U of U FACULTY TO TEACH FIRST WLI YOUTH LEADERSHIP COURSE

     Two University of Utah faculty have designed and will teach a youth leadership course for West Salt Lake high school students beginning this month and running weekly until May. The 14-week course, Mestizo Arts and Activism Project, is the first course offered through Westside Leadership Institute (WLI) specifically designed for youth. The course is based on a participatory action research model that will engage young people as youth researchers using the arts as part of the research process and as a way to engage their community.     

     Dr. Caitlin Cahill, a professor of community studies in the department of family and consumer studies, and Matt Bradley, Honors College, envision this course as infusing art, activism, and research into youth directed and determined projects.  Cahill said the course will provide students with a history of activism and its connection to the art. Local artists will share their journeys of community engagement through their art, she explained. Other artists will host workshops on mediums the youth themselves are interested in learning. Cahill noted that interests currently range from spoken word to photography and from documentary to abstract art. Issues important to the high school students also will drive the trajectory of the course. Cahill said many participants are concerned about access to higher education—particularly for undocumented students—as well as issues of equity, transportation, environmental concerns, integration, drugs, teen sex, and social issues about what it means to be a teenager.

     The 18 students will complete about three team projects, with each culminating in an event or occasion that engages the public with their art, Cahill said.

     “By learning to do field research and interviews, to develop topic areas and research questions, to negotiate collectively, to understand the purpose and audience of research, and to come up with an appropriate research design, all the while maintaining an emphasis on action and community engagement will take these students on a personal and community journey that will lead them to see themselves as youth researchers,” Cahill said.

For Cahill and Bradley, their academic interest lies in documenting the process and concerns of the youth research team during the span of this course. In addition, two undergraduate research assistants will help coordinate and facilitate the course, while also conducting their own research project, said Cahill.

     The 18 West High School students were screened from an initial applicant pool of 40. They will attend an orientation at UNP on January 19. Classes begin on January 23 and will be held Monday and Wednesdays from 3:00pm to 5:00pm until May 14 at NeighborWorks (formerly Salt City Neighborhood Housing Services) at 622 West 500 North, which is within walking distance from West High. Students will earn three college credits through the University of Utah’s Continuing Education (worth $600) and receive a $200 stipend for participating in the after school course.

Cahill describes the group as reflective of the diversity of west Salt Lake neighborhoods as well as already invested in community activism. Bradley said the both he and Cahill are impressed with the level of interest and commitment from the students who have been accepted into the program and feel honored to engage in this collaborative project with such an amazing and diverse group of youth.

     Partners include UNP, WLI, Neighborhood Works, and the Mestizo Institute for Art & Culture. Several other University faculty and students serve as partners as well. The Lowell Bennion Public Service Professorship award will help to fund the course. Students enrolled in Cahill’s course Youth Participation in a Globalizing World will provide support to the youth researchers in the form of community needs assessments or policy analysis, dependent on the students’ interest. In addition, Dr. Beth Krensky’s students in her Art in the Community class may help to lead some of the art workshops.

     Dr. Sarah Munro, UNP Associate Director, said that early conceptions of the WLI included a “desire to work with youth around community involvement and leadership.” WLI partners have been aware of the importance of working with west Salt Lake youth because of the understanding that “the people growing up in these neighborhoods are potential leaders a few years down the road, so we need to help increase the opportunities they have to be successful and to return as involved residents in their neighborhoods,” she explained. The unique curriculum behind the Mestizo Arts & Activism project will help west Salt Lake youth to develop a louder public voice, one that allows them to “articulate and communicate their understandings of the assets and challenges of the communities they live in” fits with this goal, Munro explained. In addition, Cahill’s and Bradley’s desire to link this project to their research and teaching was a perfect fit for the UNP, which facilitates campus-based research. The college credit participants acquire through the course increases access to higher education for these west Salt Lake youth, also aligning with UNP’s overarching goal of creating pathways to higher education.

     The WLI is an initiative of University Neighborhood Partners (UNP) that offers leadership workshops to west Salt Lake residents taught by University of Utah faculty and community leaders. It is a community-University partnership made up of University Neighborhood Partners, Center for Public Policy and Administration, Neighborhood Housing Services. It offered its first session in 2004 and has continually evolved to meet the needs of west Salt Lake residents and the faculty who have served as its instructors. It has trained 92 adult residents. Two of those five sessions have been in English, three have been in Spanish. The spring 2007 session utilized a locally-based community leadership training curriculum designed by seven University of Utah faculty. The training was tailored to a specific local Salt Lake municipal and county government context.

      The youth leadership course exemplifies another evolution of the WLI partnership. Spring sessions, like this one, will now provide shorter or special topic sessions. Another course in development is a workshop for WLI alumni that is focused on learning strategies for making your voice and concern heard by city government officials. Envisioned by University of Utah political science professor, Dr. Claudio Holzner, the session would invite former Spanish-speaking participants to build upon the leadership skills they learned through WLI.

      Fall sessions will use the modified curriculum and will alternate from Spanish language to English language every year. The fall 2008 session will be offered in Spanish.

      In addition, WLI has instituted a new funding mechanism to support a WLI Faculty Fellow to lead the course each semester. The $5,000 is applied to cover faculty expenses.  Cahill and Bradley serve as WLI faculty fellows for Spring 2008. Also, a Graduate Assistant to the fellow will direct his/her involvement in the WLI to the writing of their graduate thesis.

     UNP bridges Utah’s flagship university, with seven ethnically and culturally rich neighborhoods west of State Street in mutually-beneficial ways for both west side residents and the University of Utah community. UNP celebrated its fifth anniversary this fall.