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PROGRESS REPORT TO THE ATLANTA URBAN CORPS, INC., BOARD OF TRUSTEES The Atlanta U-/ban Corps completed its first quarter of operation on August 22, climaxing ate~ week intern program utilizing studente in urban problems The pr-ogr-am im-olved 225 students from 43 different colleges. 80% of the se stud.ents were from Atlanta area colleges. Apf'ro:dmately Interns were placed in 35 public interest non-profit agencies and 15 departments of the ~ity of Atlanta. Approximacely 45% of the students were black and 55% white. A ~yptcal example of a city department internship was a team of 15 students doing research and data analysis in the City fnnitation department. Others s~rved on the Mayor's staff doing research and another example was students compiling financial information for possible tax legislation in the City of Atlanta. The private public-interest agencies tended to utilize students more in the social and humanistic disciplines euch as counseling or working in recreation programs involving young people and actual communities. A typical example is an intern serving in the Emmaus House t eaching children from depriv"ed neighborhoods bas_ic reading skills and education courses during the summe r . Another exampl e involved ten students in a mentally retarded children I s c:9-mp S?onsored by the Decatur-Dekalb YMCA. Thi ~ su:nm-c!r our ope ra ting budgets was approximately $200,000 broken down a s f o llowr,< $52 , 000 Approprta tion from City of Atlanta $20 , 000 Southern Regional Education Board .. 1 j �$13,000 Private Business Contributors $75,000 College ·Work-Study Program (Grants from the Office of Education through Individual Colleges) Private Public -interest Agencies Volunteers in Service to America $20,000 $20,000 Approximately half, or 114 students, were spousored under the College WorkStudy program, which is a federally sponsored program of the Office of Education whereby the college pays 80% of the ' intern's stipend, with the agency involved supplying the remaining 20%. The College Work-Study progr am is available to every public college and grants vary according to requests and needs of the colleges involved. The student financial aid officer is in charge of these funds of each campus and can allocate them as he desires to " off-campus non-protit agencies " such as the Atlanta Urban Corps. This sununer we were fortunate in persuading financial aid officers to contribute heavily to the Atlanta Urban Corps, and evidently this figure will rise apprecialby next year. Interns salaries were $72.000 (1.80/hr) weekly for freshman and sophomores, $88.00 ($2.20/hr) weekly for juniors and seniors and $100.00 ($2.50/hr) for graduate students. We received 880 student applications for the summer program giving a very good indication that students are indeed very interested in participatin~ in summer internships and coll ege-c ommunity i nvo lvement programs . We received 300 reque sts from c i ty departments a nd publ i c interest-agencies requesting interns to serve as assistants during the summer. Unfortunatel y these position ' requests usually c an't be paid for at ful l cost by the agency, hence, the need for private donations for non-work-s t udy i nterns. We have alread y received over 75 requests for interns t o serve during the academic program. This summer the Urban Corps wa s administered by a student staff of 15 people whose abili t ies and dedication are directly attributable to the program's 2 �success. We started extremely late in the acade mic ye ar and ended up with a very substantial program involving numerous colleges and students. We were fortunate that much ground work had been done i n Atlanta and many of the organizations whose resources were needed had been involved early in the planning and understood the aspects of the program well. This was due to hard work done by many students in Atlanta . from various coll eges. A special note of thanks should go to Dave Whelan, Mark Dash and Rich Speer , whose early work in contacting the Board of Trustees and especially fund ra i sing later proved beneficial to the Urban Corps. We found that these students, through contacting various colleges, were primarily responsible for the h i gh number of applications we received with little ~ or no publicity. This summer the Urban Corps has administratively operated under the City of Atlanta and the Southern Regional Education Board, pr i marily f or contractural agreements purposes with the agencies and for le gal contracts wi th the colleges. A very large in determining administrative respons i bility was i n the que stion of who served as the