From her small office in the basement of Hendricks Chapel, Syeisha Byrd works tirelessly to find placements for different student groups who want to volunteer within the community. For the past 16 years the Syracuse native has worked with students at the Boys & Girls Club of Syracuse, she knows how important community service is.

Byrd serves as director of engagement programs at Syracuse University, where she oversees about 300 student volunteers each semester including the co-curricular community engagement programs based in Hendricks Chapel.

Applying for grants is a constant in Byrd’s life. While the university funds Byrd’s position, programs mainly survive off of grants and outside donors who want to support the work students are doing through Hendricks.

This week, SU celebrates its annual Philanthropy Week, thanking donors whose contributions make countless scholarships and programs, like those in Hendricks Chapel, possible. Events for the week include Thank-A-Donor Day, National Orange Day and Class Act Day where graduating students are encouraged to donate to their class fund.

The university sets Philanthropy Week in March because the month is about 80 percent of the way through the school year. It also shows how students’ tuition covers only 80 percent of the costs it takes to run SU. The other $150 million comes from private donors and grants, according to the Philanthropy Week website.

The annual week began in 2010 when alumnus Howie Phanstiel and his wife Louise donated $20 million to start the Phanstiel Scholars program, where recipients are “expected to pay forward their time, money, and talent to make the world a better place,” the website said.

Pam Heintz, associate vice president and director at the Mary Ann Shaw Center for Public and Community Service, estimated that about 60 percent of their funding comes from the university and work-study. The other 40 percent comes from a mix of private donors and external partners, Heintz said.

Former Chancellor Kenneth Shaw and his wife, Mary Ann Shaw started the Shaw Center in 1994 with funding from a three-year grant from the Carrier Corporation and the Chancellor’s Office. After coming from the Midwest where service learning in big universities was becoming the norm, the Shaws wanted to create a center because at the time, there was no centralized community service organization at SU.

Because the Shaw Center is the primary hub for academic service learning, it receives funding from several of SU’s individual colleges. Hendricks Chapel does not.

Programs at the Shaw Center span a wide range of topics — including nutrition, engineering, leadership, math and literacy — and all require students to leave campus to get involved in the Syracuse community.

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One of the most popular programs at the Shaw Center is Literacy Corps, a national initiative that started at SU in 1997 as part of Bill Clinton’s America Reads Challenge, and it is funded mainly by Federal Work Study. Literacy Corps tutors commit at least eight hours each week to tutor students in the Syracuse City School District.

Associate Director for Literacy Initiatives Colleen Cicotta said the majority of their roughly 120 tutors are paid through work study and 5-8 non-work study tutors are paid through a grant from an alumnus. The Literacy Corps staff positions for Cicotta and Amanda Johnson Sanguiliano are funded by the Office of Academic Affairs and private donors.

“Nobody ever said to the Shaw Center, ‘here is a center full of people,’” Cicotta said. “Every single one of our positions has been created in response to student demand, and an increase in the number of students involved in the Shaw Center has resulted in our ability to get staff positions funded by the university and donors. But the university is still not funding every staff position in the office.”

The student staff members at the Shaw Center are the ones in charge of writing grant proposals and asking alumni for donations. Cicotta said that has been a very helpful tactic not only because it teaches students how to write grants, but also because it shows alumni that students are really invested in their work at the Shaw Center.

While Hendricks Chapel was beginning to develop issue-based, co-curricular volunteer programs on topics like AIDS and hunger, the Shaw Center sought to create a connection between academics and service because that was becoming a national trend.

After the initial three-year grant from the Carrier Corporation ended, the Shaw Center was able to renew it by demonstrating there was enough interest on campus. The Shaw Center then also became an official part of the Chancellor’s Office and part of the Office of Academic Affairs in the early 2000s. As the Shaw Center added more programs, different colleges on campus contributed funds.

“We’ve grown very organically over the years,” Heintz said.

Today, Hendricks Chapel and the Shaw Center work hard for their funding so they can emphasize the importance of community engagement because, as the Shaw Center’s website says, “If classrooms are the brains of Syracuse University, we are its heart and hands.”

Published on March 22, 2017 at 9:27 pm

Contact Caroline: cbarthol@syr.edu