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If there is one thing that hit home with students in Psychology Professor Steven Meyers’ pilot service-learning course on youth violence, it’s that the fallout from the tragedy never really goes away.

"I’m not happy anymore. I’m not the same person. It’s changed me and it’s hard to move forward," Annette Holt, mother of a teen shot to death on a CTA bus in 2007, said at a public forum presented by Meyers’ class in the University’s Congress Lounge in December.

The forum, "Stop the Killing: You Can Reduce Youth Violence," was the culmination of a semester-long study on youth violence that stressed community involvement and social-justice activism.

Students in the fall honors course, entitled Field Experience in Community Psychology, spent 250 hours talking with dozens of people who have been affected by youth violence and/or are looking for ways to combat the problem.

"They met with professionals who deal with youth violence, they talked with officials from the mayor’s office, they visited with high school teachers and they gathered stories from teens and parents who were most affected," said Meyers, whose teaching methods have been recognized nationally by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

During the course, students digitally recorded interviews. They gathered information about organizations where activism combating youth violence is welcomed and needed, and vowed to continue volunteering in at-risk neighborhoods in the near future. They wrote letters to the editor, including one that was published in the Chicago Sun Times in December. They reached out to their local public officials and state representatives, asking that gun laws be strengthened and that the issue of youth violence be taken more seriously. They also attended a number of public forums on the issue before putting their own Dec. 11 forum on to further inform the public about the issue.

"Today symbolizes the end of the class," psychology major Rachel Fischetti said during the forum, which also included roundtables where students provided tips for getting involved and a conversation with Crane High School students affected by gangs and gang violence.

"But to me, it’s just the beginning of the advocacy work that needs to be done to stop the killing." Meyers, who encouraged his students to stay involved in the future, hopes the course can be a model for other service-learning courses now being developed by faculty members from all disciplines with guidance from Roosevelt’s Mansfield Institute for Social Justice and Transformation.

View slideshow: Youth and Communities

— Laura Janota
Associate Director, Office of Public Relations