Diversity and community service

By: Andrea Emery
News Editor

On Friday, Oct. 27, Nadinne Cruz gave a Service Convocation in the Dahl Chapel and Auditorium.

The convocation began with a one minute reflection. The speaker asked the audience to write down names of individuals who have taught them to be good people.

Audience members were then asked to take a short amount of time and fill out a provided worksheet, ranking individual philosophies of service. Some of the statements included joining the armed forces, chaining oneself to an old growth tree as loggers enter the forest, quitting one’s job to move to a monastery and meditate for a year and voting. Ten students were then asked to show other audience members how their personal philosophies of service compared to others. Audience members were then encouraged to talk with neighbors about the choices they made as well.

The speaker continued the convocation stating the obvious: community service is a good thing. According to Cruz, community service is an expression of personal values and these values are very diverse.

Cruz introduced the audience to the idea of the presumptive good--what Cruz described as what individuals assume to be a good thing. Presumptive good is that “gut feeling.” It means just knowing something is good.

Cruz then told a story about a French couple who housed Jews fleeing from Germany during the Holocaust. When the couple was asked why they did what they did, they responded with a shrug. They didn’t know, it was just instinctive.

This, Cruz added, was the perfect example of presumptive good.

Cruz then returned to the first exercise. She showed the audience can learn from what society considers “ordinary people.” The people written down at the convocation were not necessarily educated or a public figure; they are the people who touch lives in different, but life-changing ways. They are the people who help to form morals and values.

Cruz continued asking the question, “What is at stake with experiential learning?”

Her response was epistemological diversity. Her definition of epistemological diversity is a study of knowledge that can be used as a framework for choosing what is good.

Cruz then asked the audience to imagine the world as an I-Pod with only 100 songs. Each contains wisdom and knowledge needed to be a socially capable person. She described this as the opposite of epistemological diversity.

“Really,” Cruz added, “there are two million songs on the I-Pod. With all of these ‘songs’ there is an opportunity to meet and make a difference in that many more lives.

“Community service is an opportunity to be helping out. Every community is full of knowledge. They have something to share, too. Just like the two million songs.”

Cruz encouraged the audience to pick a community they can learn from and use their Monmouth College liberal arts education to come to understand the world around them.

Cruz ended the convocation with a selection of poems that inspired her to make service such an immense part of her life.

From 2000 to 2003, Cruz was director of Stanford University’s Haas Center for Public Service, which was ranked No. 1 for service learning among colleges and universities by “U.S. News and World Report.” The internationally-respected speaker, author and education consultant received the 2005 Alec Dickson Servant Leader Award from the National Youth Leadership Council.