Action. Education. Technology.

Any activity sponsored by the Dwight Hall Leadership Institute is focused around one -- or any combination -- of these concepts, says Matthew Nash, project manager of the institute.

"The institute was formed to address the need expressed by students to become more effective leaders," says Nash. "It allows students to reflect on their service-oriented activities and learn from their experiences."

Through a series of training workshops, the Dwight Hall Leadership Institute gives students and New Haven residents affiliated with any of Dwight Hall's 70 member organizations the opportunity to learn and improve on their administrative, organizational, fundraising and marketing techniques, as well as develop expertise in other areas. Now in its second year, the institute's workshop series is open to both students and community organizers.

"Our focus is not only on volunteerism, but also community organizing," says Nash. "We're very much interested in helping social activists develop the kinds of skills that will assist them as they work towards effecting social change."

Dwight Hall was founded by undergraduates in 1886 and is Yale's undergraduate center for social justice and public service. Volunteers focus their efforts on the New Haven area through participation in educational, environmental, social advocacy and other groups. Dwight Hall also provides staff advisers, funding, office space, transportation, counseling and a variety of resources to both organizations and individuals.

The Leadership Institute is the result of responses to a survey of student volunteers, conducted two years ago, that sought to ascertain the effectiveness of volunteer training, says Nash. In the survey, "a lot of students reported a need for technical skills, management skills -- how to write grant proposals, for example -- and community organizing skills. There also was a big need for organizational development. These are the areas that the students themselves identified in the survey," he notes.

To address those and other concerns, Dwight Hall established the Leadership Institute with a grant from the Surdna Foundation and additional funds from the Office of New Haven Affairs.

"We're basically committed to the concept of having the Leadership Institute be a permanent program within Dwight Hall," says Pamela Bisbee-Simonds, Dwight Hall's interim general secretary. "It's been extremely effective in galvanizing students around the importance of effective particpation within the community. We'll do whatever is necessary to assure its continuance."

"Oftentimes," adds Nash, "nonprofits tend to focus primarily on services. That's good, but we need to make sure the services are effective. That's what makes the Leadership Institute such an invaluable asset."

Nash, a 1994 graduate of Yale College who currently is enrolled in the School of Management, has long been active in volunteer activities and with nonprofit organizations. As an undergraduate he was a member of the Dwight Hall student cabinet, and from 1995 to 1997 he served in the Peace Corps as a nonprofit management consultant based in Romania. There, he worked mostly with nonprofits addressing the needs of children with AIDS. The experience, he says, reinforced his belief that "nonprofits need to be run with certain business skills" and "become more accountable."

Nash, who accepted the position of the Leadership Institute's project manager shortly after finishing his tour of duty with the Peace Corps, is able to apply the skills he learned in the corps to his new position. In addition to helping students develop the practical skills they desired, Nash also seeks to create a greater sense of community among Dwight Hall member organizations and to address issues related to the "why" of volunteerism and social action.

"The idea," says Nash, "is that we wanted to engage students to realize that social justice and public service really go hand in hand." To address these issues the Leadership Institute offers a series of workshops, titled "Bridging Public Service and Social Action for Social Justice." The series has included training sessions, speakers, teas and discussion groups designed, as the series brochure says, to help participants "understand where you are working, who you are working with, and why you are working."

One of the benefits of the series has been increased interaction among Yale student volunteers and between the students and community organizers, says Nash. Weekly "Neighborhood Teas," for example, served as a forum through which students and community leaders in the Fair Haven, Newhallville, Hill and Dixwell, and Dwight and West Rock areas exchanged ideas and learned about each other's work.

Among the topics addressed in the series of workshops are the roles and responsibilities of tutors and mentors; child development, the rights of children; recognizing mental health problems among youth; grant writing; maintaining motivation in the face of challenges; program evaluation; inclusiveness and community building; and family diversity. Ancillary activities such as a day-long retreat and dinner discussions further help students place into perspective what they've learned from the workshops.

One Dwight Hall group, Tutoring in Elementary Schools (or TIES), has made participation in the workshop series mandatory for its volunteers, notes Avni Gupta '00, co-coordinator of the Dwight Hall cabinet. Gupta helped plan the training workshops and also served as facilitator for several of them.

"I participated in the grant writing, classroom climate and mental health workshops," she says. "They helped by giving basic information .. The mental health workshop, for example, helped us to recognize depression in a youngster. It's not our job as a tutor or mentor to solve those problems, but we should be aware of them." Gupta says the workshops also helped her and other participants with "reflection -- thinking about what we're doing and why were doing it" and to better understand the New Haven community. The grant-writing workshop, she says, covered many of the practicalities involved with writing a proposal to secure a grant.

The series will continue next semester with similar workshops, along with added events. Leadership Teas, for instance, will feature community and University leaders. Last year, President Richard C. Levin conducted a discussion on the theme "Leadership, a moral act -- values-based." Other teas featured Yale College Dean Richard H. Brodhead speaking on the same topic, and author Peter Block discussing stewardship and democracy in organizations.

"We're trying to be more thoughtful this year about how we're doing things," says Nash. "Students are thinking more about effectiveness and accountability." Although he says he would like more student groups to take advantage of the workshops, he definitely has seen "increased networking within the Dwight Hall community. More students are coming together. There are a lot of joint efforts, which is important, and things are better coordinated and more collaborative."

Organizations working in collaboration with the "Bridging Public Service and Social Action for Social Justice" series include the New Haven Family Alliance, Christian Community Action, Consultation Center, New Haven People's Center, School Volunteers Office and Social Development Department of the New Haven Public Schools, the Yale Child Study Center and the Yale Women's Center. Cosponsoring Dwight Hall programs include the Student Cabinet Executive Committee, Education Network, Magee Fellowship, Public School Interns, Social Justice Network, Urban Fellows and Jump Start. Support also is provided through the Yale Office of New Haven Affairs.

"We want to provide a whole series of resources for the new volunteer," says Nash. "Perhaps next semester we'll offer more advanced skills during the training workshops. Every step of the way, we're evaluating."

-- By Felicia Hunter