Several Carleton alumni are working in the Northfield area as community partners to CCCE programs and as employees of nonprofit organizations advocating for community education, college access, public health, and more! The scope of alumni engagement in the Northfield community is broad, and this article focuses on just just a few of the many alumni whose civic engagement pathways have lead to positions within the local community. Three recent alumni (Leah Eby, Kathryn Lozado, and Teddy Gelderman) offer reflections on their pathways and advice to current students.
Leah Eby ’13 was at Carleton during an exciting time in the college’s community involvement history — she participated in the process of combining Academic Civic Engagement (ACE) and Acting in the Community Together (ACT) into the current CCCE (Center for Community and Civic Engagement). As a first-year student, she was unsure of her college pathway, but after participating in one-time volunteering events, she decided to apply for an ACT student fellow position. Becoming a fellow shaped her trajectory, for, from then on, Leah’s Carleton experience revolved around academic, civic, and community engagement. Being part of the CCCE and conversations leading to its creation, as Leah puts it, gave her “a better sense of the Northfield community as a whole.” She adds “my world and community expanded the more I got involved.” For her senior thesis essay in sociology and anthropology, Leah interviewed Somali women and community partners in Faribault to understand cultural differences in health care perceptions. Through her research, Leah became involved in Growing Up Healthy, the nonprofit organization for which she now works.
Unlike Leah, Kathryn Lozada ’12 was not as involved in the Northfield community while at Carleton, but she was actively involved in faith-based social justice work in her home community. In her academic research, Kathryn found her passion in International Relations and in thinking about ways to create better relationships between the U.S. and Latin American countries. After graduation, Kathryn held an Americorps Promise Fellow position in Northfield, working with TORCH and other programs, and learning more about the local community outside campus. She became interested in better understanding the effects of national and international issues at the local level. After her Americorps fellowship, Kathryn participated in a Presbyterian Year of Service opportunity, working on immigration issues near the U.S.-Mexico border in Tucson. For Kathryn, this experience catalyzed her thinking about how to serve and help through multiple avenues, including social justice and charity work. Kathryn feels the time away from Northfield helped her transition from student to community partner, and she now works with the Greenvale Park Community School. Her work involves building relationships with local families, creating free educational and recreational programming, and securing resources for these programs.
Another alum, Teddy Gelderman ’11, has been working in the Northfield community since he graduated from Carleton. Teddy’s civic engagement pathway began with a study abroad program in Ecuador, where he started thinking critically about reciprocity, responsible tourism, being a member of a community, and supporting grassroots organizations. When he returned to Carleton, he looked for ways to continue this work, and became involved in ACE and CCCE program opportunities, including tutoring and participating in Habitat for Humanity trips. Teddy’s first job after college was a Northfield AmeriCorps fellowship facilitating a collaboration between Carleton and Northfield High School. In this collaboration, high school TORCH students took online community college classes, gaining free college credits and skills and experiences that would help the students be successful in their post-high school pathways. Teddy now works for TORCH and is actively involved in creating community-wide opportunities for educational and post-high school support. For Teddy, the most rewarding parts of his work are the relationships he builds with students, for through spending multiple years working with these students, he “sees students learn and grow.” In his work, he helps “guide students as they transition into adulthood, whether that’s entering their first job, starting college, military, et cetera.”
For current students interested in pursuing pathways in community engagement, nonprofits, or similar work, Kathryn suggests seeking out the many opportunities to get involved at Carleton, and using your interests and skill sets to guide you to the best-fit program. Getting exposure to the broader community, Kathryn says, helps you “get a sense of what’s going outside of the immediate campus community,” and allows you to ask questions about the experiences of people doing the type of work you might be interested in pursuing. Leah further emphasizes the importance of relationship-building during college and beyond: “that is what gives me the passion and drive that drives me to do this work.” Having a network of people and deep relationships with those people, she adds, helps you create a “supportive, collaborative community,” both on-campus and off. Finally, Teddy stresses the importance of high-quality dedication, saying that often “there’s a lot of emphasis on trying different things (which is important), but the value of working in a non-profit, with communities, or with young people is more about the long-term commitment and consistency.”
To learn more about getting involved in CCCE programs and student leadership opportunities (including paid CCCE Fellow positions), visit these pages: