Ellen
Servais
Trinity Fellows Class of 2001-2003
Major: Public Service - Dispute Resolution
Service Experience: Peace Corps, Ethiopia & Solomon
Islands
Undergraduate: Washington State University. Major: English
Service Experience/ Location:
Throughout high school I volunteered at Camp Easter
Seals, gathered goods for our local food shelter,
and spent hours each week assisting the special education
classes at the school. I continued my volunteerism
in college, participating in neighborhood clean-ups,
tutoring local high school students, and planting
trees each spring in high-erosion areas. A few months
after graduation in 1996, I began what would be the
two most incredible years of service work in my life:
Peace Corps in Ethiopia. My official 'job' was a secondary
school English teacher in a rural western village,
where I was responsible for designing an upper-level
curriculum while incorporating community-content-based
instruction into the lessons. Additionally, I was
an assistant to the village mid-wife and participated
in a week-long polio eradication mission throughout
the countryside. Upon an abrupt evacuation from Ethiopia
due to the war with Eritrea in 1999, I re-entered
the Peace Corps in the Solomon Islands, where I was
a rural community educator for a tour of five months.
My roles on an extremely remote island were to assess
villages for need-based development for self-sufficiency
and advise women on resource management, health and
self-sustenance.
Trinity Fellowship Experience:
In 2001 I was granted a Trinity Fellowship at Marquette
University, where I am currently obtaining a MA in
public service and certification in dispute resolution.
I am taking a variety of public service courses such
as Leadership, Non-Profit Management, Urban Legal
Issues, Mediation, Social Justice and Activism, Writing
for the Non-profit Agency, and The Nature of Cities.
Congruently, I work 18 hours each week at Village
Adult Services, a nonprofit urban adult day care center.
In my position as the coordinator of communications & business development, I facilitate fundraising
events and develop the philanthropic base, I research
and write grant proposals for special programs and
capital, and I design brochures, quarterly newsletters
and the annual report.
The combination of academia and professionalism that
the Trinity Fellows Program allows is unique in that
I am gaining tremendous skills and knowledge that
I can utilize immediately. Personally, the program
has fostered an environment of independence and confidence
that I needed to have an edge on my public service
aspirations. It challenges me to confront very real
and modern issues in my daily work, then analyze,
understand and create solutions in my classes. On
a professional level, the Trinity Fellows program
has introduced me to Milwaukee's service world, the
power of networking and forming relationships and
a safe venue in which to foster and practice my writing,
marketing, and business skills.
I am grateful for this opportunity to enhance myself
as a dedicated public servant and a curious academic.
The balance of the Trinity Fellows Program, Marquette
University courses and Village Adult Services work
is giving me a remarkable experience that I hope to
apply with value for the good of our society.
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Ellen Servais is Associate Director for the Medical
College of Wisconsin, Healthier Wisconsin Partnership
Program. If you'd like to contact Ellen to discuss
her experience as a Trinity Fellow, you can reach
her at eservais@mcw.edu.
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