“There is a really nice energy here and everyone that I have talked to so far has been very kind and warm and open and welcoming.” said Matthew Ascah about his arrival at Elizabethtown College. “It feels really good.”
Ascah, the new director of the Center for Community and Civic Engagement, said he is excited to continue with the programs already in place at the center but, he noted, he has a few new ideas, as well. “There is a lot of good stuff that should keep happening,” he said.
After settling in, he is interested in “creating sustaining, long term, reciprocal relationships with an emphasis on social justice and critical thinking,” he said. And he wants to make sure that the work at the center is the best “compared to other institutions in America.”
This is the first time that I have worked at an institution that has a motto like ‘educate for service’ or has ideas of service and community deeply embedded at the core of the institutional philosophy.”
Since one of the Signature Learning Experiences at E-town is Community-Based Learning, the center is working with professors who already have community learning in their courses and those who want to include it. And, Ascah said, there are plans to reactivate an advisory board for the center that will have a role in “thinking about those courses with the SLE component.” Ultimately, he said, the center is here to serve the needs of the faculty, students and staff.
Sharon Sherick, program coordinator for Civic Engagement, said she is looking forward to the new energy and ideas that Ascah brings to the Center. “He has worked diligently to connect with other faculty and staff members in order to further develop programs to meet the needs of the Elizabethtown College campus and community,” she said.
Ascah, who worked as an AmeriCorps*VISTA for a year and with the administration of Bowling Green (Ohio) State University to help develop their Office of Service-Learning, said he’s “been impressed with the energy of a number of faculty members that are quite keen to do more in their courses related to community-based learning and the number of professors that already put this into their curriculum.
“This is the first time that I have worked at an institution that has a motto like ‘educate for service’ or has ideas of service and community deeply embedded at the core of the institutional philosophy. I’m really excited about doing this kind of work at this type of place.”
Ascah grew up in State College, earning his bachelor’s degree in music from the Schreyer Honors College of The Pennsylvania State University. He earned his graduate degree from Bowling Green. Ascah comes to Elizabethtown via Canada, where he worked in academic planning at York University in Toronto, as an analyst for a documentary film company in Toronto and in an administrative appointment for five years at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.
For more information on events in the Center for Community and Civic Engagement, contact Matthew Ascah at 717-361-1108 or ascahm@etown.edu or stop by Nicarry 236.