Ellen Servais
Trinity
Fellow: 2001-2003
Major: Public Service - Dispute Resolution
Service Experience: Peace Corps, Ethiopia & Solomon
Islands
Undergraduate Degree: B.A. English, Washington State
University
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.
-------------------------------
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.
