The Pioneer Times

Issue date: 11/12/07 Section: Features

Theresa Cruz Paul knows the importance of helping others.  As the assistant director in the Career Development and Advisement Center at William Paterson University, she deals with job location and development for students. 

She helps students find part-time employment according to their major and assists them with community service and the America Reads Program, a tutoring program for children in grades K-3 in reading or math. 

Paul is a WPU alum and was a part of the Alpha Phi Omega
fraternity on campus, a co-ed community service organization.

As a student, she volunteered in many activities such as collecting animal food for PAWS in Montclair, raising money for breast cancer walks, decorating a local school’s playground and cleaning up locations on campus.

Q:  What do you think about the community service efforts on campus?

A:  It’s a really difficult thing.  The problem is that not everybody gets involved or they don’t know about it.  That is partially the fault, sometimes, of those who are advertising it, but it is also partially the fault of the students of William Paterson.  They tend to get very narrow-sighted and only see what exactly they need to do right then.  They don’t take the time to stop and look at everything that’s going on around campus and say, “Oh, I can get involved in this.”  It’s more like, ”I need to get done what I need to get done;” “I need to get out of here.”  They need to stop and pay attention to what’s going on around them.

Q:  Do you find that when students come to you, they are looking for job placement rather than showing interest in community service opportunities?

A:  A lot of our students, or a majority of our campus, have to work.  It may either be for a family situation, paying for school themselves or supporting family members.  So, yes, I would say 95 percent of those who come are looking for some kind of paid position or internship or something.  Our off-campus federal work-study program is our community service program.

Q:  William Paterson University adopted the America Reads Challenge, which is aimed to help children learn to read.  Can you tell me more about this program?

A:  That is part of the community service as well.  With this, the non-profit organization doesn’t pay anything.  It is paid entirely by the federal government.  For students to be eligible for that, they need to attend a financial aid workshop and they need to be deemed a federal work-study student, which means they need to have federal money in their budget.  Once the student has done both, he or she can come work in the program, which runs out of local non-profit organizations.  This year, they include Memorial Day Nursery, Paterson YMCA After 3 Program, and Clifton Boys and Girls Club.

Q:  What about other community service organizations on campus, such as Alpha Phi Omega?
A:  Alpha Phi Omega is a co-ed nonprofit community service-oriented fraternity.  In the fraternity world or spectrum, there are four different types:  the social types of fraternities and sororities, the academic ones such as the honor society for the sociology department, the professional groups such as an organization for striving lawyers and then there is the community service organization.  Alpha Phi Omega falls into that category.  They’ve been on this campus for a very long time.  They are open to really anybody. 
There is also the Catholic Campus Ministry on campus, which does community service projects, such as Eva’s Kitchen, or goes to play bingo with the elderly in a local setting.  They also do services such as tutoring in local schools.

Q:  What do students have to do to become a part of these programs and may not want to get paid for it, but just do volunteer work?

A:  You can just call them up, such as Alpha Phi Omega.  Get in touch with the campus activities office here and tell them you’re interested in doing some community service and you want talk to the president of the fraternity or the Catholic Campus Ministry.  They’ll give you a handout of what their service projects are for the semester.   Some, you can get paid, and then there are also the volunteer positions. 

I can also assist with finding volunteer positions.  There are still those animal shelters or soup kitchens looking for volunteers on the weekends.  A lot of the Catholic Campus Ministry volunteers go, maybe every Saturday, and do something like participate in the Habitat for Humanity based in Paterson.  I can easily find more if somebody were interested in doing that or another activity.

Q:  Are there any other projects through the department that you can talk about?

A:  Most of them are not through the school.  Many are through the individual organizations that hold it through their philanthropy.  Students who come to be placed or to volunteer can go with the groups and do a project. 

For example, the environmental federation Water Watch uses William Paterson University and Montclair State to do projects, especially in the spring.  They base them out of our university, but a lot of them are not through my department.

Also, the Student Government Association (SGA) can help. A student can start a club at any time, so if they were really interested in it, they could start a community service club, get kids together, and just do community service projects.  They
could easily do that through SGA.

Right now, the biggest thing that is happening is the Night for the Homeless, in which Campus Life is supporting the services of the Covenant House.  There is a Toiletry Drive during the first half of November [as well as] $15 gift card donations from places like Target [that] will be collected.  There will also be a candlelight vigil on Nov. 15 at 7 p.m. at Zanfino Plaza.  After the vigil, there will be a Homeless for the Night activity where people can sleep out on the lawn in cardboard boxes to feel what it’s like to be homeless.

Q: Can faculty members work with you to assign volunteer components to a class?

A:  They can work with me to assign volunteer work.  However, what my position would be is a facilitator.  I would forward the students the contacts we have and then it would be up to them, this being the student or the organization, to work out a volunteer opportunity.  At WPU, we do not have any official agreements with any of these organizations to provide specific hours or amount of volunteers.  However, if a professor was very interested in setting that up with one of my contacts, then I could possibly do that.

Q:  Do you believe being a WPU graduate has helped you in this position?

A:   It has helped out a lot because I am familiar with the campus.  I have connections on the campus and I know where to go.  If you come to me and want community service, I have a lot of organizations that I know about from being a student here. 

Q:  What are your plans and goals to get more students involved and inform them about the benefits of volunteering?

A:  That’s a very tough question.  I personally believe community service is very important.  What it comes down to is, when we see kids for help with their resumes, which is also through my department, there’s always that aspect missing from a resume.  It’s that volunteer aspect that is missing.  There are different things you can learn out of doing community service.  It’s not necessarily, “Oh, I’m a service person and I work with people.”  Everyone can do that.  There are different things like leadership that you learn.  You learn organization from organizing events and teamwork from participating and servicing others.  There are all these other things that you can list or use on your resume.  I mean, if you’re an accounting major and you need related experience for you resume, why not volunteer at a church to do taxes during tax season?  Those things can be listed under related experience on your resume.

The Community Service Program is part of the Federal Work-Study Program at WPU.  Students are employed in conducting services off-campus as part of non-profit organizations.  This is to aid in community needs, such as education. 

Students interested in volunteer work can also turn to her for help and advisement.  WPU has many non-profit organizations come to search for interns and volunteers such as American Red Cross, The Salvation Army, AmeriCorps, Big Brothers & Big Sisters, Rock the Vote, Habitat for Humanity and many more.

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