Janice Odom
Director, The Caldwell Fellows
Research interests: Experiential Education, Young Adult Leadership Development, Moral & Spiritual Development
Community partners: Caldwell Fellows have on-going partnerships with a number of community agencies, (Wake County Urban Ministries, The Advocacy committee of Wake County Habitat for Humanity, Neighbor to Neighbor, Interfaith Food Shuttle) with schools across underserved counties of North Carolina with our SATELLITE and Service NC programs, and the Fundacion Communitaria del Bajio (in Guanajuato state, Mexico.)
How did you get involved in community work? If you had occasion to meet my parents, you’d know that community engagement was who they were and how they raised their children. I don’t think my mother missed many opportunities to connect her children to the great diversity of people in my hometown of Greensboro. I’m grateful for the world view instilled in me of wonder and respect for different cultures. As a seminary student I began working in the non-profit sector learning about community organizing and then spent a decade serving a congregation deeply rooted in community justice. It was a natural flow to find myself landing in the work of service-learning when I came to NCSU as a doctoral student, and just never left….
What motivates you to engage in community? At a personal level, involvement in the community provides connection to the place that is my home and the fascinating diversity of people and cultures in our community. Fundamentally, I see community engagement as civic responsibility and a source of my continued learning, meaning-making and friendship. As an educator, there is no ground more fertile for student learning than experiential education. My ambition is to develop civic engagement as a habit in the lives of young people and grounding in them an understanding of the long and deliberate work of systems change that contributes to social progress.
What is your favorite NC town to visit? I would happily reside in any small town in western NC where you can find local art and bluegrass music, as long as I can also visit Lake Mattamuskeet in January to be awed by thousands of migratory swans and snow geese.