The Kallick Community Service Award is only available to currently registered Pitzer students who have actively participated in community service related activities during the academic year (SUM 2024 to SPR 2025). Length of service may vary depending on the type of community-based placement or internship/ site project; however, at minimum, each applicant must have personally contributed at least 100 hours of service on their social responsibility projects and these hours must be verifiable.

The student must have completed this service with a community-based agency. This includes clubs and student organizations as long as the student can establish a significant link to the off-campus community. Other factors that will influence granting the award include the breadth and depth of the service opportunity and must meet the Institutional Commitment to Service Statement (included below and again on the next page where you will paste your narrative).

For the narrative portion of your application and for any quantitative measures possible, be sure to include all relevant responsibilities, tasks, and duties in this application. In addition, the position will be evaluated on the extent to which it provides the student with valuable life and career experience.

Describe your project in detail, the connection of the project to the larger Institutional Commitment to Service Statement, and the impact of this service with and within the community.

Indicate in the project description field in narrative format and the associated quantitative measures all of the information on your project including but not limited to:

• Who from Pitzer participates in the service (students, faculty, staff, alumni, etc.);
• Who benefits from the service;
• Detailed evidence, including quantification, and description of the project’s benefits to the population served;
• Which practices in your project or support from Pitzer faculty/staff/clubs were found particularly helpful or effective;
• Indication of whether student participation was during regular academic sessions or during summer or other breaks or as part of curricula or extra-curricular activities (indicate frequency of service);
• Collaborations with community agencies;
• Whether the project was supported by Federal Work-Study, CNCS programs, or other government programs;
• Clear connection to the Institutional Commitment to Service Statement (see below)

"Since its inception (and, in large part, as an inspiration for it), Pitzer College has been committed to fostering in its students a critical depth of understanding around the social and political implications of knowledge and action. Students who can skillfully engage in ethical projects of social change and political engagement (both locally and globally) and faculty whose teaching and scholarship encompass both disciplinary rigor and applied benefits for our communities are primary goals of our school. We accomplish these aims in large part through our extensive service-learning courses and our “social responsibility” core learning objective and graduation requirement. Pitzer far surpasses the rest of the country in its community service efforts: the National Survey of Student Engagement has found that nationally an average of 60% of a college or university participates in community service (volunteer, work study or course-related) while at Pitzer that number is 93%. Pitzer invests significant financial and human capital into supporting service, primarily through its Community Engagement Center (which is funded through hard money and has a staff of 4).

This Center has overseen and supported engaged scholarship at Pitzer College since 1998 by offering research awards and fellowships to faculty, staff, and students and connecting them with local community-based organizations that address a variety of social and cultural issues. Almost all students who do community service through service-learning courses (and many who volunteer to do so without a correlating course) are connected through CEC to gain entry to and placement at a community site, support for transportation there and an orientation on ethical standards and legal obligations. CEC develops and maintains community partnerships with over three dozen sites and actively evaluates its efforts with these sites and the faculty and students with whom they partner. Students are supported through these services and various grants/awards while faculty are supported through professional development workshops, one-on-one curriculum development support, assistance in monitoring student work on site, and funding for community engagement courses and research endeavors. In addition, co-curricular programming (workshops, speakers series, one-day service opportunities) also enhance social responsibility on campus. Aside from CEC, community service is also supported at Pitzer through environmental service programs (LEEP), career services (career-related internships), office of student affairs (including the “Involvement Tower” residence hall), Jumpstart (an AmeriCorps early childhood service program), and our new Institute for Global and Local Study and Action (connecting our local and abroad community engagement scholarship and service work, which complements the over 70% of Pitzer students who study abroad). All of these efforts positively enhance the College’s mission to have “concern with the ethical implications of knowledge and action.”

There are tremendous challenges faced by local populations (including low-income, immigrant, youth, incarcerated and/or communities of color) such as environmental and food injustice, discrimination, failing education systems and a lack of human rights. For example, the Inland Empire leads the nation in unemployment rates (15% in 2010) and has the fifth highest rate of foreclosure in the country, with one in 23 houses entering foreclosure in 2010. In one of our main areas of service (Ontario), low-income Latino communities make up 70% of the population and over 70,000 of residents are considered overweight or obese. Local community partners report positive gains from partnerships with Pitzer including: financial benefits, improved service-providing abilities, community empowerment, social, cultural and political support, and a positive connection to higher education."

You are encouraged to visit the writing center for developing a strong proposal, or email cec_staff@pitzer.edu for questions. This is the primary focus of your application and our committee reads these thoroughly. You should pay attention to detail and polish on your narrative in addition to the quality and careful consideration of your service work.

This award is designed to support Pitzer students who will be finishing a senior thesis/project during the 2024-2025 academic year. Funding is awarded to students that can recount and provide the results of their community-based work in connection to their thesis/project. Community engagement internships and positions connected to the thesis/project should be conducted in a reciprocally beneficial manner for both the student and the organizations or groups involved.

