Practical Matters: The FA's Community Outreach Committee

by Tim McHeffey, Chair, FA Community Outreach Committee

A super way to accelerate your immersion into your new, wonderful position at Suffolk is to meet your extended FA Family! The Community Outreach arm of the Faculty Association is called TEAM-FA (Totally Enthusiastic Members of the Faculty Association). Our FA on-campus events include plant sales for AHRC, food drives, and Fair Trade sales. Many of you already likely do awesome activities in your respective geographic communities; why not help out with ours? To find out how you can help on your campus, email me at tim [at] fascc.org.

Or, you may want to jump on board our nationally acclaimed “Professors on Wheels” program, where we share our expertise in small presentations with nursing home residents and public libraries. Here are some of the topics & presentations our community partners may choose from for the 2015/2016 year:

• American Cinema: Then and Now
• Getting Over the Fear of Public Speaking
• Families and the Juvenile Justice System
• You and Your Culture: What Makes You Who You Are
• How to Grow a Small Business on Long Island
• Soldiers’ Life in the First World War: The Sounds Smells and Taste of War
• Reporting From...(Making Short Videos to Post on YouTube)
• From Beowulf to Rambo: Heroes and Western Heroism
• The Fibonacci Numbers
• Women in Politics
• Renaissance Art and Musical Instruments
• Atmospheric Science
• Connecting with others through E-mail 
• Getting Organized: How to De-Clutter your Life
• Not Just Kids’ Stuff: Understanding Comics and Graphic Literature 

For more information about how to get involved, email Ray DiSanza at rayd [at] fascc.org and/or check out the Professors on Wheels page on the FA's web site.

Community Outreach is part of our fabric as FA brothers and sisters… It’s what we do! So Sunday, October 18^th, consider joining our walking team at Jones Beach for Making Strides Against Breast Cancer; or, if you would like to donate to our team, please go to our TEAM FA web site @http://main.acsevents.org/goto/fascc or you can visit us on Facebook to sign up as well, https://www.facebook.com/events/1044288825615958/. For more information, talk to joanc [at] fascc.org. 

The month of October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

Editor's Note: Did you know that the A-form (our application for promotion) specifically asks about your involvement in our community? (To wit: "Professionally related community activities in cultural, educational, and benevolent organizations")

While promotion shouldn't be your primary reason for contributing to your community, it probably helps to know that the college cares about and values your service to our community outside the college. So if you were hesitant to do community service, and wondering about whether or not you could or should sacrifice any of your hard-earned down-time, consider that you will benefit from donating that time -- although I'm pretty sure our community partners will benefit more. And yes, union-organized community service events count.

Also: October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Find a ribbon and #gopurple on Facebook,  Twitter, and even during class -- letting students, colleagues, and friends know where they can find support if they need it.

Also also: Alongside Catherine Lipnick and Alyssa Kauffman, tommorrow (10/13) I'll be giving a workshop as one of the Professional Development Day Breakout Sessions on Service Learning and Civic Engagement. If you'd like to learn more about how to incorporate community service into your courses, we'd love to see you.
 

-- SKG