Phi Kappa Phi Supports Nascent University-Community Project

Phi Kappa Phi Forum, Spring 2004 by Nolan, Robert E, Christensen, Aaron

In 2003, Phi Kappa Phi awarded Oklahoma State University (OSU) a one-year grant of $1,680 through its Literacy Initiative Grant program to support the university's role in staffing and managing a nascent community organization, the Stillwater Hispanic English Language Initiative (SHELI). This project was the brainchild of Dr. Maureen Nemecek and Rev. David Medina. Dr. Nemecek was an associate professor of journalism at Oklahoma State and director of the Master's in International Studies program. Rev. Medina is associate pastor of St. Francis Catholic Church in Stillwater, Oklahoma. His interest in the project was to meet the social and cultural needs of Mexican immigrants to the area, as well as their spiritual needs. Since 1992, the Hispanic population has increased 300 percent in the surrounding area of central and northeastern Oklahoma, making such programs necessities.

SHELI began in October 2002 as a community project to serve the communication needs of Mexican and Central American immigrants to Stillwater, a town with a population of approximately 40,000. Rev. Medina arranged for SHELI to use four classrooms in the building that once was the parochial elementary school for St. Francis Catholic Church. For many years the building has been used only part-time, that is, intermittently for preschool, church meetings, and adults' and children's religious education. In an effort to assist the growing Hispanic population, the church made the building available to SHELI on Tuesday and Thursday evenings throughout the year.

The church's contribution of donated classrooms includes the costs of heat, lighting, and air conditioning. Volunteers for the program come from the community and from students in the Master's in International Studies program at OSU. Faculty and staff also volunteer their services to SHELL The church's donation of space and utilities is estimated to be worth about $500 a month for eleven months. Hence, the contribution of St. Francis provides one of the main economic resources for the program. The sec ond major resource comes from volunteer teachers in the community who donate more than four hours each per week to the project. Some of the volunteer teachers also have undergone extensive training at the Stillwater Literacy Council in methods of teaching English as a second Language.

The announcement of Phi Kappa Phi's Literacy Initiative Grants prompted Sam Meharg, an International Studies graduate student; Dr. Maureen Nemecek, faculty sponsor; Joyce Montgomery, coordinator of Campus Volunteers; and Dr. Mac McCrory, Phi Kappa Phi representative, to submit a proposal to the Phi Kappa Phi Literacy Initiative Grant Competition. Notification of the award was received on May 12, 2003. Funds associated with the grant became available on july 1.

The most pressing need for the program since its inception had been the lack of instructional materials. A SHELI volunteer familiar with ESL instructional materials reviewed a collection of materials on file at the Stillwater Literacy Council and recommended adopting the Steck-Vaughn series, Real Life English, levels 1-4. These materials provide ready-made lesson plans for the volunteer teachers and ensure that the program will have some consistency. The materials also fit with the purpose of the project - to enable immigrants in Stillwater to use the post office, shop at local food stores, find doctors, and take advantage of city services. The Real Life English series seemed to reviewers to respond to the need of students to be able to cope with everyday situations such as paying the gas bill, finding the public school, and asking directions. Phi Kappa Phi Literacy Initiative Grant funds were used to purchase these materials.

Attendance at the classes has ranged from a high of eight to a low of four in the advanced section, and from a high of eighteen to a low of four in the beginning section. Originally, there was great enthusiasm for the classes during Fall 2002 and Spring 2003. The best attendance months so far have been from April to October, and the lowest attendance months have been December and January, which could be related to the relatively harsher weather conditions during the winter months. The SHELI volunteer staff also realizes that many participants in the program move back to Mexico during the winter months. Actual attendance as of this writing is seven in the beginning section, four in the intermediate section, and five in the advanced section.

When SHELI began in the fall of 2002, the three levels of instruction were populated exclusively by Hispanics, with some of them coming from as far as twenty miles away. As time went on, word got out that classes were conducted for the community free of charge, that the instructors supplied the instructional materials, and that anyone could participate, regardless of their religious affiliation. Soon, individuals from other countries began to frequent the literacy program. SHELI so far has served students from Ecuador, Mexico, Venezuela, Nepal, Korea, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and China.