Buffie Longmire-Avital's Community Psychology course provided a pathway for students to become more engaged with the Burlington community.
This past semester, Community Psychology, a service-learning course taught by Associate Professor of Psychology Buffie Longmire-Avital, played an important role in supporting the Morrow Town Task Force.
The task force was developed in partnership with the Alamance County NAACP to address issues of gun violence and other crimes in the Morrow Town neighborhood in Burlington that stemmed from multiple unsolved murders within the last few years in the community. The task force has active participation from numerous community organizations and partners, including multiple churches and local faith leaders.
According to Donna Vanhook, chair of the Alamance County NAACP Chapter Justice Committee, students in the Community Psychology course played an active role in support of the task force. They attended city council meetings and met with Burlington Police Department officers and other community partners to become educated on the issues at hand and how they could work with residents to offer support.
Sylvia Ellington ’20 was an active and engaged participant in the course. Along with her fellow classmates, Ellington worked to collect data to identify needs in the community. She shared that “an essential aspect of this project was getting input and feedback from the community. It was important for us as members of the task force to recognize that we were outsiders in the community. We didn’t want to tell residents what they needed but ask what they wanted to see. This resource guide (we created) belongs to the community. It’s a tool for them to use so we tried to tailor it to their needs.”
The class received support from Ryan Kirk, associate professor of geography and environmental studies on mapping assets in the Morrow Town area. The asset map helped to reveal to the course that the area lacks essential resources, like access to public transportation, lack of streetlights, and poor road conditions.
Due to the work of the task force, the city of Burlington has moved forward in making improvements in the neighborhood. The task force convinced City Council to put in more streetlights, install security cameras and fire hydrants, and successfully advocated for police to increase patrols. Through this work with the task force, Ellington saw the power of advocacy in action.
“Without the advocacy of the task force, it is hard to say how long these conditions would have persisted,” Ellington said. “It goes to show that a few dedicated and passionate citizens can create real change.”