by Amanda Dennis | Jul 18, 2019 | Career Exploration, General, Internships, Student Perspective |
By Margaret Chen As a rising junior at Haverford College, I never really realized how vast Haverford Township was until I started interning at HPED, or Haverford Partnership of Economic Development. Because of the Whitehead Internship Program, I was given the opportunity to intern at this non-profit organization whom not only showed me how many nearby, cool businesses that my fellow classmates and I haven’t experienced yet but also gave me so much knowledge about community development, business revitalization, and environmental design. HPED’s main goals as an organization are to support local businesses and revitalize business districts by doing beautification projects, promotion/advertising for small businesses, and hosting networking and business assistance events. They hope, through these projects, to promote economic growth and beautification in the surrounding Haverford community. My internship experience has definitely aligned with HPED’s goals. For example, I went with HPED’s executive director, Jeanne Angell, and one of Haverford Township’s commissioners, Mario Oliva, to the Pennsylvania Downtown Conference in Erie, PA where I learned about Main Street and Elm Street programs which are community development models that HPED has been following. In the conference, I learned about different aspects of these programs such as how to economically structure a new improved business district and how to create affordable, energy efficient public housing. As an Environmental Studies major interested in sustainable design, in this conference I really enjoyed learning about how to engage community development through environmentally-conscious based projects and outdoor beautification projects. After the conference, I learned more about community development and business revitalization through day-to-day experiences. Throughout each week, I help Jeanne and Amy Sweeney, the...
by Amanda Dennis | Nov 19, 2018 | Events, General |
Last week, the CCPA hosted our ever-popular Career Closet Free “Shopping” Event. This event was created to help all Haverford students gain access to free, good-quality, professional attire. Since our last Career Closet event, the CCPA received over 275 donations from the Haverford Community! Every item donated will help Haverford students to look and feel their best at their next interview or day at the office. Of the donations we received, several went towards building up the CCPA’s Lending Closet, a permanent closet housed in Stokes 300, which students can borrow high-quality suits from for interviews. The rest of the donated items were put out for students to take home and keep. To give as many students an opportunity to shop as possible, students were limited to one outfit each until the end of the day, then anyone could come back and take whatever they wished! We ended up giving away about 215 blouses, button-downs, pants, skirts, dresses, shoes, ties, and blazers to the 115 students who came to the event over Thursday and Friday! Even the items we have leftover will play a role in helping Haverford students. These items will be sold to second-hand stores and the money earned will go back into building up the Lending Closet and next year’s Career Closet Shopping Event. Thank you to everyone who contributed and helped to make this year’s donation cycle and shopping event huge successes. The Lending Closet If you need a professional outfit for your next internship, job, fellowship, or grad school interview, stop by Stokes 300 during our walk-in hours (M-F, 2:30-4:30) and we can help...
by Amanda Dennis | Sep 24, 2018 | Alumni Perspective, Career Exploration, Events, Fords on Friday, General, Liberal Arts |
By Alexandra Wolkoff Hi, all, My name is Alexandra, and I graduated in 2014 having studied Sociology and Education. Immediately after, I began working with Puentes de Salud (Bridges of Health) in Philadelphia, through the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship’s (CPGC) Haverford House Fellowship program. I just began my fifth year with Puentes, having stayed on after the Fellowship, and am reflecting on the skills and mindsets that my time at Haverford supported me in building which now influence my work and career. I consider my training in Education one of the most impactful parts of my personal development for the ways it influenced my growth and the ways in which I engage with people and the world around me. Each Education course involves a field placement, through which I had the privilege to work with five different schools and non-profit organizations across Philadelphia and Norristown, spanning children ages 6-18 and adults, as well as traditional classrooms, after-school programs, and community centers. First, it’s worth mentioning that the engaged courses I took spurred me to learn how to use SEPTA for weekly transportation early in my college career. Through these six courses, I learned how to use four different kinds of SEPTA transit. More than just a means of getting from campus to my site and back again, the good deal of time that I spent on SEPTA was it’s own space for learning and reflection – on physical space, on identity, and on contextualizing the learning outside of campus. When it came time for me to visit and eventually begin working with Puentes, I already felt comfortable...
by Jennifer Barr | May 28, 2018 | Career Exploration, General, Internships, Liberal Arts, Student Perspective |
By Peter Baroff This summer I will complete a 10-week internship at the Ardmore Initiative located just minutes from Haverford College’s campus. The opportunity was provided to me through the Whitehead Internship Program which helps sophomore and junior students engage in work related to “entrepreneurial endeavors, small business enterprise, venture capital or investment finance activities.” It is a great way for students to apply a number of great internship opportunities that are funded by the College without a difficult interview process. All of the steps required are detailed on the CCPAs website and in Handshake. The Ardmore Initiative is a firm that manages the business-improvement district of downtown Ardmore. Founded in 1988, “Ardmore Initiative’s mission is to create and maintain a thriving, economically viable downtown business district for the benefit of merchants, residents, and visitors.” My role in accomplishing this goal is to assist the organization in coordinating with different actors in Ardmore’s downtown. This Whitehead Internship was very appealing to me as its focus is on downtown economic and community development which have both been topics that I have found very interesting during my studies. As my summer internship has not yet begun, I hope to provide a glimpse into what my responsibilities and experiences will be in the upcoming weeks. For the summer, I have been tasked with five objectives. The first is updating and revising a walking guide to Historic Ardmore. The second is a physical survey of Ardmore’s business district, looking at the occupancy of the downtown and the business mix. This will help the Ardmore initiative market the downtown and follow through on its...
by Jennifer Barr | Jul 5, 2017 | Career Exploration, Internships, Liberal Arts, Student Perspective |
This summer I am living in Portland, OR while working with the Portland Street Art Alliance (PSAA), funded by the Liberal Arts in the Workplace grant. PSAA is a small non-profit organization that was made to create, support, and advocate for street art in the city. Muralism and graffiti are often just as political as they are artistic, and unlike many other forms of art, can carry heavy punishments if done without the proper permitting. PSAA promotes street art by helping artists legally display their work, protecting them and their art, educating the community through bike tours and outreach, and conducting community projects involving murals. My work this summer focuses on two projects in the Belmont District of southeast Portland, a historic neighborhood also called “Sunnyside.” Every year for the past 20 years residents of the neighborhood come out to repaint an intersection known as Sunnyside Piazza. The design, an intricate sunflower based off of Fibonacci geometry, is repainted every year with the same colors and pattern but with a different center image. During the long weekend one day was open to the community, where my tasks included a lot of child monitoring and paint distributing. There were people painting who had contributed for years, knowing a lot more about the painting and neighborhood than I did. The two other days were much more mellow, as it was just PSAA a smaller group of volunteers working to clean and prepare the space and later give it the finishing touches. Throughout the weekend it was incredible how much positive feedback from the community we received. People from the neighborhood walking...
