SummEr/FAll 2011 - Nazareth College

into a world that is both beautiful and repulsive, with the intent
to conserve what is beautiful and reform what is not.”
Ashley Ernst ’11 didn’t originally intend to major in peace
and justice either. The daughter of a retired military, die-hard
Republican father, Ernst planned to study business at another
institution.
After receiving a degree in liberal arts from Monroe Community
College (M.C.C.) in Rochester, Ernst spent a semester volunteering
at the local Food Not Bombs program and for projects
in the religious community. She got into every school into which
she hoped to transfer and wasn’t sure what to do. But living
with Shana Bielemier ’10, a Nazareth peace and justice studies
graduate, became a real eye-opener. “I found myself wanting
to do her schoolwork, which was unlike any work I’d ever seen
before,” she says.
Ernst has been told she has a unique approach to education.
“I’m here to better myself and my life,” she says. “I’m not here
to get work. I’ll be working my whole life. I’m going to educate
myself on things I really care about—I’m getting an education,
not a degree.”
“I’m going to educate myself on things
I really care about—I’m getting an
education, not a degree.” Ashley Ernst ’11
Jarred Jones ’12 wasn’t interested in education or degrees in
the beginning. Into drugs as a young teen, Jones dropped out of
school in the tenth grade. He eventually received his G.E.D.,
and he was strongly encouraged by his mother to attend M.C.C.
That’s where things began to change.
“The first book I ever really read was at M.C.C.,” he says. “I
made a drastic amount of progress in that year and a half. I knew
I needed to work on my skills, and I needed to alienate myself
from my old friends. I looked at them and I thought, I don’t ever
want to be that dumb.”
Studying social justice issues captivated Jones and kept him
enrolled in school. “I grew up in a family that made it to the
suburbs but were African American,” he says. “I saw discrimination
and racial issues first-hand. That fostered my interest, and I
knew I wanted to do something of that nature.”
Jones, who recently received the annual Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. Award offered by Nazareth’s Office of Multicultural Affairs,
has planned a trip to Uganda this fall and eventually wants
to attend law school.
“I hope to become a politician,” he explains. “I want to represent
people in my community on a national scale. Many of my
friends try to work outside the establishment, but I say why not
work within it as well?”
Nick Croce ’13 graduated simultaneously from high school
and M.C.C. in 2010, and without immediate college plans,
joined AmeriCorps. He’s currently employed through the
American Red Cross Disaster Preparedness Program, serving
as an agency liaison for New York State Volunteer Organizations
Active in Disasters (VOAD). His responsibilities include
networking with local, state, and federal organizations, which
requires a high degree of skill with details, organization, and
communication.
“I was very young, and I didn’t have the paper qualifications
for the job,” he says. “They must have seen something in me.”
Croce, who enrolled at Nazareth in spring 2011, is enthusiastic
about both his work and his peace and justice courses, despite a
lack of understanding and financial support from home. “My dad
is trained as a mechanic, and he doesn’t necessarily understand
liberal arts,” he explains. “He wants to know I’ll have a job. He
doesn’t believe very much in volunteerism.”
That lack of support made his first semester challenging for
Croce, who used his life savings to pay his tuition bill. Seeking
to emphasize the importance he placed on his Nazareth education,
Croce paid the bill entirely with rolled coins—which took
the student accounts office by surprise and required a solid
half-hour of hand-counting. But once again, someone must have
seen something in Croce, and by the time his bill was paid, the
supervisor had passed him her card and told him she wanted to
see him succeed.
Croce doesn’t know where his path will lead, and that’s not
unusual for peace and justice students, says Harry Murray,
Ph.D., professor and chair in sociology and anthropology and
director of the peace and justice studies program. “This isn’t a
major for those whose goal is to get filthy rich,” smiles Murray.
Nor is it, as Jones explains, “just a hippy-dippy program where
you have to wear dreadlocks and tie-dyed shirts and sing
‘Kumbayah.’”
Instead, Murray says, “the program is geared to help students
form their life direction as a professional career.” The field has
“lots of possibilities, ranging from the micro, such as interpersonal
resolution, to the macro, such as international issues.” Peace
and justice is for the student, he says, “who is more interested
in making a positive contribution in the world than in having
a career.”
After all, concludes Ernst, “It’s hard to sit in your chair when
there’s so much going on.”
Learn more about peace and justice studies at go.naz.edu/
peace.
Robyn Rime is the editor of Connections.
www.naz.edu CONNECTIONS | Summer/Fall 2011 27