Inside a Vanderbilt Project
On this blog we spend most of the time talking about the ins/outs of admissions. I’m always pushing my readers to Inside ‘Dores to get the inside perspective of class and social life on campus. This past week I learned about a great class project that evolved into a campus movement and I thought it would be helpful to highlight what’s possible here as a Commodore.
This past semester the eight members of the Class of 2014 received their HOD 1100 assignment: find a problem here on campus and solve it. The students immediately focused in on broadening service awareness on campus and created VUserves.com as a result.
The eight group members have a wide variety of interests:
- Ariel Altman is interested in business and will be a tour guide next semester.
- Abby Shuster is interested in fashion and is a member of the freshman Hillel board.
- Cassie Doyle is studying cognitive studies and is involved with Vanderbilt Best Buddies.
- Grace Ferguson is committed to community service organizations such as Habitat for Humanity and Youth Encouragement Services.
- Bake Gowder is a member of the Vanderbilt Football Team.
- Jordan Ridge is a member of the BYX fraternity, founder of Midnight Worship, involved in Navigators Ministry, and is actively involved with community service organizations.
- Ryan Prusator is part of the Midnight Worship program and is from Chicago.
- Carl Nightingale is a co-chairman for a the Phi Gamma Delta Brotherhood Committee and is considering majoring in Econ and HOD.
About their project the group says,
“In the HOD Small Group Behavior class, our group was faced with the challenge of identifying a problem on campus, creating a multi part solution and implement it. We chose to focus our efforts on campus community service, particularly the advertising surrounding it. We found that as freshman, with so much going on, it can be so overwhelming and stressful, making it difficult to get involved in service. We decided to come up with a solution for this problem by creating a website that listed the numerous organizations on campus. From this came this vision came VUSERVES.com: An interactive website made by students, for students. Organizations are grouped by category so YOU can easily find your interests! Maybe you will find your favorite group from high school is here at Vandy!”
If you have any questions about VUserves.com the group encourages questions!
Contact them at vuserves@gmail.com
April 12th, 2011
Congrats- what a fabulous addition to the Vandy community!
April 14th, 2011
It’s nice to see young people doing collaborative work especially on service awareness! Most business models being taught now are just keen on profits and revenue. Great work you guys!