The Fifth Annual Presidential Symposium, entitled "Partnering for Education," was held yesterday afternoon at the Granoff Family Hillel Center.
Sponsored by the Office of the President, the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service and the Office of Community Relations, the symposium aimed to strengthen the bonds between Tufts and its partner communities of Chinatown, Grafton, Medford and Somerville.
Students and community members attended the event, which featured a lunch, panel discussion and a question and answer session.
After some remarks from University President Lawrence Bacow and an overview of the program by Director of the Lincoln Filene Center for Community Partnerships (LFC) Shirley Mark, two panelists spoke about education and community service initiatives involving Tufts and the surrounding communities.
Alicia Kersten, a teacher at Somerville High School, spoke first. She spoke about the mutually beneficial relationships that can be formed between the community and Tufts students, noting the ways in which Tufts has been and is involved with education in the community, as well as offering ideas and suggestions for the future.
Professor Richard Lerner, Tufts' Bergstrom Chair in Applied Development Science and the director of the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development, spoke next.
He focused on the idea of Positive Youth Development (PYD), an educational approach aimed at fostering positive attributes and providing support for children. This theory contrasts with others that focus mainly on an "absence of bad," rather than the appearance of good attributes, he said.
Accomplishments can be achieved, Lerner said, through combining the strengths of children and the resources of communities. This is an idea which the LFC, a part of the Tisch College that aims to promote relationships between Tufts and surrounding communities, is trying to put into effect.
Specifically, Lerner spoke about five key principles of the PYD perspective, which are known as "the five C's": competence, confidence, character, connections and caring. Together, these can lead to a sixth principle: contribution.
The outcome of PYD is contribution to one's "family, community and society," he said.
The resources to achieve the implementation of PYD, Lerner said, are readily available. "In all settings, people are the most valuable resource in the lives of young people," he said.
The symposium corresponded with the LFC's release of its third resource guide, also entitled "Partnering for Education," which was distributed to each of the attendees.
According to Massachusetts Campus Compact's Americorps*VISTA Program Associate Rachel Szyman, the LFC is currently focusing on education and youth development.
The Americorps*VISTA Program provides colleges and universities in the state with community service specialists. Szyman was placed at the LFC.
She said that the "Partnering for Education" resource guide, as well as the extensive programs which will follow, began with focus groups that were held with members of the community.
"We want to really make an impact [in the] long term," she said. "We aim to build bridges and create bonds between Tufts and the community."
During the question and answer period, Bacow expressed optimism for this goal. At Tufts, the primary resources are "students' ideas," which are never in short supply, he said.