paymaster. The Ci ty was most coope r ative this sum- me r in absorbing a de ficit spending s i tuation whereby i t abso r bed the cost o f the stude nt's st i pend unt i l coll e ge s could r eimburse them. Also , many agenc ie s we re tardy in pay ing the i r share of the studen t 's stipend. In some cas e s th i s meant a debt of $60 , 000 whi ch wa s carried ove r a t hree or fou r we ek pe r i od . Th i s is t he primary pr obl em in ut i l izi ng a group such as t he Boa r d of Tr ustees in ha nd • ling admi n is trative d ifficult ie s tha t ari se i n the Urba n Corps . I f t he Board o f Trustees had a large bank a ccount and could ab s orb tremendous deficits within a short period of time , no d iff ic ulty would ari s e. Otherwi s e, the City must be re- tained in some paymaster role or l egal role for contractural authority. (In my opinion, the Urban Corps as we know it today, should operate under its present sys tem through the summer of 1970 with the Board of Trustees taking ultimate control in September of 1970.) The financial and payroll p roblems incurred this : summer point to the need for extensive planning and lead time before the Trustees 3 �take over the Urban Corps operation. A special note of thanks should go to Dan Sweat, who helped us with space, payroll problems, contractural problems , and staff expenses during the inttial summer program. Unfortunately , those elected officials at City Hall do not com- pletely agree with Mr. Sweat. The City Finance Committee naturally closely scruntinizes our monetary requests. From a purel y financial point of view these members of the Board of Aldermen do, not agree thab we should have educational counseling as they put no emphasis on the educational aspects of the program. These financial people interpret the Urban Corps as a cheap summer employment program for summer months only. from the colleges and those This aga i n is an i ndication that more input is needed 11 educa tion' 1 spec trums o f the community . Naturally the ,more money that comes in from other sources the more autonomy we may have in making expenditures. From the first ideas of the Urban Corps to its actual implementations, there has been a tremendous emphasis on student input. Presently, we have a high deg re e of student participat ion in that all of our staff members are students. In my cpinion, student repreaentation·should be included on the Board o f Trustees, but these students should come from the ranks of those who have served as Urban Corps interns, rather than having student governments elect any ±nterested student to serve in that role. From operational experiences this summer, we have found that the program is best administe red by one individual re po rting to a small group of people rather than the original proposal o f having two people head the organization, one in the role of a student director and one in the role of the staff director. My sugge stion for continuing the student input is to make sure that the Director i s a young pe r son, p referably a graduate student h i mself and that the Board of Trustees function more closely to the Urban Cor ps . Presently, the Atlanta Urban Corps, Inc., exists only on paper. 4 The Internal �Revenue Service has granted the Atlanta Urban Corps, Inc., a tax exemption status. specific. The next step f~r the Board of Trustees i s to make the by-laws more Also, t4e membershi p of t he Board of Trustees should be revised to make sure that all sectors of the community are equally i nvolved and that no sector is overwe ighed, specjfically in r e f erence to t he r esources needed to " . operate the Urban Corp~. I am leaving· to attend 9raduate , School at Harvard University , but have found a replacemept who is very i nterested i n t he Urban Cor ps and knows a ·l ot · a-bout it f r om- his experie nce t h i s i,umme r . This studen t wa s rec r ui ted _.&nd_ interviewed by myself, Bill Ramsay·, Dan ~eat and o thers i ntimately in- valved i n the Urban Corps. Mr. Ken Mi llwood is a gradua te of · t he Un~ve r.