Muncie — Sixteen Ball State University elementary education students have called the Roy C. Buley Community Center on the east side of Muncie their classroom this semester. Emily Mauer of Terre Haute is one of the participating students.
They are taking part in an immersive learning project, Schools Within the Context of Community, alongside the Whitely Community Council. The program emphasizes knowledge about children’s communities as an essential ingredient to being a good teacher. When they are not at the Buley Center, they are teaching at Longfellow Elementary School, Huffer Memorial Children’s Center and Head Start.
Since public funding for the center was discontinued in December 2008, volunteers have operated the program. In addition to organizing a library for the Buley Center, Ball State student volunteers have created a campaign to help save the center. That campaign involves working within the community and Ball State’s campus to raise resources.
Additionally, students are working with the United Way of Delaware County to plan a “Mom’s Night Out” to support parents in the community.
“The Buley Center has changed lives with only pocket change over the past year. Now the need is greater,” volunteer interim director Mary Dollison said. “The doors of the Buley Center will close on Dec. 30 if financial resources are not in place.”
Project co-directors Eva Zygmunt-Fillwalk and Pat Clark, both associate professors of elementary education, have been impressed with the students’ initiative.
“They have taken this on by themselves,” Zygmunt-Fillwalk said. “They have personally witnessed the benefit of the Buley Center to this community, and they are invested in making a difference.”
Dollison said the project has a lot of potential.
“These students are a wonderful group of future teachers who will make a difference in their classrooms and in the communities where they teach and live,” Dollison said. “The partnership between the Buley Center and Ball State is making change happen.”
