Students Helping Students

This year marked the first year the School of Law participated in Project Citizen, a national program funded by the U.S. Department of Education and sponsored by the Missouri Bar designed to encourage middle school and high school students to identify — and attempt to solve — problems in their communities.

Law students, along with students from Saint Louis University’s pre-law program, spent the spring semester working with ninth graders at Northwest Academy in St. Louis finding and researching real problems in their community, proposing solutions that require governmental action and then proposing action plans to influence the appropriate governmental agencies to consider or adopt their solution.

Each law student was in charge of a classroom, with one to two pre-law students serving as assistants. Five different problems were addressed in each group: stopping drug sales, turning vacant housing into homes for the homeless, limiting the number of liquor stores near schools and residential areas, stopping child sexual abuse and stopping gang violence. The Project culminated with a portfolio that documented the results of each group’s work and a simulated public hearing in which students presented their findings to a panel of community representatives.  Thanks to funding from the Missouri Bar and Phi Alpha Delta, as well as Saint Louis University, this year’s group of students was able to showcase their project in front of legislators, attorneys and educators at the Missouri State Project Citizen Showcase, held on March 5 at the State Capitol in Jefferson City.

One of the Project’s supervisors, Saint Louis University Pre-Law Program Director, Janet O’Hallaron, saw firsthand the benefits the program had on everyone involved, particularly Saint Louis University law and pre-law students.

“The service learning opportunity reinforced their commitment to a vocation in law and illustrated how citizen and legal action can change people’s lives for the better,” she noted.

Similarly, the impact the program had on students from the Academy was unexpected and transformative, recalled Northwest Academy Principal, Valerie Carter Thomas.
“When our students first interacted with the law students, they only had a general idea of the types of legal careers out there,” she said. “Many of their perceptions weren’t exactly positive, and the law students helped them strip away the negative impressions they may have had. Because the law students were so down-to-earth and approachable, our students could more easily imagine themselves in a variety of positions. I’ve been hearing more and more students talk about becoming attorneys rather than parole officers or paralegals.”

One thing the program did for students, according to Carter Thomas, was to provide them with that extra measure of individual attention sometimes lacking in a traditional academic setting. She was impressed with the level of interaction between students from the Academy and School of Law students during a preliminary meeting to discuss the program.

“Both groups were so excited to meet each other,” she said. “Law students sat and talked with our students on an individual basis and exchanged e-mails. Students who drop out of school often do so because they lack that mentoring and individual attention. Seeing the Saint Louis University School of Law students as excited as our students was really something special.”

This level of interaction continued throughout the program, ultimately providing Academy students with an understanding of their own power to make a difference. After their exposure to School of Law students and the Project Citizen program, some of the students decided they weren’t happy with the variety of food available to them at lunch, so they gathered together petitions signed by students from other grades.
“I don’t believe they would have done this, had it not been for their exposure to the program,” said Carter Thomas. “They have gained more confidence and their thoughts and actions have become more organized. To come together on one concept as they did in their group projects really taught them about teamwork.”

Saint Louis University Participants

School of Law volunteers were: Bryant Godfrey, ’07, Kristen Bogen, ’08, Gwendolyn Madison, ’08, LaShonda Conner, ’07 and Raven Akram, ’08. Pre-law students Michael Eden, Darryl Beatty, Jen Scott, Patrick Devany, Maya Cheriyan, Nikki Jaswal and Maria Casaleggi also assisted in the project. Janet O’Hallaron, Saint Louis University Pre-Law Program Director, and Northwest Academy Principal Valerie Carter Thomas, supervised the program. Northwest Academy teachers involved in the project were: Bill Brighoff, ’79, Lanetra Thomas, Lenard Jackson, Valencia Martin and Sara Halliburton.