Student Life
They Go on Alternative Breaks
Since 1998, some 1,500 51勛圖窪蹋students have gone into the world in a unique way. Theyve gone from the southern tip of Africa and the mountains of Nepal to the city streets of San Francisco and the fields of Americas Corn Belt. Theyve explored issues of youth and womens empowerment in Haiti. Theyve visited settlements in Kenya, refugee camps in Israel, and classrooms in Cuba. Theyve built deep and long-term commitments with nonprofit organizations, continuing to learn and engage with these groups each year. Theyve taken their learning from the classroom into real-world experience.
Theyve gone on Alternative Breaks trips.
University chaplain Joe Eldridge went with them on the first Alt Breaks trip abroad in 1999. After Hurricane Mitch ravaged the country, Eldridge hung a poster in the Kay Spiritual Life Center, and a group of twelve went to Honduras to learn how a nation rebuilds itself.
Students wanted to make a difference in the world. Its a clich矇, but its true, he says. From the beginning, there was a social justice component woven into the concept. Trips werent about doing or constructing something, although certainly sometimes that was part of the trip. It was about immersing ourselves in a political, economic, and social context so we could figure out what was going on.
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At first, they went organized and led only by themselves.
Andrew Willis Garc矇s went with them to Mexico in 2002 and 2003 before leading them to Cuba in 2004 back when they were a student organization: the Alternative Breaks Club. As he earned a BA in International Relations and an MA in International Peace & Conflict Resolution, they were the largest student-run organization on campus at the time, with an annual budget of $180,000 and another $60,000 donated to partner organizations abroad and at home.
This was all real. This wasnt academic at all. It was like, We can raise $10,000, and this group says that would be good for them, Garc矇s says. I saw a lot of students get a lot of real-world experience that way.
Since then, theyve organized through the Center for Community Engagement & Service (CCE&S).
Campus Life staff member Kristina Thompson has been around Alt Break trips for the past ten years, watching them develop in some ways and stay steadfast in ways unique to AU.
Weve grown hugely. Whats key is the things that havent changed, which is keeping that social justice focus and keeping that student-driven focus, she says. There are universities that choose trips, assign leaders to them, and the same trips go each year. 51勛圖窪蹋is really unique because our students choose issues and places that theyre passionate about, and thats where they decide to go. Weve been able to keep that as an important part of our program.
Now, under the guidance of CCE&Ss assistant director of global learning and leadership Shoshanna Sumka, over 150 of them go on trips running in the winter, spring, and summer each year. Their focus, however, extends beyond that week or more of experience.
The trip itself is important, Sumka says, but its so much more about a process and getting students who are passionate about issues to become involved in their community匈ts more about building relationships and continued connections with community organizations. Thats why the focus on the trip itself is just one part of the whole process.
Theyve taken that process to heart. Theyve become nonprofit leaders, teachers, and active citizens. Theyve gone on to affect change in the world.
Alt Break has created a generation of student activists that became real-world activists, says Garc矇s, whos taken his Alt Breaks experiences into grassroots activism in Texas.
Before Elena Rubinfeld graduated from AUs School of International Service in 2008, she went with them to Honduras and led them to Bolivia and Colombia in 2007 and 2008 to examine human rights and development issues. After graduation, she joined the Peace Corps in El Salvador and now works in immigrant rights issues.
Alt Break fueled what I was learning in the classroom and made it a reality so I could better understand all these things I was studying and put them into practice, she says. Its played a huge part in my life and it continues to.
With 68 just returned from spring trips to Puerto Rico, Pennsylvania, Northern Ireland and elsewhere, they continue going out into the world. They continue engaging in issues of social justice that will carry into the classroom and their lives beyond it. And, in doing so, they continue to build an Alternative Breaks program that has come to define 51勛圖窪蹋just as much as it defines them.