For example, an Environmental Analysis student might study the air pollution impacts in the Inland Empire region and its connection to the worker’s rights organizations efforts to provide livable and workable conditions for the local community. Information and findings on this study will be used to support student learning and the overall goals of the community it serves.

Awardees will be selected based on criteria included below. Each recipient will receive an award of $250 ($125 will be granted upon presentation of the award, and $125 will be made available upon successful completion of the project). Students who receive an award will be asked to present their research at a student research symposium held at the end of the spring semester.

General Information and Selection Criteria

• Complete Senior Thesis Award Application
• 2 Letters of recommendation, email to jackie_contreras@pitzer.edu
• One letter from a faculty reference who can speak to your character and community-based approach
• One letter from the community-based organization with whom you worked

1-2 page essay that incorporates the following points:

• Title of Thesis
• Project Description
• Scope of Thesis and any Preliminary Conclusions/Findings

Please attach a one to two-page (maximum) essay that incorporates the following points:

•    Title of the Thesis

•    Project Description

Include brief descriptions of the community organization(s) involved in your thesis. What internships did you complete? Describe what kind of work/research you performed at these organizations. How does your thesis/project link your major/class material and work accomplished in the community? What impacts did the completion of your thesis/project have on the organizations or groups you worked with?

•    Describe the scope of the thesis and any preliminary findings/conclusions

•    Be sure to cite sources referenced in the application

If you receive the award, you must furnish CEC with a copy of your completed thesis to receive the second half of your award.

Project Proposal: Exploring Genuine Security Through Storytelling & Social Responsibility Praxis

Project History:

Asian American Studies has a tradition of community engagement and working towards a more just society. As such, IDAAS established the Margo Okazawa-Rey Summer Fellowship. This Fellowship is designed to encourage outstanding college students to implement community-based, creative, or research projects that integrate social justice, multi-racial solidarity, and feminism.

This project honors Margo Okazawa-Rey’s decades of activist and scholarly social justice work within the US and with international colleagues. Okazawa-Rey, among the first generation of mixed-race children born to a Japanese “war bride” and an African American soldier, grounds her activist commitments in her experiences navigating and crossing multiple geographic, identity, and epistemic borders and learning and gaining deeper understandings of the past and present and their implications for transforming the current conditions generating the unspeakable violence, profound insecurity, and uncertainty, around the world. She is professor emerita at San Francisco State University and in the School of Human and Organizational Development at the Fielding Graduate University. Okazawa-Rey devotes her work to examine, address, and help build solidarity movements around the issue of militarism, militarization, and feminist vision of genuine security and a culture of life. Her latest publications include;

“Building a Culture of Life: A Conversation on Abolition, Feminism, and Asian American Politics.” P. Kandaswamy, M. Okazawa-Rey, & S. Shigematsu. (2023). Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies.

“Two Decades of Feminist Organising for Genuine Security: Understandings from the International Women’s Network Against Militarism” with Akibayashi, Fabros, Kirk, et al. Feminist Conversations on Peace. S. Smith & K. Yoshida (Eds.) (2022). Bristol, UK: Bristol University Press.

Gendered Lives: Intersectional Perspectives. 7thth Ed. (2020). G. Kirk & M. Okazawa-Rey (Eds.) New York: Oxford University Press.

“Nation-izing” Coalition and Solidarity Politics for US Anti-militarist Feminists, Social Justice (2020). In 2006, Okazawa-Rey was the Scholar/Practitioner-in-Residence in the Intercollegiate Department of Women Studies at the Claremont Colleges.

The Fellowship is intended to enable individuals to undertake a community-based, creative, or research project in any context, although work pursued in Asian and Pacific Islander communities will be prioritized. The project may involve working with an existing organization or activist group or may involve initiating a new effort beside a marginalized community. Projects may focus on any social issue such as reproductive health, AIDS education, sex-trafficking, peace education, and affordable housing. Students are strongly encouraged to conceptualize their projects in ways that make the connections between domestic issues and international/transnational events, trends, and forces.

In response to an urgent call for reimagining security beyond traditional militaristic frameworks, this fellowship aims to delve into the concept of Genuine Security through the lenses of Storytelling and Social Responsibility Praxis (SRX). Anchored in the principles outlined by the International Women’s Network Against Militarism (IWNAM) in their framework for a feminist vision of Genuine Security, this project seeks to explore how narratives and actions rooted in Genuine Security can transform communities and individuals.

The Pitzer College Community Engagement Center (CEC) and the Pomona College Intercollegiate Department of Asian American Studies (IDAAS) will award two Margo Okazawa-Rey Summer Fellowships each year. The awards are given on a competitive basis for student-initiated, interdisciplinary projects. The project may be creative, research-oriented, or community “service”/social justice oriented.

