One of the unique experiences provided by the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service is the International Public Service Project (IPSP). Each summer, students travel across the world to partner with organizations on field service projects, applying lessons learned in the classroom to real-world challenges. Since 2007, students have completed projects in 88 countries and totaled more than 145,000 hours of service on international projects.
This spring, the school and its students were forced to adjust their service plans as COVID-19 halted international travel and limited in-person interaction. By the time the virus was declared a global pandemic in mid-March, Clinton School students had already secured projects in 22 countries.
“Project based learning is a hallmark of the Clinton School and our students are not letting the COVID-19 pandemic prevent them from doing important public service work,” said Clinton School Dean James L. “Skip” Rutherford III. “In these unsettling times, public service is needed now more than ever.”
The Office of Community Engagement (OCE), which administers and oversees all project-based learning at the Clinton School, began working to find creative solutions that would allow students to complete their international projects remotely.
Tiffany Jacob, Director of International Programs and Outreach, was able to secure partnerships for the students by transitioning to virtual work with global organizations and by tapping into existing relationships with alumni and community partners.
“At that point in mid-March, all but one student had confirmed their project,” Jacob said. “Over the course of three to four weeks, we were able to transition almost all of those projects utilizing community connections, with a heavy focus on Practicum applicants and past Practicum and Capstone partners.”
More than half of the students – 19 in total – will work remotely with their original IPSP organization. These projects include work with organizations with work based in Sri Lanka, Hungary, Poland, and Nigeria, among other countries.
Jacob, along with Nichola Driver, Faculty Director for the OCE, and Hilary Trudell, Director of Local Programs and Outreach, compiled a list of potential domestic partners for the students unable to continue working with their original IPSP organizations. Students were encouraged to seek partnerships with organizations that closely aligned with their career goals and public service interests. “We advised students to use this field service opportunity to deepen those experiences in the areas they are passionate about,” Jacob said.
Fifteen students pivoted to entirely new projects, 13 of which were developed by OCE using the office’s community and alumni connections. Many of the new partner organizations have global missions or an international focus, including Syrian Emergency Task Force, Canopy NWA, and Heifer International.
Michael Webb (Overland Park, Kansas) and Kate Jenkins (Memphis, Tenn.) were among the students able to continue working with their international organizations.
Webb will work with Women Political Leaders, a foundation based in Belgium that features the world’s largest network of female political leaders. He will assist in the planning of the Reykjavik Global Forum and the Women Political Leaders Summit. Jenkins will partner with LIV Lanseria, a South African organization that serves orphaned and vulnerable children. She will create program evaluation plans for the organization’s foster family program and babyhouse.
Baraka Kengwa (Mwanza, Tanzania), Katerina Noori (Tempe, Ariz.), and Aisosa Osaretin (Benin City, Nigeria) are three of the students now working with Arkansas-based organizations. Kengwa will focus on finding emergent best practices in adapting education programs with UA Little Rock Children International. Noori and Osaretin will work with Canopy NWA. Noori will review and revise an existing evaluation plan for a pilot program, while Osaretin will assess and measure the perceptions and attitudes of the northwest Arkansas community toward refugees and Canopy NWA’s work.
With the widespread effects of COVID-19, several of this summer’s projects include work related to partner organizations’ efforts in response to the pandemic.
Cassidy Mitchell (Corning, Ark.) and Robert Morris (Jacksonville, Ark.) will partner with Helping Overcome Obstacles Peru (HOOP), a nonprofit enhancing the education of disadvantaged children and their families in the Flora Tristan community of Peru. Mitchell is designing a survey to assist the organization in understanding the at-home experiences of Peruvian women during the pandemic. Morris will create and implement a communication plan focused around preventative health and hygiene tips in light of COVID-19.
Michael Morrison (Van Buren, Ark.) will work with the Arkansas Department of Agriculture and assist in the marketing and communication efforts of local companies looking to expand to international markets. He will be a part of the team that looks at alternate strategies to connect companies with the benefits offered by the Southern United States Trade Association during the pandemic.
Thirty-four students in total have confirmed projects for this summer. Below is a closer look at their work and partner organizations.
Nikki Anderson – Syrian Emergency Task Force
Anderson will work with Syrian Emergency Task Force to complete grant applications to help the organization secure funding for its humanitarian and political advocacy efforts. She will work remotely with individuals from across the globe to help SETF continue to adapt to the challenging new environment that COVID-19 has created.
