Mt. Zion Human Services Case

Final Report/Proposal of Study

Background: How did I get here?    

    My professional and academic career has been in flux over the last year or two. I have a strong business background but after my daughter was born in 2001, I wanted to switch my career path and go into education.  Naively, I believed that teaching at the elementary level would provide the best opportunity for me to meet the contrary goals of being a wage earner and a full-time parent. What other career could offer summers and holidays off with the added benefit of having hands-on, real time experience with my child’s educational experience?  I jumped into the Masters in Elementary Education Dual Track program with high hopes and within a year I obtained state certification and landed myself a position teaching 2^nd grade at a local public school. It didn’t take long for the ideology to wear off and the shock to set in. My studies ground to a halt as I struggled to meet the demands of teaching, parenting and life in general. By my second year of teaching I knew something had to change. I could not face the prospect of teaching elementary aged children for the next 25 years under the current state of our education system. I loved teaching young children, but with the myriad of problems that today’s teachers face in the classroom with administration and behavioral issues, it was clear that I wasn’t going to impact these children’s lives in the way I had hoped. What to do? At this point, I had invested an enormous amount of time, energy and money into the master’s program and did not want to throw it all away.  Foundering, I switched my program emphasis to elementary math and science for a semester, then I looked at the Masters in English Education and realized I could meet my objective of finishing my masters while simultaneously broadening my career possibilities beyond elementary education. I applied for the program this semester and began the process of crafting the best possible combination of classes that would meet the program requirements and provide the best background for a career in secondary or higher education. With only 18 of the 33 credit hours left to take, I sought the advice of the program director, Dr. Leung.  From our discussion, she strongly suggested that I sign up for Dr. Conner’s Rhetoric and Technology course.

    When I started this class I wasn’t exactly keen on the subject of rhetoric and technology. As a matter of fact, I was a bit of a technophobe and saw myself as a purist or classicist that went to great lengths to avoid modern marvels like “texting” “instant messaging” and the like. I didn’t play video games, take pictures with a cell phone or read the news off the internet. I was fairly comfortable with a word processing program but that was as far as I could bring myself to go into the world of technology. As the class progressed, the first several weeks were excruciatingly frustrating for me from the technological aspect. I felt a strong resistance and resentment was building. This isn’t what I wanted to sign up for! (#$%&*) As time passed, it slowly dawned on me that this course was the best possible choice for supporting my long term plans. The world was going along without me and if I didn’t catch up, how in the world would I ever become an effective educator?

     My initial project for the course, Dr Robinson's Robin Hood FINALwas interesting but abstract to my long-term goals and objectives. While working on the project, I found that I truly enjoyed researching, analyzing, building a narrative and writing a persuasive argument. When it was clear that the project was at a standstill without further funding, grant research and writing seemed liked the next logical step. Compelled to offer my assistance to Dr. Robinson, I was poised to propose that my final project for the class be a research and grant writing exercise Patti's Proposal Memo. It was as at this juncture that Pat Fried from Mount Zion Human Services visited our class and with her collaboration with Dr. Conner, community literacy and sustainability  New Investigator Research Grantand their joint work on the Knight News Challenge grant, all the pieces seemed to come together. It was clear to me that my final project for ENC6421 should be research and grant writing exercises based on the real time, real need situation unfolding at Mt. Zion Human Services. I spent the next several weeks shifting my emphasis from the Robin Hood Project and documented the process at Mt. Zion Human Services on the wiki Mt Zion Volunteer history.

Mt. Zion: Current Status

    MZHS is located in the heart of the Midtown neighborhood of St. Petersburg. This 5.5 square mile area is home to approximately 30,000 residents, 92% of whom are African-American, 45% live below the poverty line. Unemployment is more than two times the citywide rate. Nearly 60% of the City’s welfare recipients live in Midtown where the average household income is 53% of the citywide average. An overwhelming 40% of families with children are led by single women and this area suffers from the highest infant mortality rate in the county. In addition, the Midtown community accounts for the highest number of delinquency referrals to the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice.

    MZHS’ stated mission is to strengthen individuals and families by providing social and economic services that emphasize a self-sufficient, drug free, productive and nurturing family environment. Current services include a preschool, boys and girls scouting programs, a youth drum line, literacy enhancement, tutoring and affordable housing programs. The focus of the relationship between USF and MZHS will be based around the growth and development of the Children’s Center. The center’s programming is designed to help children achieve superior outcomes in the areas of education and academic preparedness, as well as social, physical and spiritual development.

    Clearly, the needs of MZHS are great and there are many areas from both the College of Education and the college of Arts and Sciences where a collaboration/civic engagement partnership with USF students would be possible. Dr. Conner has already begun this relationship with the help of his research assistant, David Havasi, through their work on linking the available, donated  computers in a Linux thin client environment. Mount Zion Wish List Two of the students in our class this semester, Felesha and Tiffany, have begun work on a mentoring manual Children Savers Inc that will help Ms. Fried obtain one of her many goals of developing a mentoring program for the children. One of MZHS' most daunting tasks is in achieving fiscal stability. Meeting the challenge of identifying and applying for external funding through a grant writing process is at the forefront of MZHS' imperatives. It is in the grant research and writing arena that I have been volunteering and focusing my studies. Mt Zion Volunteer history  It is not my intent that this report detail the specific needs of Mt. Zion Human Services, rather, it is my attempt to outline a proposal of study that I would like to pursue that would benefit MZHS and in a small way, serve to strengthen the growing bond and relationship between MZHS and USF. For if this proposal meets with success for all principals, the precedent would be set for other students who are interested in community literacy by combining the theoretical with the practical, supported in a framework of civic engagement.

Proposal of Study

    Specifically, I propose that I continue my work with grant research and writing at MZHS through next semester at a minimum. If it is approved by the appropriate department, I would need to register for the cross-listed course  ENC 42606421 Brainstrom Pageand work out suitable requirements with the professor that would allow me to continue researching and writing grant proposals for MZHS. To meet the requirement for the Master of English Education, I need to complete another 15 hours of coursework at the 6000 level from the English Department. In order to move forward with this proposal, I would need to secure the approval from the program director, Dr. Leung whom I contacted yesterday, December 2nd, via e-mail.

    This course in general, and my experiences encountered through following the natural development of the community literacy projects, have ignited my interest in learning more about the process and challenges of grant writing. By forming this partnership with MZHS, like-minded USF students are provided a practical forum in which they can explore and utilize a multitude of compositional applications in the complicated world of external funding.  The benefits to MZHS are multiple grant remix game while for USF students, the opportunity to hone one's analytical and rhetorical skills could include such elements as learning how to wade through copious amounts of information to narrow down and find appropriate outside funding sources; the experience of the time involved in figuring out what grants are available and applicable; using a spreadsheet to make a calender of various grants and deadlines; project management; how to find the best match between the project and what grantors are willing to fund; how to clearly and succinctly articulate the project in one or two sentences and how to best convey the specifics of the proposal. Students' rhetorical and compositional skills will be challenged. Seeking grant money requires crafting a rhetorical argument and a partnership with MZHS would provide an innovative learning environment not only for those USF students interested in developing this skill, it would also serve well the desperate and deserving children of the Midtown community and beyond.