Joshua Frye

Trinity Fellow Class of 2001-2003
Graduate Program: Communications
Service Experience: Peace Corps, Honduras
Undergraduate: University of Minnesota Major: Philosophy

Service Experience/Location:
As a volunteer of the U.S. Peace Corps, I traveled to the beautiful mountains in Western Honduras, Central America--the land of the Lencas. The Lenca people are the living descendants of the southern border of the former Mayan civilization. In rural Honduras, I worked as a hillside agricultural extensionist, networking directly with local peasant farmers to develop and implement alternative, sustainable, small-scale farming practices, promoting soil conservation and agroforestry, and cultivating community leaders.

Trinity Fellowship Experience:
The best way I can find to describe the Trinity Fellows Program is as an immersion experience in integrated professional development. The design of the program is exceptional in that while pursuing an advanced degree, in my case, the study of rhetoric and policy/law/justice, a fellow will work in the community in a position or organization that hopefully ties into his or her career goals and academic work. Instead of working at the university as a graduate assistant, fellows are deployed in the Greater Milwaukee community, where they strive to address some unmet need.

My own experience in both my academic program and my agency work--developing a new leadership training program for the volunteer and paid staff of the American Red Cross--has been most challenging and rewarding. My academic work at Marquette is rigorous and my training program development and administration responsibilities with the Red Cross are undoubtedly instrumental in my professional development. The Red Cross has given me an innovative project, wherein my own leadership skills have been enhanced as a member of the United Way Speaker's Bureau, head of an in-house planning committee, champion of adult education, designer of workplace learning curriculum, and courses, and classroom facilitator.