Lehigh University fellowship has students helping neighbors

BY ALEX GREEN

Michael Handzo?s T-shirt collection makes his school allegiance ambiguous.

He accumulated many burgundy-and-white shirts during his four years of undergraduate studies at Lafayette College in Easton. He now keeps them hidden during rivalry week while pursuing a master?s degree at Lehigh University in Bethlehem.

?I get it from both sides,? said Handzo, a 23-year-old Massachusetts native studying art and political science. ?I just love the Lehigh Valley.?

His affection for the Valley is why he stayed in the area after earning his bachelor?s degree. And it?s also part of why he enrolled in a Lehigh fellowship that university directors say is the only of its kind in the nation.

The Lehigh University College of Arts and Sciences Community Fellows Program requires students to work with nonprofit or government agencies while taking a yearlong course related to the agency. Fellowship directors say no other graduate program in the nation requires that.

?A fellow is required to go above and beyond the work of an intern since it is a part of their graduate studies,? said Kim Carrell-Smith, the director of the fellowship, which recently celebrated its 10-year anniversary. ?The agencies usually end up raving about the fellows? work, because they are so passionate about what they do.?

The fellowship pairs students with agencies related to Lehigh?s course offerings in politics, sociology and environment.

Agencies pay a student for 15 hours per week of service, money that goes toward the student?s tuition.

Handzo, who is helping the city of Easton, pays a third of his $37,800 tuition while Lehigh pays another third and the city pays the rest.

?What we pay is really very cheap for the quality of work we get in return,? said Becky Bradley, Easton?s codes and planning director, who has tapped Handzo to envision the city in 20 years and to enhance the city?s social media.

Handzo said he and Bradley have discussed how a new Route 33 interchange in neighboring Palmer Township will affect the city, and how to make the city friendlier to pedestrians. ?We have some thought-provoking conversations,? he said.

Laura Schmidt?s passion for sustainable agriculture and the future of farmers steered her to the fellowship.

The 27-year-old Rhode Island native studying environmental policy design works with the Lehigh Valley chapter of Buy Fresh Buy Local, which promotes homegrown produce. She collects data that show similar prices between farmers markets and supermarkets to dispel the notion that supermarkets are cheaper.

?It was always possible to find less expensive produce there than at supermarkets,? Schmidt said.

Lynn Prior, director of Lehigh Valley Buy Fresh Buy Local, found the research helpful. The fellowship, she said, ?is very beneficial in that the community receives assistance from top students at a very low cost.?

Source: http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/bethlehem/index.ssf/2013/02/lehigh_university_fellowship_p.html

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