Forums cycle on the education drop-out rate, teams [...]
Years ago I was leading a class on community effectiveness. I asked the class what they liked about living in the South. (Later, we talked about what they did not like.) Different students said things like the climate, the food, a more relaxed pace, and similar things. Then one of the students said, “What I [...]