Anchoring Frame: Genuine Security

Genuine Security, as envisioned by IWNAM, encompasses physical safety alongside economic, environmental, and social justice, rejecting militarism as the sole guarantor of security. This perspective challenges one to reconsider the prevailing narratives of security and embrace holistic approaches that prioritize human dignity, safety, and wellbeing.

Storytelling and Genuine Security:

Reflecting on examples of militarism in communities, such as the presence of JROTC in local schools or military bases, evokes a mix of emotions. There is a sense of unease and concern for the normalization of war narratives, critical questioning about the impact of militarism on youth and communities, and a visceral reaction to symbols of power and control that overshadow genuine security.

Envisioning Genuine Security:

Conversely, examples of genuine security, such as community gardens or health collaboratives, evoke feelings of hope and resilience. There is warmth and a sense of belonging to a caring community, clarity about the transformative potential of collective action and care, and a feeling of groundedness and empowerment knowing that genuine security is achievable through solidarity and grassroots efforts.

Principle of Intersectionality:

The principle of intersectionality within Genuine Security acknowledges the interconnected nature of social categories, individual and collective identities, and systems of oppression, emphasizing the importance of addressing these complexities in the pursuit of security and justice. This principle promotes inclusive and holistic approaches, an analytical framework for understanding complex social issues, and the pursuit of justice and equity.

Social Responsibility Praxis (SRX):

Reflecting on the practice of social responsibility, such as initiatives to start a food collective, encourages hope and inspiration. There is pride and gratitude for commitment to community care, recognition of the power of grassroots initiatives in fostering social change, and a sense of urgency and responsibility to contribute meaningfully to collective wellbeing.

Conclusion:

This fellowship seeks to deepen the understanding of Genuine Security, engage in critical reflections through storytelling, and actively participate in Social Responsibility Praxis. By embracing these principles and practices, informed by the five-point analysis (enumerated below) from IWNAM's feminist vision of Genuine Security, contributes to creating spaces where Genuine Security flourishes and communities thrive free from the shadows of militarism. This fellowship represents a commitment to learning, growth, and collective action towards a more just and peaceful world.

Reflecting on Genuine Security involves exploring moments or experiences in your life, community, or family that embody a sense of safety, dignity, and wellbeing, beyond traditional militaristic frameworks. Consider a specific moment or artifact of Genuine Security that stands out to you. Describe this moment or artifact in 5 - 7 sentences, reflecting on how it makes you feel in your heart, head, and body when acknowledging its significance. (For example, my paternal grandmother's track medal from 1939. She lived as a Chinese American woman in Jim Crow South. She always navigated the threat of violence on many levels and in many ways. Yet, running or embodiment with her friends in a segregated setting provided a means to define who they were in powerful ways that countered the dominant narratives that she did not deserve to exist. Rather than swallow and perpetuate the lies about women of color, track was a way they saw each other’s worth and supported each other when they had little room to work, live and play outside of violent conditions. I feel joy and pride and sadness when I hold the track medal as an example of genuine security.)

Next, engage with the interrelated conditions (seen below) of Genuine Security outlined by the International Women’s Network Against Militarism (IWNAM). As you read through their framework, identify a principle that speaks to you and intrigues you. Describe this principle and reflect on its impact on you personally. How does this principle resonate with your heart, head, and body as you envision its application throughout the year? (For example, both of my maternal grandparents were prisoners of war under the Japanese military in Indonesia during WWII. After surviving this, they went on to migrate to two different countries. One, the Netherlands and two, the United States. It was important through these transitions to honor and uphold Indonesian-Dutch culture. For this reason it is important that I “respect human dignity” and by honoring and respecting cultural identities. This principle guides how I engage with the world through my thoughts, behaviors and actions.)

This fellowship amplifies Social Responsibility Praxis which is an educational objective of Pitzer College. It combines theory and action and being and doing. Identify an organization or community that is fostering genuine security that you might like to work with and learn from during the academic year. Write a few sentences about this organization or community, how they foster genuine security, and what you might do in relation to his group. Some sample organizations that foster aspects of genuine security:

https://www.ccedla.org/

http://www.genuinesecurity.org/

https://www.im4humanintegrity.org/

https://projectsister.org/

https://www.wilpf.org/

https://feastforall.org/

https://www.api-rise.org/

https://sjli.org/

https://www.lacompost.org/

Principles of Genuine Security:

1. Sustaining the Environment: The physical environment must be able to sustain human and natural life.
2. Meeting Human Needs: People’s basic needs for food, clothing, shelter, health care, and education must be guaranteed.
3. Respecting Human Dignity: People’s fundamental human dignity should be honored and cultural identities respected.
4. Ensuring Peoples’ Sovereignty: Respect and support nations’ and people’s sovereignty and cultural rights. Uphold the right of self-determination of indigenous peoples over their lands and resources.
5. Preventing Avoidable Harm: People and the natural environment should be protected from avoidable harm.