STUDENT SPOTLIGHT: JASON SELFE
Renewable Energy: A Goal Worth Pursuing

Picture a strapped rural community in former East Germany, near the longtime repressive East-West border. Right on the horizon on the outskirts of town, eight wind turbines dwarf the landscape. These aerodynamically sleek structures provide the post-Soviet town of Dardesheim with virtually all of its energy needs, replacing petroleum-based energy sources, and benefiting the environment. Additionally, the wind park generates needed tax revenue and jobs for the area.

A few months ago, Jason Selfe, a Colin Powell scholar, caught four trains and a bus from Bonn to see the turbines, among them the uncannily quiet Enercon 6 MW (megawatt), the world's largest land turbine. Selfe, an economics and advertising/P.R. major at CCNY, interned with the World Wind Energy Association in Bonn this past summer. The association promotes information and policies critical to the development and marketing of wind energy around the world, and is "the voice of the wind-energy industry," Selfe says. Selfe, who is dedicated to advancing renewable energy sources, traveled to Dardeshiem as part of his internship. He recently spoke to the Center about his experiences.

What was your focus at the World Wind Energy Association?
I developed educational materials to combat the lack of awareness of the potential of wind energy for farms, municipalities, schools, and venture capitalists. Another focus was gathering material to index the private wind energy companies and nonprofit wind energy organizations around the globe. Essentially I looked at who's out there in the industry and who is doing what.

How has your internship influenced your policy focus at the Center?
My goal is to see the U.S. move away from its current approach of "renewable energy portfolios." Renewable energy portfolios are a mandate by the U.S. government to utility companies, saying you have to generate X percentage of your energy through renewable resources. This approach tends to benefit big business. However, to make renewable energy meaningful and to affect the way people really use energy, we need a decentralized energy distribution system. Changing to a "feed-in tariff" model does this. More

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT: SEBASTIAN RUBINO
Health Literacy: The Path to Inclusive Health Care

From the cramped classrooms of Coney Island Library to the gracious spaces of City Hall, a 2009 Health Literacy Fellowship took Sebastian Rubino, a Dobrich New Americans scholar at the Center, to far-flung city sites. The packed six-week fellowship, which ended in August, was run through Mayor Bloomberg's Office of Adult Education and included intensive seminars on health policy issues, clinical site visits, and community fieldwork in which the fellows led health-literacy workshops.

At Bellevue Hospital, Rubino, a fourth-year student at CCNY's Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education (a seven-year BS/MD program), observed the facility's state-of-the-art TEMIS interpretation operations (similar to the UN's simultaneous translation services). At Coney Island Library, he instructed non-English speakers and adult learners about health-related topics and developed and led engaging activities to encourage behavior change. Throughout the experience, Rubino gleaned practical insights, some of which he shared during a recent discussion.

What is health literacy?
Health literacy goes beyond health education. For effective health literacy, you really need to draw out communities and put information in individuals' hands that they can use to improve and manage their health. You want people to know how to read their medication labels, to stop the doctor and ask him or her to re-explain something if they do not understand it, and to realize that they can improve their health with small changes in their daily lifestyles

What was an important focus of the fellowship?
It was teaching the health literacy workshops to ABE [Adult Basic Education] and ESOL [English for Speakers of Other Languages] students. One enlightening moment came after my faculty mentor helped me realize that successfully teaching the ABE students meant not necessarily focusing simply on completing my lesson plan, but starting a discussion to get students to learn something they had not known before. More
 

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT: HASHIM HASSAN
Center Scholar Sharpens His Policymaking Focus

Hashim Hassan had waited through the morning to gain entrance to the packed Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Sudan last summer. Hashim, a New York Life fellow at the Colin Powell Center, was working at the time as an intern with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). The hearing was relevant to research he was doing as part of his CSIS experience, but Hashim also had a personal interest in the subject. A native of the Nuba Mountains region of Sudan, he fled to Khartoum at age 14 with his family to escape civil war and later left for Cairo. In the U.S., Hashim has spoken out on the human rights situation in his native country.

Now he sat listening to Susan Page, a regional director of the D.C.-based National Democratic Institute, testify about efforts to conduct a census as a step to empowering Sudan's subjugated citizens, so their voices would count in the country's April 2010 presidential election.  

For Hashim, who actively campaigned for Barack Obama and who gained U.S. citizenship on the last possible day to enable him to vote for his candidate, Page's words resonated deeply. "Being able to cast my first vote for president was the one of best things that has happened in my life," he says. "I never voted in Sudan; we've had a complete dictatorship under El Bashir since 1989."

Hearing leading policymakers such as Page, both on Capitol Hill and at CSIS events, which he helped to organize and staff, deepened Hashim's experience in Washington, D.C. Now back at City College, the international studies major recently reflected on his summer at CSIS.

What was your research focus at CSIS?
I looked at what President Obama was trying to convey in his speeches in Accra, Ghana, and in Cairo, and what the policy ramifications are. Obama touched on issues that really matter to me, for example, how regular people in communities both in Middle East and in Africa can bring change from the bottom up.

What was a highlight of your internship with CSIS?
Our coordinator asked me to be a presenter at a leadership luncheon for the Center's 100 or so interns. Our team was asked to argue the "pro" position on nuclear proliferation. Two or three people in my group were in that department, and they were passionate about the issue, but it was my job to synthesize the information and make our case. I felt like my hands were on the discussion, and this was a highlight for me. More

 SERVICE-LEARNING UPDATE
Service-Learning Students Fill Critical Needs at Area Nonprofits

West Harlem Group Assistance Inc., (WHGA), provides invaluable services to New Yorkers. The nonprofit organization directs affordable housing and revitalization efforts in the neighborhood. Yet effectively getting the word out about these services has been a challenge. Now this may change. Advertising and public relations students at City College have teamed up with WHGA to develop a media campaign targeted to neighborhood residents. Through their PR Writing course, taught by Professor Lynne Scott Jackson, the students are developing a fresh, new branding campaign for the organization, among other projects, based on more than 100 surveys of local residents.

PR Writing is just one of eight service-learning courses taking place this fall at CCNY. Service-learning is a powerful teaching method that embeds service activities in the curriculum in ways that address real community needs. The Colin Powell Center provides financial support, training, and technical assistance that make service-learning courses possible. Additionally, the Center offers workshops to organizations and agencies on how best to develop campus-community partnerships.

In other service-learning courses, students are assisting in community health clinics, secondary schools, and a range of organizations. Altogether through these courses, more than 180 CCNY students will devote an average of 30 hours each of service this fall to community organizations. Their efforts are particularly welcome these days.  This past year, nonprofit organizations around New York City have seen their grants and donations fall by as much as 50 percent. Meanwhile demand for services is surging, according to a recent report from the National Council of Nonprofits, based in Washington, D.C. More