Sociology MA students, Alexia Ferguson and Jill Howard, are putting their High Impact Grants to good use this semester by developing community support toolkits as their Capstone Projects.
Alexia, who works with Mason’s Contemporary Student Services office, is developing a toolkit supporting justice impacted students—those currently or previously incarcerated.
“We serve a lot of different students and have good resources,” said Alexia of Contemporary Student Services, “but the justice impacted students are one of the groups without many resources available. My project will be a resource to help support those students and those that work with them.”
As a Hispanic, first-generation college student, Alexia knows how many barriers must be overcome to be a successful student. Growing up surrounded by individuals close to her who have been incarcerated she has directly experienced the impact of the criminal justice system, and the profound impact education can have on a person’s life trajectory. Witnessing how education can provide opportunities for rehabilitation and empowerment has fueled her passion for amplifying the voices and stories of marginalized individuals.
Building a toolkit for justice impacted students, and the faculty and staff working with them, “clicked” for her as a way to fulfill her passion of creating community and elevating marginalized voices.
Ultimately, Alexia’s toolkit will provide staff and faculty here at Mason a holistic view of the barriers and challenges justice impacted students face in the admissions process, in completing classes, in utilizing institutional resources such as Career Services, as well as how best to access external resources such funding and housing. The toolkit will also include tips and tricks for justice impacted students and for faculty and staff supporting them.
To develop the toolkit, Alexia is using her experience with the Contemporary Student Services office, meetings with Mason administrators, and conversations with a current justice impacted Mason student.
“I’m going to career services, admissions and other Mason organizations and asking about their policies and experiences and compiling them with best practices from the literature.”
It is an ambitious project, but her passion will help drive Alexia to success.
Jill Howard, who recently worked with The Potter’s House, a non-profit café, bookstore and event space in DC, is developing a toolkit on how community organizations can use book clubs to foster empathetic discussion about social topics and develop a sense of belonging among participants.
“This is how I first got interested in Mason’s sociology program,” said Jill, “I wanted to help people get connected with their communities and have the resources to support each other.”
This past summer Jill had been looking for internships and had reached out to The Potter’s House to see if they had any work. “I was lucky to get involved when I did,” she said, as The Potter’s House had just received a grant from the D.C. Department of Behavioral Health to help prevent opioid misuse in the city. Much of the funds were allocated to passing out Narcan (a medicine that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose) and other direct engagement and awareness-raising tactics, but some of the funds were allocated for a book group which would read and discuss two books: one fiction and one nonfiction, both featuring characters dealing with opioid misuse.
“When I realized people were using book clubs to do what I wanted to do, to create action for positive change and build community,” said Jill, “this felt like the right fit for me.” The Potter’s House offered Jill a position managing and evaluating the book club program.
The current toolkit that Jill is creating is inspired by findings from her original evaluation and will include newly collected observations and interview data from up to 6 additional book clubs in the DMV area. She is targeting clubs meeting at local libraries and bookstores that are reading stories written by or about people or color and/or the LGBTQ community.
Her goal is to develop a holistic, accessible, evidence-based tool kit for organizations that want to implement book clubs as a way to build community and create positive social change. The toolkit will include descriptions of best-practices and provide tactics that other groups have used to build a sense of belonging, develop participant empathy, and foster critical reflection.
It’s a lot to do in one semester, but Jill is up for the challenge, “This has been really fun." she says, "Truly this has been the first project that I have been 100% excited about working on.”