The Present and Future of RCCL

Hey all.

Here are the meeting notes and some comments from my meeting with Glenn from Friday July 24th. After speaking with Glenn and listening to his intentions I was floored with how closely that matched my ideas for RCCL and our group's goals. FYI, this is all confidential information...so I probably shouldn't even be blogging about it....

Jumpstart was eliminated as the result of a top down decision from the corporate office. The company reformed their strategic plan and decided to focus their literacy effort only in major metropolitan areas such as DC, LA, NYC, Phili, etc. Although Rochester was on the verge of becoming a super cite for Jumpstart and the UR division has surpassed most other schools with documented positive impact in the city, the decision was unarguable. This left two full time staff members of out of a job, not to mention about 65 undergraduate volunteers without a placement or promise of work study stipend.

The good news is UR and RCCL don't want to see it all end.....They see this as an opportunity to strengthen and restructure RCCL- OHH Thank goodness!

Glenn and the Dean's office has put together some funds to hire one full time and one half time employee for the upcoming year. The Full-time position would coordinate the new RCCL initiative mimicking Jumpstart- logically dubbed UR Reading. The group will function based on a coaching model including tutoring and mentoring, utilizing the connections we have built with School 19, etc. The potential full-time staff person would coordinate UR Reading as well as Project Care.

The half-time position will cover many areas of RCCL left fairly unsupported at this time. UR Potential/Hillside Children's Center, Community Service Network (Partners in Reading also falls under CSN), and Alternative Spring Break will be overseen by this newbie.

Finally, the RCCL applied for a Learn and Serve America Grant. The purpose of this proposal was to obtain funding to coordinate the revival and expansion of the UR Education Alliance :) The grant required the coordination of educational outreach opportunities, as well as leadership and developmental training for students. The UR Ed alliance would be directed by the new fulltime employee in RCCL and would provide structure and unification to the UR tutoring and volunteering initiatives. At this point Glenn illuded to having a class for volunteerism and holding about two workshops per semester dealing with tutoring and education issues. THEN I chimed in and told him about Mollie's idea for a class AND our potential idea for Local Edcuation social networking. OMG he loved it. .... Lets hope that they get the grant. (There is another grant available surrounding education and regional social networking....sooo...)

Tamara and I also planted the seed for Glenn to hire some part time undergraduates to help put from ummmpf behind the programs coming out of RCCL. I think he liked that idea too. :)

In the end Glenn had to run to another engagement and he didnt have too much time to tie up the loose ends of the conversation. IN short, I am going to go my independent study/internship with him in the fall to help organize the effort in RCCL in a more direct way. Glenn would like to meet with all of us in late August. If we decide to go through with things about this web site....I could be preliminarily in charge of getting all of the info UR tutoring invitiatives up on the web site with info for each...if this doesnt fit with our mission..i will find another plan.

I am going to post again soon about info from Mr. Melnick. We really really REALLY need to get serious about this now. Are you with me? Please post a new blog post and lay out your ideas. Also, looks like we have a meeting to schedule. I can plan around the RA training schedule for Alicia and I ...but i need to know the UR foot schedule..email that to me when you can. Love you all.