2016 High Road Fellows

Buffalo was a wonderful learning city. It introduced me to basic navigation and using public transit.

My daily interactions with other fellows showed me how diverse community-based organizations are, yet how intertwined their organizational missions are.

Service learning is very important - I do service work on campus - and I think this program just reinforced that.

I was amazed by the collaborations between organizations in the social sector.

I loved the fact that we all lived together and that we were allowed to plan trips/activities together.

Even though I’ve lived in Buffalo my whole life, I’ve learned more about its struggles, and how to implement change in an equitable manner.

Working in a community based organization helped me prepare myself for my future career because the skills learned at my organization are skills that can be applied almost anywhere.

I very much enjoyed the community engaged service learning aspect because I could see the direct results and implications of my organization’s work.

The knowledge and personal growth gained through the High Road Fellowship is indispensable.

This summer hit the point home that it is hard to do good work without engaging the community.

I had never had much exposure to policy or policymakers so this was an excellent introduction!

I think my interaction with the other fellows was one of the most important facets of my experience this summer.

I learned a lot about smaller organizations in Buffalo that are doing great things.

Seeing knowledge gaps exposed in a community meeting gave context to issues discussed in the most recent planning class I took, which analyzed the role of the planner in varying contexts.

Through service learning, I experienced that there is a lot of work to be done by a multitude of organizations to create systematic change.

I feel that living within the direct community I was working with was integral to my learning experience.

When I first arrived I had heard that Buffalo was a struggling community so I had that in mind but then I went to places like Elmwood and CanalSide and it seemed like this was a city that was really developing.

While working for a social enterprise, I did not get the full scope of community-based organizations but I certainly saw their value.

Through my experience in Buffalo, I learned that I would like to pursue a career in education.