had tested their values and resolve and had proved their capacity to make a difference.
Many members considered their SCCH experience to be the most important in their education and in their personal growth. I regard that assessment as particularly significant, since students in the formative years of the SCCH were not afraid to pass negative judgments on their own efforts or those of their peers. Consequential Learning’s emphasis on young peoples’ attention to self-evaluation is grounded in its benefits for SCCH students who made the case that they were entitled to judge their lives for themselves. Students—who are citizens—are not often encouraged to carry out their responsibility to assess the contexts and content of their education. As a result, it often seems that they are conditioned to focus primarily on what they must do to obtain the grades they want.
The health fairs also produced benefits for community members—many of which they would not otherwise have enjoyed. Thousands of people were screened and tested, and previously undiscovered pathologies were revealed. A number of them were life-threatening and were treated by physicians and hospitals that had agreed to receive health-fair referrals. Communities remembered the life-altering and life-saving cases. They influenced peoples’ attitudes toward their own health care and engendered an appreciation for the SCCH; and they were the foundation for partnerships later created between the University of Alabama and rural communities in the state.
I was routinely told by community participants in the health fairs that their physical exams were the best they had ever had. Although supervising physicians frequently questioned such valuations, it was agreed that people were responding positively to the thoroughness with which medical and nursing students explained the examination process. They also provided useful information on healthy living and on how to make connections with local or regional health agencies. Through the administration of medical histories and SCCH-designed community health surveys, and through physical examinations, water testing, and demographic studies, SCCH members collected significant local information as well and used the results to foster local improvement.
With energy and insight, SCCH members gathered, analyzed, interpreted, and acted on information. As a result of that practice, the SCCH provided community members good information for community health planning and projects. Most important for Consequential Learning was the confirmation of the eagerness and capacity of young people to gather and apply relevant information.
Young community members assisted in the health fairs and, thereby, established important connections with university students. In a joking but revealing assessment, they noted that if the health fair staff members could succeed in college and in professional careers, so could they. For many rural youngsters these kinds of connections were unique and valuable. In the process it was made clear to me that young people in school, especially kids with limited connections and options, would find association with undergraduate and graduate students very profitable. In the projects described below, this notion was continually reaffirmed, both by university students returning to their schools as mentors and through the participation of adult resource persons.
Positive outcomes for individual students and community members were important objectives for the health fairs. More often than not, however, project success was measured by systemic changes. Students worked hard to insure that the results of the fairs included permanent local improvements, and SCCH activities were, in fact, pivotal to the creation of numerous primary health care clinics and other additions to community infrastructure, such as libraries, playgrounds, parks, and water systems.
The SCCH is a success story with respect to community institutional change, but its experience is also a reminder that, whether in a major university or in a rural school, reform occurs infrequently and seems extremely difficult to sustain. The SCCH’s twenty-five year run was certainly unanticipated, and its accomplishments—including systemic changes—also exceeded expectation. Yet, despite its success, the organization could never garner the institutional respect and support it needed to fulfill its potential or to become a permanent entity. When external private funding had been exhausted, university commitments to match the unfailing contributions of rural communities were not forthcoming. Although that may simply have been result of insufficient institutional revenue, it remains a reminder that educational reform is a complex long-term undertaking for which the “funding plumbing” has usually not been laid.
It is important to emphasize again that the efforts of SCCH students brought about lasting systemic changes. In addition to the establishment of local clinics and other infrastructure additions, the University of Alabama, based on the SCCH, created a program to connect the institution to rural communities. The achievements of the SCCH testify to the capacity of young people, when appropriately challenged and supported, to recognize and address even deep-seated systemic problems. But, the ability to effect change is not peculiar to university students. Reference will be made later to the work of rural public school students who significantly contributed to improving the infrastructure of their communities and counties.
What motivated SCCH students? With several exceptions, students in the SCCH were diligent and thoughtful in the planning and implementation of demanding projects in which a great deal was at stake and whose outcomes were very public. During the period of the first health fairs, students spent considerable time assessing the quality of their efforts, the impact of their work on communities, and their own personal development. Observing their work, listening to their group discussions, and interviewing students individually permitted me to gain perspective on what mattered most to them and what motivated them to undertake and complete difficult tasks.
The young people who established the SCCH placed the highest priority on making a difference in the lives of communities. Although “making a difference” is perhaps a cliché, it does summarize what drove students more than anything else. For some, it suggested traditional community service, but for others it meant improving the prospects of rural communities and even improving health-care policies and the university itself.
The SCCH was a student-created venue in which young people could make critical decisions, take responsibility, and actualize their commitment to self-determination. It was important to students that outcomes be, to a great degree, in their hands—from that priority much of the energy and success of the SCCH was derived. An interesting by-product of the new leadership opportunities offered by the SCCH was the extensive participation of women, who in disproportionate numbers assumed the crucial role of project coordinator and made up a majority of the staff membership. Female students have also participated in significant numbers and taken leadership roles in other programs described in this book, suggesting that programs linked to community improvement can create opportunities that are especially equitable and inclusive.
SCCH members’ interest in taking responsibility was balanced by their commitment to forming partnerships. Collaboration was seen as an essential component of success, and it was understood that compromise would occasionally be required. Students sought to become partners with professionals, agencies, and communities, but they wanted to be viewed as responsible agents in the health fair projects. At times. professionals associated with the SCCH mistook their insistence on assuming responsibility and making decisions for arrogance when it was, in fact, prerequisite to the formation of equal partnerships. From the outset, SCCH students refused to look upon the health fairs as their sole possession. They were undertaken and carried out in partnership with communities and were regarded as mutually beneficial.
Because of their potential for enhancing community life, students sometimes measured the outcomes of health fairs by the formation of new associations within communities and between communities and individuals and organizations. The word “coalition” in the organization’s title was early evidence of students’ interest in partnerships and their recognition of the value of cooperation with communities and with the persons and agencies committed to them. The use of partnerships to effect public improvements is a persistent theme in Consequential Learning because they are fundamental to civic life and to successful community action. In the same way because of their ability to extend institutional resources