Marlie Ball – Heifer International
Ball will assist Heifer International’s Monitoring, Evaluations, and Learning team with the rollout of its first Virtual Indicator Library (VIL). This VIL will assist in the monitoring and evaluation of Heifer’s programs in nineteen different partner countries, creating cross-cultural data that can easily be compared throughout different programs.
Farrah Beck – University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
Beck will assist a team from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville in creating a language roadmap of the state. This document will explore the state of Spanish language education from Pre-K through 16th grade.
Mac Bolt – Center for Embodied Pedagogy and Action
Bolt will create a financial sustainability plan with the Center for Embodied Pedagogy and Action, a process that includes applying for grants, developing fundraising strategies, and helping create a conceptual map of existing resources and mutual aid networks. Additionally, Bolt will create a resource guide consisting of resources related to community accountability and transformative justice practices.
Jennifer Browne – Vote Run Lead
Browne will work with the Chief Program Officer of Vote Run Lead to develop and implement The State Parity Project. The purpose of the project is to impact the ratio of women within state legislatures, increasing the ratio to a number greater than 50%, so as to mirror the percentage of women within the general population.
Tim Campbell – Phoenix Youth and Family Services
Campbell will conduct visioning sessions with the Phoenix Youth and Family Services staff to create a 3 to 5-year strategic marketing plan. He will facilitate a series of workshops with the staff to establish a precise timeline of goals and objectives.
Katie Clark – Fraser Health Authority
Clark will conduct a comprehensive evaluation project with Fraser Health’s Department of Evaluation and Research Services. Her research will seek to mainstream and standardize Fraser Health’s evaluation processes, identify the role of stakeholders, and develop best guidelines and tools to support the goals of the department.
Drew Coker – European Community Organizing Network
Coker will evaluate the current grassroots fundraising efforts of member organizations of the European Community Organizing Network and assemble a guidebook of stories and best practices for the organization to better implement grassroots fundraising strategies. Along with this guidebook, Coker will create a database of resources devoted to increasing members’ organizational capacity and fundraising capabilities.
Linda Dipert – Alchemy Community Transformations
Dipert will conduct research through focus groups and surveys of community residents to act as guidance for city leaders to prioritize revitalization efforts. She will also collect data relating to fundraising and grant opportunities.
Taylor Donnerson – Little Rock Congregations Study
Donnerson will assist in creating reports from the data of congregations to inform religious leaders about congregates and to help faith communities connect with each other and with nonprofits to better address community issues in Little Rock. She will also help develop their media presence to stay connected with congregations, display research results, and aid in future recruitment.
Blake Farris – Gammadda
Farris will work remotely with Gammadda, a Sri Lankan humanitarian initiative, to compare and contrast its foundational practices to a popular South Korean rural development model and research how Gammadda is democratizing governance in Sri Lanka. Using these findings, he will develop a sample modern-rural village plan considering the current challenges and context of rural Sri Lanka.
Johnisha Graham – Phoenix Youth and Family Services
Graham will conduct best practice research to provide Phoenix Youth and Family Services with strategies to engage community members. She will also help the organization develop a comprehensive organizational plan to address community engagement efforts for future initiatives.
Nada Hamida – Archive Global
Hamida will help develop a project plan and submit grant proposals to start a Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene project in Cameroon. The project will improve the sanitary infrastructure in the municipality of Idenau, Cameroon.
Courtney Heptig – Heifer International
Heptig will work with Heifer International and Cargill’s Hatching Hope global initiative. She will coordinate with communications teams in India, Kenya, and Mexico to create a project dashboard and knowledge repository for the Hatching Hope project. She will assist the organization in presenting this compiled project data to various stakeholders through the creation of monthly updates and a biannual report.
Brock Hyland – Ozark Society
Hyland will work with the Ozark Society to study the effectiveness of the Arkansas Phosphorus Index (API) in mitigating the spread of agricultural waste to Arkansas public waterways. The study will compare the API with indices from other state nutrient management plans, will determine stakeholder concerns about the API, and recommend changes in the Arkansas Phosphorus Index.
Patrick Isokpunwu – Girls’ Power Initiative
Isokpunwu will work with Girls’ Power Initiative, a feminist NGO in Nigeria working on gender-sensitive empowerment of children and young females for social change and gender policy reforms, to develop a plan to evaluate trafficking in women prevention program.
Kate Jenkins – LIV Lanseria
Jenkins will complete a remote project with South African community development nonprofit LIV Lanseria. She will create program evaluation plans for the nonprofit’s foster family program and baby house.
