“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” – Mahatma Gandhi

Through a variety of academic and extracurricular activities, Christopher Newport University students are exploring their sharing, caring nature. They are responding to the philanthropic spirit that drives them to important work as volunteers. And they are giving back to society what they are gaining through their education and campus experiences. In fact, service to others is part of CNU’s mission “to provide educational and cultural opportunities that benefit CNU students, the residents of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the nation.”

“Being on such a small campus, there are so many ways to volunteer,” said Tiffany Campbell, a member of Alpha Phi sorority and the current president of Panhellenic, the governing body for social sororities on campus. “You can get to know the administration and faculty on a personal basis, and they can open many doors of opportunity through volunteer efforts. They have so many connections and so many resources available, students can learn outside the classroom and grow their personal values. It’s really a big part of the social climate on campus.”

English as a technical language

Sharmesha Joynes, an English major who graduated from CNU in 2003, attributes her current success as a technical writer with Design Engineering Services not only to a teacher with connections, but also to the grant-writing course that instructor was teaching. “Prior to taking Dr. Jean Filetti’s grant-writing class, I didn’t do volunteer work,” says Ms. Joynes. “That course dramatically changed my life. There are things I’m doing now, things that I want to continue to do, that still stem from that class.”

That class was English 355, the brainchild of Dr. Filetti, associate professor of English. “I’ve been out there in sort of a mother/citizen/community member capacity working with organizations,” said Dr. Filetti. “I’ve seen how organizations are trying to do all these wonderful things, even though they are understaffed and underfunded, and I tried to think of a way that we could help them.” The result was a grant-writing course that is part of the Department of English’s Technical Writing concentration.

“When I first started the course, we wrote grants for imaginary organizations, and it just didn’t work,” said Dr. Filetti. The following year, she tweaked the course to marry technical aspects of grant-writing with real-world application, requiring students to volunteer with a nonprofit organization as part of their course work. “So now my students are feeding the homeless, working with children in shelters and delivering food from the Foodbank to various places throughout the community,” she said. “And they can write, I think, more effectively about the work of the nonprofit in their grants because they’re doing the work.”

Ms. Joynes, who partnered with the Peninsula Foodbank for her course requirement, still volunteers there, in addition to working for another local company as a technical writer. “As a volunteer, I have written grants to fund the Foodbank’s Kids’ Café program, which assists after-school kids with a place to eat and study, and to develop home economic skills — such as cooking, nutrition and food safety — so they can be more efficient at home.

“I’m glad the opportunity was presented to me,” she continued, “because I got to see the other side, and that’s one of the things that benefits a grant writer – when you can get involved. It’s easy to just write something, but it’s much more profound when you have experience to back it up. I saw the kids, I saw the expressions on their faces, I saw the needs that they had, and I was able to assist them.

“By doing that I was able to write a grant that had some experience behind it. And anyone who read it could clearly see that this is a need-based program, and these kids greatly benefit from it. But beyond that, it helped to develop me personally. I became a more diverse person, a more accepting person, and now I understand why things work the way they do sometimes.”

Greeking in the details

Kamilah Quash, a senior who will be graduating this spring and president of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc., a historically black community service sorority, believes in the importance of giving.

“Being involved with the community is important to me because I’ve been given the opportunity to go to school,” she said. “I’ve been given so much, it’s important to give back to people who may not be able to do the same things — whether it be financial, whether it be clothing, food, donating my time at a local nursing home — something that’s making a difference in someone’s life.

“I get to serve as a role model to younger children who look at me and say ‘I want to be like her someday.’ And the only way that they can be like me, or like a member of another sorority, is if they go to college. In turn, they know they have to strive to do well in school, so they’ll have the chance to go to college and continue the cycle — to help the community.”

Pete Sasso, a senior who is founder and past president of Tau Delta Phi, believes in the principles of servant leadership so much, he started a new fraternity chapter at CNU.

“I started Tau Delta Phi to establish a legacy at CNU,” Pete said. “It is a legacy that begins with my father, who is also a Tau Delta Phi. But more to the point, its organizational values were consistent with my own. I believe in servant leadership. You have to serve others first in order to lead and show them the way to something better. Tau Delta Phi historically stands for the principles of service: service to self, community and brother. It was just a good match.”

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