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Engaging minds, engaging communities: the inaugural servant leadership internships

"Courage, passion, and service animate their spirits.
Learning, doing, and transforming drive their journeys.
Openness, intellect, and community make them who they are."
—Melissa Snarr, Director of Ethics and Servant Leadership

What does it mean to be a servant leader? This summer eleven students rolled up their sleeves and put this question into action by participating in the Ethics Center’s inaugural Servant Leadership internship program. For eight weeks they committed thirty hours a week to interning with community and business organizations throughout metro Atlanta. Some worked in nonprofit organizations, including the Children’s Museum, the Atlanta Community Food Bank, Women’s Action for New Directions, and the Community Foundation of Atlanta. Others worked in business and medicine: Robinson-Humphrey, Inc. and Emory’s Division of Medical Genetics. While their placement sites varied considerably, a common thread ran through each: the combining of practical, “hands-on” work experience with training in leadership, service, and ethical awareness.

The Summer Internships are the latest addition to the Ethics Center’s D. Abbott Turner Ethics and Servant Leadership Program. Born out of the conviction that “servant leadership” becomes an ineffective phrase if not applied to concrete social commitments, the internships bring together our twin goals of helping Emory students discover their vocational calling, and encouraging them to become leaders with moral and ethical integrity.

Outgoing director Stacia Brown helped to establish the community placement sites and the new EASL team of Melissa Snarr and Mary Sue Brookshire developed the summer internship program. They focused on four primary themes in their weekly gatherings with interns: practices of attentiveness, leadership models/servant leadership, building blocks of ethical analysis, and learning goals. As part of their final portfolio project, students wrote essays about their summer experience and reflected on these themes within the context of their placement. The quotes that follow are excerpted from these essays. They offer an eloquent testimony to the quality of our summer interns.

Don Hanshew, Intern for Georgia Justice Project/New Horizon Landscaping:
GJP’s mission is to ensure justice for indigent criminally accused and take a holistic approach to assist them in establishing crime-free lives as productive citizens. New Horizon Landscaping solely employs clients of the Georgia Justice Project.

“Today is shaping up to be another one of those “Hot-lanta” days where it reaches 85 degrees before 9am, and because only two crewmembers have a driver’s license and we need three separate crews for scheduled activities, I am driving the manual transmission vehicle of David Rocchio, the director of New Horizons Landscaping. Thinking about the “friendly” downtown traffic of Atlanta, and how long ago it has been since I drove a stick-shift vehicle, I mumble to David about my insufficient experience. ‘You’re a theology student, right?” he asked, not waiting for an answer but really just wanting to get my attention. ‘Just pray…it’ll work out,” he said in a confident chuckle and friendly grin. Three mid-intersection stalls, four and a half Gatorade bottles, and twice that much sweat later, Marcus and I finish our work on a privacy fence and gate at a house in Southeast Atlanta…

Consistently throughout the day, Marcus surprised me with his imaginative approach to solving peculiar carpentry problems, his drive to waste as little wood as possible, and his openness to asking me if I saw a better way to do a task…I drove back to the office, and later to my home in a different part of Atlanta. I thought to myself about what I had been a piece of that day, and with much reflection concluded that this was a different type of classroom than my past seventeen years of school had prepared me for. Though I thought I was coming as the confident teacher, I quickly found myself as the unsure student; and at the end of this long day, I now realize this is the better way. I also know that Atlanta is blessed to have a group of such brave and courageous teachers as Marcus and the other crew members of New Horizon Landscaping, and should continue to strongly support groups like Georgia Justice Project to insure a better humanity for us all.” Jenny Datoo, Intern for Hands On Atlanta: HOA builds community by offering a spectrum of volunteer opportunities, deploying a diverse, committed corps of citizens to address critical needs, and cultivating service leaders. “During our weekly check-in discussion, I was finally at a loss of words when my community partner said, “Jenny, when you are pursuing your calling in life, all other priorities and responsibilities seem to fall in place.”…

As I reflect on the summer, I realize that I had been given a gift…the Ethics Center at Emory University gave me the gift of opportunity. The opportunity was to work at Hands on Atlanta under Jenny DuFresne and create the Social Entrepreneur Award Program so other individuals in Atlanta’s community could also pursue their calling…My internship with Hands On Atlanta was a bite of the tastiest and most addictive chocolate cake I have eaten. For twenty-one years, I have been searching for my passion and reason in this world. I sincerely find that the direct growth and impact of the internship on my life has led me in the direction of my purpose on our world…my calling: to serve the world and create a socially just environment throughout the world.”

Scott Aleridge, Intern for St. Vincent de Paul Society:
SVdP provides temporary, emergency assistance to residents of North Georgia.

“My specific task for the summer was to evaluate the Wheel Appeal program (a program that invites Atlantans to donate their old vehicles to St. Vincent de Paul). This project involved the outcome of over $100,000. The project was complex and exciting because it involved aspects of business, law, vendor accountability, and marketing...In addition, the Ethics & Servant Leadership Internship connected ways of being, doing, and reflecting on leadership for the public good. Our weekly meetings helped me discern ethical dilemmas encountered at St. Vincent de Paul Society, as well as develop a sense of theory-practice learning...While I enjoyed my placement, there are a few things with which I struggled. The main issue for me was the pace of the environment. Having come from a profit-oriented business background, I was accustomed to a much faster pace. Because SVdP is not dealing with a product, but with peoples’ lives, they take more time to reflect and take a longer time in making decisions...(Since then) I have realized that a faster pace when dealing with life-changing decisions does not always equate to doing a better job for the people we serve.”

Wendy Tegge, Intern for Samaritan House/Cafe 458:
Samaritan House helps homeless men and women regain their independence and dignity through employment and housing.

“My experience with the Samaritan House and Cafe 458 served to show me how very little I knew about poverty and drug addiction. While I had studied the effects of poverty and drug addiction through various sociology and political science classes in college, the terms never had a personal attachment to me. When thinking about poverty and drugs, I thought mainly about the cold hard facts, such as the process of being involved with the welfare and Medicaid systems or the effects of various drugs on the human body. This summer, I met people who lived in poverty, people who had been in prison, and people who had used every sort of drug imaginable. I met people who lived each day on the street and literally never knew where or when their next meal would come. This summer, the poverty and homelessness problems of society began to have faces and names. The problems became more personal than they had before. I learned that one problem almost inevitably leads to another and that to solve one means to make progress against a whole slew of problems.”

Arnold Yoon, Intern for Robinson-Humphrey, Inc.:

“Looking for the right business internship is tough. That’s what was even more amazing about finding a quality business internship that incorporated issues such as Ethics and Servant Leadership. As the title suggests, I was hired by Robinson-Humphrey to examine the profitability of socially responsible companies in the Southeast. Ultimately, my goal was to come up with a list of around 50 companies whom we could pool together and present to clients. Their qualifications obviously were performance factors, such as growth, value and earnings potential as well as socially responsible factors such as environment, gun/tobacco involvement, nuclear involvement, and employee relations...Overall, analyzing the companies and determining an RH Socially Responsible Index was prime work experience. I did discover that I was developing my own theories on the research in terms of what socially responsible meant and how its future was to be. I really believe that in 50 years, Business + Ethics = All Companies.”

All intern essays will be available online this fall. For information about applying to next summer’s program or hosting an intern, contact Melissa Snarr at csnarr@learnlink.emory.edu or Mary Sue Brookshire at mbroo03@learnlink.emory.edu.

[ Posted by Stacia Brown at September 1, 2000 10:03 AM | More Ethics and Servant Leadership articles ]

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