Oberlin College Hosts 2024 Bonner Summer Leadership Institute — The Corella & Bertram F. Bonner Foundation

Over 320 students, staff, faculty, speakers, alumni, and partners from 91 different institutions and organizations came together for the 2024 Summer Leadership Institute, hosted at Oberlin College and Conservatory from June 7 to 10. With Oberlin’s rich history of civic engagement and student activism as the backdrop, student leadership took center stage at this year’s Summer Leadership Institute.

This year’s SLI was my first-ever, and I’m grateful that I got to have the best of both worlds as a student and a Foundation intern. I was definitely nervous about facilitating workshops, but I felt the Bonner Love everywhere I turned. As an introverted student leader, I’ve been in a number of spaces where I’ve felt like I couldn’t be myself. Being at SLI, I never felt pressure to force myself to be something I’m not. Being myself felt like enough. I’m incredibly grateful to the Foundation staff and the Oberlin team for cultivating a safe space to do that. - Taylor Easter, Widener University Bonner Leader ‘25 and National Foundation Intern

This year’s theme was Seeds and Sounds of Service reflecting Oberlin’s commitment to fostering inclusive community engagement with a focus on the underrepresented fields of the sciences and the arts. The seeds represent Oberlin’s dedication to planting the seeds of positive change through its environmental stewardship and the promotion of STEM education and research. The sounds represent Oberlin’s rich musical tradition, and reminds us that the arts can play a powerful role in advancing social change.

Oberlin College was founded in 1833 alongside the city of Oberlin. The school and the city have always been interconnected, and both have a legacy of inclusion and integration. The college was the first higher education institution in the United States to admit African Americans and women, and the city acted as a stop on the Underground Railroad. The city’s motto, Live, Learn, Lead, echoes their legacy of social justice and inspired the opening session at SLI.

SLI is our annual family reunion, where we can gather in fellowship, share in our difficulties, and rejoice in all our many joys of the past year. I am both proud and grateful that we could also give this family a sense of what we at Oberlin call the "engaged liberal arts," which I believe urges us to (in the words of what Dr. Katie Cannon) "do the work your soul must have." - Thom Dawkins, Director of Bonner Center for Community-Engaged Learning, Teaching, and Research at Oberlin College

During the opening all-group session, attendees heard from a number of accomplished speakers who prompted us to think through how we can engage with our local communities: Dr. Keith Caldwell, Executive Director of Place-Based Initiatives at the University of Pittsburgh; Eboni Johnson, President of Oberlin City Council; Kurt Russell, 2022 US Teacher of the Year; and Axel Martinez, Bonner Fellow at Brown University. Axel’s keynote called for us to draw on our lived experiences and social capital to make a difference.

Our network came together to offer 51 elective workshops with a vast array of topics including student-led workshops such as “Unpacking Bonner Week” and “Intersectional Engagement: Feminist Practices on Community Collaboration” as well as workshops led by national and graduate school partners such as Understanding the Power of Student Voice on College Campuses” and “Democratic Engagement and Civic Learning as a Core Purpose of Education.”

I appreciated everyone's openness to collaborate and share with others throughout the workshop, especially in the community mapping session. I hoped workshop attendees could see parallels between feminist practices and community engagement and bridge these ideas in personal and tangible ways. I want to encourage future workshop presenters to make space to learn from their attendees. You all are in the space for the same curiosities and ideas, so embrace it! - Halle Gensler, Berea College Bonner Scholar ‘25

SLI also offered Bonner alumni ways to be involved such as an alumni panel featuring Sophia Lombardo (Earlham College ‘19), Noah McQueen (Morehouse College ‘19), London Dejarnette (Allegheny College ‘24), and and Rose-Christa Denor (Carson-Newman University ‘20). Panelists drew on their Bonner Program and post-graduate experiences to share strategies for coalition-building on campuses, discovering careers in social action, and perspectives for living civically engaged lives.