~ity of Ge orgia School of Journalism and is " preeently pur~uing ·a - M8ste r 's Degr ee i n Georgi a State's Nt .ght School. Ken was Urban Corps Public Relations Di rector thi s eurmner and diri a n e xce llent job as you proba bly -know if -you e-aw news clippi nge abou t the Urban Corps this s ummer. The present., 1~ l an of t he Ur ban Corps i s to admini ~t. r atively r e port to the City ~ nd t he ,Southe rn· Reg ional Education Board as we · ·~ e done in the past. There are many pos sib ilities on t he hor±zon f or future· operations as f ar -·att- finance and o t her resour ce s are c oncerned . . The Urban Observatory, _a college aff iliated re s earch gr oup of the Mayor ' s Of fi ce, h a s asked for a grant of $30,000 to be give n to the Urban Corp-s for opera tional e xpe nses. has no t ye t been approved by HEW. This gran t The · Unite~ State s Commiss i oner of Education , Mr. J ames E . Alle n , J r . , had indi cated vtl'ry s t r ong support from HEW t o t he Ur ban Corps and o ther internship programs. _ Mr . Al len made a s t_atement rece n tly to Ur ban Corps intern, saying tha t r oughl y ha lf · o f the college wo r k-study allocat·ione should be s pent i n such involveme nt p rograms be tween the col l ege and the ..·- . . .. 5 �and the community. The Office of Education is presently implementing this guideline which means that next year the Urban Corps in Atlanta will absorb approximately $700,,000 of College Work-Study funding. We anticipate roughly 1;000 summer interns next year and 100 interns dur i ng the academi c year. We are also working closely with colleges in trying t o persuade them to grant academic credit with gu i delines to i nsure t hat educational .experieuce is indeed received. We are running into quite a b i t o f d if f i culty in the area of academic credit and welcome help fr om t he members o f the Board of Trustees. A very unique part of the Atlanta Urban Corps i s its Field and Education Staff. This summer this group o f students staf fe rs has structured seminars and visited with interns discussing urban problems as well as personal difficulties that may arise on the job. The Field and Educat i on Staf f should be an integral part of the ~Jrban Corps fro m now on, since it has proved so beneficial for the summer operat i on. Typical examples of seminars have ranged from speake r s such as Joe Bo one, Civil Ri ghts La ader in At lanta; to Members of the Mayor ' s Staff work i ng on Ur ban problems. We have t r ied to pick ,pe ople from all spec t rums of the urban sce ne t o give interns a good i dea o f what our problems are in Atlanta and what is being done and what should be d one ab out them. As a n integ ral part o f t he i n t e r nship program t his summer, e ach s t uden t submitte d a f inal re po rt de ta i ling h i s e xperienc e s and r e commenda t ions ab ou t the Ur ban Corps and ~bout his a g·e nc y of ci ty de par t me nt. The s e r ep ort s have been us ed by a ge nc ie s and city gov ernment in ob taining grant s and r e view ing their admi nis t r a t ive a nd p rogra m ope ra tio n . Other re port s have given t he Boa rd of Aldermen p lans for u r ban re newa l in Pl unket t own and many private agenc i es have used the s e repor ts in rai s i ng f und s and improvi ng thei r operation . A cata - logue of the s e re port s is availab l e for tho s e pers ons intere s ted and each report 6 �is on file in the Urban Corps office. The Atlanta Urban Corps has attained national prestige this first year due to the many people in Atlanta who were interes t ed in i ts succe ss. We have received unanticipated amounts of publicity from the local press to the nationally syndicated newspapers. We are the only program of our type which has been a b le t o obta i n suppo rt f rom the business communi ty, educational community, the government, and public service cormnuni ty. The greatest factor for success now rests with the educational and governmental sector. I urge those members of the business group on our Board of Trustees and other influential membe r s t o try t o persuade the new Mayor to suppor t the Urban Corps as much as Mayor Allen has. Also, we are i n desperate need of f unds as usual. Mem- bers of the business coummunity should help our student staff members i n raising these funds. The Urban Corps has proven that students can indeed contribute t o solving '·the urban problems o f Atlanta. We hope this is only the beginning and that fur- the r and more sophi sticate d cooperat-io'n can be come evident between t h e college and i ts community i n t he near f u ture. Mr . Ken Millwood, the new Director, will be in t ouch with you a later da t e t o ou t l i ne spec ific plans and progress r ep ort s of the Ur ba n Cor ps. We we lcome a ny of you to v i s i t our o ff ice a t a ny t i me . We are l oc a t e d up stairs in the Old City Auditori um~ The Fall Program of the Atlanta Ur ban Corps is now in operation. five (5 5) t o sixty-five ( 65) int erns wi ll be p l aced t his fall. Fift y - As in the past, the sponso rBhip of Atlanta Ur ban Corps is shar ed by SREB and the City of Atlanta. The interns hip s are to begin September 29, 1969, and r un for twe lve ( 12) weeks until December 19, 1969. ~~v~ Sam Williams Director Atlanta Urban Corps 7 