Week 9 Readings

I think that our directed reading about women's health and health policy have really been engaging in terms of all the broader themes of Ethical and Effective Service. Throughout the quarter, the course emphasized having a deep understanding of the issue of women's health by looking at it from different points of view. We discussed the context of women's health, and talked about how factors such as environment, race, culture, and socioeconomic status all play a role in women's health - even though they may not seem like they would. A class I found particularly engaging in terms of exploring the concept of ethical and effective service was when Professor Hanlon-Baker taught us about service in writing. This made it clear to me how communication, reciprocity between the students and the community, and respect ultimately come together to make community service extremely effective.

Week 9 readings

I really appreciated reading this. The Haas Center's emphasis on communication and context are two of the most important typically overlooked aspects or service learning. As seen in history, when groups go to a variety of locations and try to implement the same programs, they typically don't work because the context of the action has not been taken into context. All places are different; culturally, environmentally, socially. These factors need to be taken into consideration. Also, communication is very vital in performing service anywhere. I really feel like this ASB class has equipped me with the skills emphasized in this document, I feel prepared to go on our ASB!

Of the 9 broader themes in the principles for ethical and effective service, I feel like we have hit upon context the most so far. This is pretty evident from the readings and discussions, where we read about a very diverse range of topics and we also talked a bit about changes from the past. I’m guessing a lot of preparation went into the project, and so did consideration for safety. Naturally, we discussed towards the beginning the need for humility when interacting with the people we meet over spring break. I think our readings also provided us with a sense of respect for diversity too, in that a lot of them brought up cases of racial/cultural diversity.

Week 9 Reading

I feel like the readings we have done so far and the discussions made us prepared for the ASB. We now have a idea of the whole issue of woman health and how it relates to factors. This knowledge definitely helps us to serve better. Hearing from different sides of this issue, I feel that now i have a neutral attitude towards this issues instead of being one-sided. The big political, economic, and social context helps me understand the woman health much better. The participation of every one in ASB contributes to the better understanging of this issue. I really look forward to the ASB and i really wanna know what is the difference between public service in US and in China.

I think that our service trip embodies the principles of ethical and effective service as well. The ones that particularly align with what the trip means to me include reciprocity through partnership, commitment, ongoing communication and clear expectations, and context. I feel that one of our major goals is to work with other partners in the community, whom range from the women's clinics to organizations at a local level to policy makers and advocacy groups at a larger level.

Strongly associated with this collaborative relationship is the theme of communication and expectations: setting objectives and realizing each other's preferences/expectations contributes to the effectiveness of our service efforts. Also, by getting a purview of the relevant literature and issues, we are able to understand the context of women's health and health policy, and the role that we can play within it. Lastly, the importance of commitment ties everything together, as it promotes accountability and efficacy.

I agree that this class/ASB trip covers pretty much all of the principles in some way. The ones that I think we've really hit are: partnership, respect for diversity, commitment, and preparation. For partnership, I think this will come during the actual trip when we start working with organizations (women's clinics), but even before the trip we are all supportive of each other. Of course we have also respected diversity through our topics, but also in our attention to both sides of every argument. Indeed this approach and attention to diversity leads to more interesting and engaging discussion. Even though I've had to miss the last couple of classes (sorry guys) I feel like we all have a really strong commitment to this project, class, and issue. Lastly, what we've been doing for the past nine weeks has been all preparation for our up coming trip, beyond logistics I don't know how we could have prepared more!

Principles for Ethical and Effective Service

In reading the guidelines for ethical and effective service I felt that our class has really applied all of the principles which were discussed in some way. A couple which stood out to me, which I think are most relevant to our trip, are respect of diversity and reciprocity through partnership. The respect of diversity reminded me of the talks all of our guest lecturers have given, which at one point or another concentrated on the differences they had encountered in their specializations and the variance we will also encounter on our trip. We will have to be very mindful of a diversity in patients, diversity in clinic practices, and in beliefs regarding women's health disparities. In regards to reciprocity through partnership, I just thought it really defined how we work together in class and how we will work together on our trip, each of us will contribute something unique as well as take away priceless experience and knowledge given to us from our partners.

Week 9

Last night, I transcribed interviews for a book about public service, and so many of these themes were expressed by other Stanford students. The ones that especially stand out are Humility, Respect for Diversity, Communication, and Commitment. It will be important to strive to help people with an open mind, and to make an effort to understand their background and experiences. think we have laid a strong foundation for that in our class, as we have discussed many important issues so that we understand differing viewpoints. This leads to communication, which is strong in our group. We are comfortable around each other and that will help us achieve our goals and serve the community more effectively. Finally, Commitment was an important theme in the interviews. Some of the projects took years to implement. But more importantly, once we enter a community, we create expectations. We need to fulfill those expectations and not try to overreach so that we maintain credibility.