The Bonner Foundation National Summer Interns led multiple Student-Track sessions covering topics such as coalition building, Bonner Leadership Team structures and roles, program communications and visibility, finding your sense of purpose, planning mutually beneficial service trips, and strengthening capacity building and capstone projects. Administrators, staff, faculty, and partners also gathered to discuss updates and initiatives from the Bonner Foundation; a panel discussion with Vanessa Buehlman (Christopher Newport University), Ashley Cochrane (Berea College), Cindy Ferguson (University of Lynchburg), and Krystal Woolston (Montclair State University) providing insights on building allyship with faculty for a deep culture of engagement across campus; and finally on leveraging data to drive institutional change featuring Marina Barnett (Widener University), Thom Dawkins (Oberlin College), Ariane Hoy (Bonner Foundation), and Jillian Kinzie (Indiana University), focusing on using tools like the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE) to enhance campus-wide engagement.

The second all-group session, Sights and Sounds of Change, prompted attendees to think about the ways that the arts, activism, and social change work together. Attendees heard from speakers like Jody Kerchner, Professor of Music Education at Oberlin College; William Quillen, Dean of the Conservatory and Professor of Musicology at Oberlin College; David Kamitsuka, Dean of Arts and Sciences, and Evyn Lundy, Bonner Scholars Coordinator at Oberlin College. Student Keynote Speaker and Oberlin Bonner Scholar, Asquith Clark II, called on us to face our fears, whether in our service work or ending violence. National Bonner Interns, Bryan Wood, Ryan Vaughan, and Abria Doe, complimented the speakers by contributing their own talents, activities, and insights to the session.

The week prior to SLI, I asked a handful of people to tell me of a time that they saw or experienced change in their lives and recorded their responses. Then, I went in and layered in sounds that you might associate with that story. For example, when someone was talking about a rally, I layered in sounds of people marching and chanting. When another person talked about moving to a new country, I added in sounds you might hear when traveling in an airplane. Watching the audience use their imaginations when hearing these stories of change was really inspiring to watch. It makes one wonder: what change can that imagination bring? - Ryan Vaughan, Emory and Henry University Bonner Scholar ‘25 and Foundation Intern

During the Networking Fair, attendees had the opportunity to connect with eighteen national nonprofit organizations and nine graduate schools to discover the scholarships, fellowships, internships, and other opportunities offered by these programs. Some partners in attendance included Campus Compact, City Year, Black in Appalachia, GivePulse, Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas, O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University Bloomington, and Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

SLI would not have been complete without the creativity and fun involved with the three evenings of social activities, networking, and community building for attendees. These included bowling, lawn games, pool, the first drag bingo event in SLI history, and a community-wide Block Party featuring afrofuturist collective Mourning [A] BLKstar. All of these events were student-led and embodied the heart and spirit of the Bonner Program, including promoting inclusivity of LGBTQ+ community and celebrating diversity within the Bonner Network.

My experiences as a Bonner Scholar were the first spaces where I felt affirmed doing community engagement work as an openly queer person, and to have the SLI team be so supportive and enthusiastic about this event and the art form of drag was really incredible and says a lot about the program’s values. I’m excited that we got to bring some pride and LGBTQ+ history and art to SLI, and I hope this event will encourage folks to continue upholding Bonner’s commitment to diversity by making community engagement and the Bonner program a safe space for LGBTQ+ folks. - Cecil Pulley, Oberlin College Bonner Scholar ‘24

Aina Tasso, First-Year Oberlin Bonner Scholar, spearheaded the planning for the Block Party and believed it was important to draw on the college’s relationship to the town and actively invite the wider community to participate.

“Even towards the end of the block party, as we started to clean, people started line dancing, which I think showcases the Bonner principle of community building. My goal for the block party was for people to join together and have fun, which I am glad to think was achieved.” - Aina Tasso, Oberlin College Bonner Scholar ‘27

There are hundreds of individuals that without their contributions SLI would not have been possible. The Bonner Foundation extends their gratitude to these individuals and especially recognizes the Oberlin SLI Planning Team, the Bonner Foundation Staff and Interns, Bonner National and Graduate School Partners, resume coaches, presenters, speakers, alumni, and Oberlin Conference Services, Facilities, AVI Catering, Dining Services, the Conservatory of Music, and other campus departments.

Learn more about the 2024 Bonner Summer Leadership Institute on the Bonner Wiki.