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Orientation at Southside

Being a professor can often be rewarding. This isn't to say that the salary is high or that the thank you notes pile up every day. It's all about the small victories and the change overtime. This past week I have had both! The small victory included a student coming into my office and exclaiming that they changed their major to education! This is the same student that had come in earlier in the semester having trouble applying educational psychology to her field. Instead, she just changed her field to education...

More importantly, this week I have gotten to be apart of some change overtime. Over the past few months I have made it a mission to connect with the Valdosta community. This involved volunteering for the attendance matters campaign at Maceo Horne Learning Center (the alternative school in town), participating in Family Fun Night with my counselor education students at Pinevale Elementary, and working with Valdosta City Schools on their social emotional learning initiative. During this outreach, I met Carlos Hundley, the founder of Advancing Valdosta. This organization is facilitating the Helping with Homework program at the Southside Library. Hundley noticed that many children were hanging out at the library after school without supervision and decided to implement a program to serve this population. Read more about it in this Valdosta Daily Times article. Guess what? My education students are serving as the tutors for this program. Their service learning in the community began last week when the VSU students attended the orientation at the Southside Library.

We are excited, nervous, and energized to provide direct service to the community and apply educational psychology in an educational setting. Tutors start this Wednesday and Thursday after school. I can't wait to facilitate the class discussions on their experiences.
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