Abraham Kahasay – Arkansas Peace and Justice Memorial Movement
Kahasay will conduct best practice research for the Arkansas Peace and Justice Memorial Movement. The research and data will help to implement Community Remembrance Projects in coordination with the Equal Justice Initiative.
Baraka Kengwa – UA Little Rock Children International
Kengwa will serve as a site coordinator with UA Little Rock Children International, focusing primarily on finding emergent best practices in adapting education programs in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. He will also assist with day-to-day micro-assessments of student learning.
Corrinne McClure – Southern Public Health and Criminal Justice Center
McClure will identify best practices around establishing a research center within an academic institution. This entails developing guidelines and practices around student engagement, community partnerships, philanthropy, and other funding opportunities, and general organizational structure.
Jacob McGuire – Partners in Knowledge
McGuire will develop and implement Partners in Knowledge’s grant strategy. He will identify, write, and submit specific grants, as well as advise PIK on issues related to procuring and administering grants.
Cody McKinney – Human Rights Initiative
McKinney will work with the Human Rights Initiative Children’s Program. He will shadow attorneys who prepare applications for various forms of immigration relief, assist in conducting client interviews, draft and review supporting affidavits and other documents, and perform legal research.
Cassidy Mitchell – Helping Overcome Obstacles Peru
Mitchell will identify and create an impact evaluation framework for Helping Overcome Obstacles Peru’s psychology program in order to better understand how the program has helped in breaking the cycle of poverty. She will work alongside the psychology coordinator in creating and updating materials for program use.
Brittany Moody – Arkansas Coalition Against Sexual Assault
Moody will create an advocacy training curriculum for advocates of human trafficking, as well as build capacity for the Arkansas Coalition Against Sexual Assault in the human trafficking field in Arkansas. She will analyze best practices and existing literature to create lesson plans, quizzes, and PowerPoints for the human trafficking advocate training program.
Robert Morris – Helping Overcome Obstacles Peru
Morris will create and implement a communication plan focused around preventative health and hygiene tips, and fundraising in light of COVID-19. He will create communication pieces focused around staying healthy as well as a plan to ensure the organization will use its communication channels to their highest potential in reaching the parents and students involved with HOOP.
Michael Morrison – Arkansas Department of Agriculture
Morrison will work with the Arkansas Department of Agriculture marketing and communication team to assist in developing a marketing plan for individuals or companies looking to expand into international markets.
Katerina Noori – Canopy NWA
Noori will review and revise an existing evaluation plan for Canopy NWA’s pilot program, The Long Welcome. She will compile data from multiple locations and create a database, which will be used to monitor the success of the program. She will perform limited preliminary analysis on this data to establish a baseline for the program.
Aisosa Osaretin – Canopy NWA
Osaretin will work with Canopy NWA on refugee resettlement. She will assess and measure the perceptions and attitudes of the northwest Arkansas community toward refugees and Canopy NWA’s work.
Leslie Parker – UA Little Rock Children International
Parker will conduct best practices research on virtual learning for UA Little Rock Children’s International Career Readiness Program.
Dillon Pitts – Vital Voices
Pitts will conduct a process evaluation with Vital Voices to determine program effectiveness and participant satisfaction. The evaluation will seek to better understand how programs are collecting and capturing data.
Jaylin Sprout – UACS Office of Community Engagement
Sprout will work with the Clinton School’s Office of Community Engagement to improve strategic evaluation and data collection procedures for the Practicum and International Public Service Project (IPSP) field service programs. She will create a toolkit of monitoring and outcome evaluation instruments to better measure the experience and desired outcomes of both programs.
Michael Webb – Women Political Leaders
Webb will assist in the planning of several key events hosted by Women Political Leaders, including the WPL World Summit and the Reykjavik Global Forum. In addition, he will help prepare for the #Girl2Leader campaign and coordinate online events for Women European Leaders.
Jacey Winn – Lawyers for Animal Justice
Winn will craft a legal document that aims to recommend public policy options to reduce the risk to human health posed by animal-borne diseases. This document will examine the multiple ways that human use of animals – whether in the wildlife trade, exotic pet trade, or in factory farms – contribute to novel viruses and other zoonotic diseases.
Alec Zills – Camp Laurel
Zills will plan and coordinate an international staff immersion program and develop an evaluation plan to measure the ability of Camp Laurel (Mount Vernon, Maine) to support and transition staffers into a new environment.
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