The VISION program takes University of St. Thomas students to volunteer across the United States and Latin America, but is taking this spring break to turn its attention to the local community.
This year, in light of Operation Metro Surge and ICE activities in the Twin Cities in January, program director Leah Ingram chose to look to local community partners for a new spring break immersion program.
“It’s important for students and for all of us to understand that we don’t have to go across the country or across the world to find people that we can learn from, people who are maybe different from us or people that can expand our worldviews,” Ingram said.
In its inaugural year, the program will run from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, March 31. Students will travel to Bdote, the sacred confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers, have lunch with indigenous catering, and visit the largest Cambodian Buddhist temple, located about 20 miles south of campus, in Empire, Minnesota, before returning to campus.
VISION is run through the Center for the Common Good, offering two main trips per year, an international trip over J-term and a domestic trip during spring break.
Ingram arrived as program director of VISION this past October, and came into the position interested in exploring local vision experiences. The events of Operation Metro Surge made the implementation of such a program more urgent.
“I personally was having a hard time imagining sending students outside of the Twin Cities or outside of Minnesota when our community here was in such pain and turmoil,” Ingram said.
The new VISION in P.L.A.C.E. program also represents a broader shift in the way VISION approaches service trips. Ingram explained the original intent for the local experience is about 80% immersive learning versus service immersion.
Ingram aims to move VISION more towards immersive learning experiences rather than service focused trips.
“(We are) trying to move away a little bit from the saviorism complex that we know short term volunteer experiences are not necessarily beneficial for communities,” Ingram said.
Originally planned as a week-long immersion experience over spring break, only two applications were submitted by students by the original deadline. Katrina Wrase, a student leader for VISION, said this is a broader trend they’ve seen this year.
To help with engagement, the VISION program changed to a single day learning immersion experience.
While the new VISION in P.L.A.C.E program will only last one day, Ingram hopes that this experience helps launch a new model of local immersive learning experiences.
Wrase, a past VISION participant herself, sees value in the local focus, noting that sometimes students need to confront biases about their own community.
“It can be eye opening in that way too,” Wrase said.
Reflecting on her own VISION experience, Wrase emphasized that trips like this “definitely put into perspective things you need to be thankful for… a moment of appreciation, which I think is good.”
For Ingram, the goal is simple.
“My goal really is just for folks to have the opportunity to learn about themselves and about the world around them. And I think that we can find creative and interesting and impactful ways to do that,” Ingram said.
Abigail Peters can be reached at pete4956@stthomas.edu.
