The Augustana Leaders In Vocational Exploration (ALIVE) program opened a new exhibition at the Putnam Museum in Davenport on Wednesday, April 22.The exhibit features art made by the students and their mentors, dedicated to the work and research they started in the fall.
ALIVE is a community-based program for Augustana sophomores to explore their vocation. The group of students meets for two hours weekly in the fall and bi-weekly in the spring to discuss big questions about their future and meaning in life.
Sophomore Selina Osebre Yawson, a student researcher in the program, gave a speech at the exhibition opening about the program’s impact on her.
As the eldest daughter taking care of her family, Osebre Yawson said she was struggling as a First-Year to choose a major and career due to the pressure to choose what would lead a “fulfilling and comfortable life,” as well as what she wanted for herself.
“Having those shared conversations with people made me realize I’m not alone. And there are so many other people on campus who have these fears, who have these uncertainties as to what they want to do and what vocation means to them as a whole,” Osebre Yawson said.
To help build community within the group, ALIVE members also live on the same floor together with a faculty member nearby. Currently, the program residents are split between two floors in the Swanson and Erickson Residence Halls.
Çağlar Çetin-Ayşe, an ALIVE mentor, in-residence faculty member and visiting associate professor of sociology, was the head of the research team for this exhibition. He said he wanted to research the program’s impact to see whether there were lasting effects and to find a way to represent it through art.
“[One finding is that] intentionality is an important contribution. [Students] are dealing with so many external demands … sometimes it can induce fear or some form of anxiety in them, and they do not really have a chance to pause and think about all of those [demands] in the presence of others, so that intentionality, that space, is really appreciated by students,” Çetin-Ayşe said.
Three students in the program joined Çetin-Ayşe in conducting research, which consisted of interviews and surveys with current members and program alumni to understand the impact of the ALIVE program. The group found that the program was beneficial to students.
One student researcher, sophomore Areeya Tandukar, said that being in the ALIVE program has allowed her to reconnect with her passion for art through the research and exhibition.
“Since high school, I completely stopped [making art] because I knew I had to focus more on studying because I wanted to go into medicine … ALIVE gave me [the] space to balance what I like doing versus separating that from my career, and to explore that side of me myself,” Tandukar said.
The research will now help faculty see what is working for the program, as well as how they can take the next step and share this information with other schools.
The program’s exhibit in the Putnam, displaying the artworks of Çetin-Ayşe, Tandukar and sophomore Phat Lam, as well as a video made by the researchers about the program and their work, will be open to the public until Sunday, May 17.
Selina Osebre Yawson previously worked for The Observer.
