For some, “home” is the house they grew up in. For others, “home” is synonymous with “family” or “friends.” But for students interning at the college this summer, “home” will be Hillsdale.
Career Services is organizing its second Hillsdale Summer Fellowship, an eight-week program spanning June and July that teaches students practical ways to appreciate and influence the communities they will live in post-graduation. It focuses on entrepreneurship.
“It’s teaching students good principles for local patriotism, but hopefully, that doesn’t mean they have to stay in Hillsdale forever. It means they can go to a new community somewhere else and know how to actually be invested in that community,” Career Services Project Manager Hadiah Ritchey ’20 said.
The fellowship started in 2019 with 14 students. After a year away from the program during COVID-19, Career Services plans to offer 20 participating students free housing in Park Place this summer.
The program uses Hillsdale as a template to teach students about what makes communities unique. In 2019, students heard from faculty members on their experience of living in Hillsdale and toured historical landmarks — such as the cemetery and Keefer House. Then, they learned how to invest in towns by attending library board meetings and talking to small business owners. This summer’s program will follow a similar format, Ritchey said.
Executive Director of Career Services Ken Koopmans said Hillsdale graduates have a responsibility to share their education with the communities they live in.
“So much of who we are and what we stand for is under attack,” Koopmans said. “Our alums need to be ready when they go outside of Hillsdale. It’s going to be different and preparing them for this is important.”
The fellows will meet Thursday afternoons for lunch at a local restaurant, where they will hear lectures from faculty members or local business owners, and then have an opportunity for community involvement, such as volunteering.
The fellowship is for students interning in any of the college’s departments this summer. Because student employees can only work a maximum of 27 hours per week, Career Services hopes to provide additional opportunities for personal and professional formation through this program, Ritchey said.
The program seeks to solve the logistical issue of limited student housing over the summer. In the past, there hasn’t been a fair system for which college interns are eligible for housing, Ritchey said.
Koopmans said the program also serves a larger need: helping students form connections in new workplaces.
“About 40% of students who work after graduation go back to their home states, so 60% are going somewhere new,” Koopmans said. “They don’t have roots there yet, and so they’re trying to adapt and make it home.”
Patrick Whalen, owner of Ad Astra Coffee Roasters, will be one of the business owners featured in the program. Whalen said he plans to invite students into the shop and show them how to roast coffee.
“We actually bring people into the roastery all the time to show them, ‘This bag came straight from Africa, and in Africa it was processed in this kind of way, and here in United States, I’m going to process it further this way and then package it and sell it to you,’” Whalen said. “It brings people into closer contact with the reality of the goods they consume, instead of having it be this totally abstract kind of Amazon click and then the magic happens.”
Ritchey said she hopes the participants can form friendships with other students they might not normally see, as well as build connections in the community.
“As a student, it’s really hard to be invested in any real sense in Hillsdale as a place,” Ritchey said. “I think the summer is a really good breathing space to actually remember the roots of why we’re in this town and to build relationships that can last into the school year.”
For Whalen, investing in the program has a starting point familiar to many Hillsdale students: Aristotle.
“We are not self-sufficient human beings, which means we need one another to survive. The American polity happens in a really beautiful way at the local level,” Whalen said. “If you look at any parade, or any public park, what you’ll always have is citizens and local businesses constituting those things, and that’s what makes communities rich and vibrant worth living in. If you’re going to raise a family in a place you want that place to be rich and vibrant and strong. So, invest in it.”
The program will give students a chance to apply their studies—from thinking about the good life in philosophy to learning about business models in economics—to the real world.
“Those can remain abstractions but the arena in which those things play out, for better or for worse, is in the real lives of people and places,” Whalen said.
Students interested in participating can contact Hadiah Ritchey for more information. Although there are limited spots remaining, Career Services hopes to continue the program for future summers, Ritchie said.
“We need young people who are on fire with this vision of living somewhere, being somewhere, being a part of it, and having it not just be one among a million viable choices, but this one. My one home, my choice. And then really investing in it,” Whalen said.