VIDEO: Honors Students Construct Community on Campus

Two weeks before classes begin, a group of freshman University Honors Students is building community by building a home.

Date: 9/5/2007 12:00:00 AM
By: Dawn Fuller
Phone: (513) 556-1823

Photos By: Dottie Stover (video by Jay Yocis)

Approximately 20 University of Cincinnati students in a first-year English University Honors course are the first volunteers to start building UC’s fifth university-wide partnership with Cincinnati Habitat for Humanity. For the next two weeks, these new “construction workers” will be guided by Beverly Brannan, a field service instructor for English & Comparative Literature (McMicken College of Arts and Sciences), and Dewey Enderle, a senior staff engineer for UC Construction Management.

As the actual site for the UC/Cincinnati Habitat for Humanity home undergoes preparation in Avondale, the students on Sept. 5 were pre-framing the walls on UC’s campus. The four-bedroom home will be built at 3570 Haven St. in Avondale. Later in the week the students will be volunteering at other Habitat sites around Cincinnati.

This service-learning Honors English course is becoming a popular tradition for academically talented first-year students. Once autumn quarter gets underway on Sept. 19, the students will be reading, writing about and discussing community and ethics as part of their coursework.

“When discussing community in this class, we will go beyond the limits of what most people define as their communities – family, friends, jobs, schools and neighborhoods,” says Brannan. “The students are challenged to become a part of a new community as they work to build this Habitat home.”

Through this university-wide partnership UC volunteers have successfully built homes for four families who had never before owned a home. This fifth building effort demonstrates UC|21 goals of creating opportunity, forging key relationships and partnerships, and establishing a sense of place on campus and in the surrounding community.

Once the University Honors Students finish their two-week construction blitz, university volunteers will spend Saturdays working at the site in Avondale until the completed home is dedicated in the spring. The formal kickoff ceremony for the partnership will take place at 10 a.m., Saturday, Oct. 6, at 3570 Haven St. in Avondale.