<r Caught in the ACT, we are profiling one of the professional staff members in the ACT center. Amber Cameron graduated from Carleton in 2006 and for the next two years she worked as the educational associate for the ACT Center. This year her position was officially made permanent as the Assistant Director of the ACT Center. I recently asked Amber some questions, to help the community better understand her new role and all of the hard work she puts in to help the ACT center function.
1. How is your new role at the ACT center different than your old one?
My role at the ACT Center will not really change that much. I will have basically the same responsibilities and my job description is staying quite consistent. The only significant change is that I will also supervise Carleton’s Prairie and Wood Summer Camp as a part of my ACT position.
2. What types of volunteer programs did you work with while you were at student at Carleton?
As a student I was very involved with both the Wellstone House of Activism and academic civic engagement. My junior year (2004-2005) I was part of the first group of students to start the Wellstone House. It was a wonderful place to live and it was exciting being surrounded by my peers who were actively engaged with social change and social justice work. Throughout my time at Carleton I also constantly sought out classroom opportunities to include service or academic civic engagement with the curriculum. After having taken about six classes that incorporated academic civic engagements into the curriculum, I became the student coordinator for academic civic engagement with the ACT Center. The summer before my senior year I had the great opportunity of working for Mary Savina. I was responsible for starting an initial inventory of civic engagement at Carleton. From there, I served as the ACE coordinator in the ACT Center for my senior year.
3. What goals do you have for ACT center next year?
So many great things have been happening for the ACT Center lately! One of my goals is to strengthen existing ongoing programs that we currently have. Student are doing a tremendous service to our community through their dedication and leadership with each program; I want to find new ways that the ACT Center can support these efforts. Another goal I have is to increase our one-time event programming on campus. Although the bulk of the ACT Center revolves around direct volunteering, I am excited about the opportunity to engage students in other ways, such as speakers and panels. Finally, an alumni gift of a couple million dollars to the ACT Center would be great too 🙂
4. What are your impressions of volunteerism at Carleton?
When the ACT Center was initially created over 20 years ago, it was a leading model of service centers in higher education. We have continued to see a very high involvement by students serving our community. That said, I think Carleton is a very challenging place for all that are here. There are constant demands on people’s time and people need to prioritize activities and commitments. It is my hope that when a student graduates they will have at least had a taste of what the ACT Center has to offer. I believe that in order for social change to occur, members of society need to understand their small piece of the puzzle. If the ACT Center can introduce students to this idea; then I would consider our work a success.