Exposure to urban perspectives via textbooks and lectures is not effective. Miami’s program emphasizes face-to-face interactions and collaboration with community members. Students don’t just serve the community, they become part of it.
Urban Cohort collaborates with other university programs that share similar goals. Our main partners are the Office of Community Engagement and Service and the Center for Community Engagement in Over-the-Rhine. These offices provide assistance and support that are essential to our success.
Miami students often come from middle-class backgrounds. They are bright, socially conscious, and eager to make a difference, but many lack experience and confidence. So Miami’s program provides opportunities such as tutoring in urban schools and urban immersions (students spend a weekend in an inner city neighborhood working with community leaders on volunteer projects before they begin student teaching. Once students begin student teaching an interdisciplinary team of community, university, and school-based individuals provides mentoring.
Teaching is a situated practice, and the goal is to produce a new kind of teacher who is both teacher scholar and urban scholar. Students work and live in neighborhoods such as Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine area. They student teach in schools such as Cincinnati’s Rothenberg Elementary or Chicago’s Michele Clark High School. And community members are not just guest speakers, but co-collaborators.
The Urban Cohort is proud to be collaborating with the Center for Community Engagement in Over-the-Rhine as well as the following on-campus organizations: Office of Community Engagement, the Social Action Center, and the Honors and Scholars Advisory Board to further advance this program and provide this opportunity to all Miami University students.
During the Urban Plunge students will:
The Urban Plunge is a 24-hour experience that allows students to see and serve. The Over-the-Rhine (a Cincinnati neighborhood) Urban Plunge introduces Miami students to race and class disparity and encourages them to work constructively through these issues by becoming active in their community. Students also gain an appreciation for the vibrant community that exists in Over-the-Rhine, particularly the tradition of architectural beauty and artistic expression. Participating students tour the neighborhood, serve food in a homeless shelter, work on low-income housing rehabilitation and meet with community organizers and residents.
Earlier this semester, 10 students participated in the first Urban Plunge of the year. After traveling by van to Over the Rhine, we took a walking tour of the neighborhood, learning about OTR’s history. They then we had dinner with a member of the Speaker’s Bureau of the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless. He recounted his experience of moving in and out of homelessness and reflected on some of his struggles. The group then retired for the night, reflecting on our reactions to what we had seen and heard and engaged in an introspective look at what values, norms, and biases we bring with us.
On Saturday morning, after a breakfast of coffee and homemade pastries at Coffee Emporium, we headed over to volunteer with Over the Rhine Community Housing, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing affordable housing services for low-income residents. Half of the group worked to flip an apartment by sweeping and mopping the floors while the other worked to clear an abandoned lot overgrown by weeds, bushes, and trees. We then made our way to a much-deserved lunch at Findlay Market, a thriving, historic farmers market in the heart of Over the Rhine.
After lunch, we traveled to Peaslee Neighborhood Center to bleach all of the tables, chairs, cots, and cribs used in their Child Development Center. The experience came to a close with the group engaging in some guided reflection regarding the Immersion experience, the Over the Rhine community, and urban issues in general.
Students apply to the Urban Cohort spring semester of their freshman year.
Miami University was one of only five recipients out of 641 eligible schools in the nation to receive the Presidential Award in the 2012 President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll.
Miami's honor recognizes service programs in the area of early childhood education.
The award is the highest federal recognition a college or university can receive for its commitment to volunteering, service-learning, and civic engagement. It is given by the U. S. Department of Education and the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), a federal agency.
Other programs named include the Talawanda-Miami Partnership, Butler County Success and Miami Connections.
Honorees were recognized on March 12,
“Notable programs include the Urban Cohort Program, with field experiences in social service agencies, churches, community-based organizations, and government agencies. “
Exploring the inner workings of the Urban Cohort, an action-oriented program that exposes college students to urban perspectives through high-need schools and community organizations. Here, experiential learning is grounded in community life in very real ways.
