Kait Reyell is a third-generation Laurentian from Saranac Lake, N.Y.  She is an Augsbury/North Country Scholar as well as a Community Service Scholar and was a student government senator in her first year on campus.  A member of Kappa Delta Sigma sorority, she intends to declare a double major in English and performance and communication arts. What’s the FYP? St. Lawrence’s First-Year Program (FYP) combines living and learning as an introduction to the college experience.  Here’s how it works: You’ll live with about 30-35 other first-year students in a first-year “college” and take a common course taught by two professors from two different departments.  The goals of the course are for you to raise your ability to think, analyze and write or speak at the college level by addressing issues that are fundamental to the human condition. This course counts a portion of your first-semester course load; the remainder consists of three more courses, which you may choose from among the many that are open to first-year students.  In the spring semester, you would enroll in a First-Year Seminar; you can choose the same topic and the same professors as you had in your fall First-Year Program course, or different ones, and, again, take three courses from among all those open to you (this would be a good time to knock off some of those required courses).  .Check out the FYP courses from this past fall.

Life Lessons Learned Through My FYP
By Kaitlynn Reyell ’09

The day that I received word that I would be placed in the St. Lawrence First-Year Program (FYP) course “Our Communities, Ourselves,” I was excited to know that I would learn about what many believe communities are truly comprised of.  When we were told that our course would involve participating in community service in Canton, I was even happier.  I wanted to continue doing community service as I had been doing in high school, and was eager to learn about what Canton was like as a community. 

During one of our first meetings, our professors, Ron Flores of sociology and Rebecca Daniels of performance and communication arts, told us that we would soon find out which agencies each of us had been assigned to for our volunteer work, and several days later they e-mailed me that I would be working with an arts activity group at NYSARC, a local center for the mentally handicapped.  I had no experience working with mentally handicapped people, and questioned whether I would be able to help them in any way at all.  I decided to take this as a challenge try to teach the people at NYSARC to the best of my ability.

I’ll never forget the first day that I stepped into the room where “my” group were sitting with their kind staff leader, Andrea.  My palms were sweating as I smiled nervously and announced my name.  To my relief, I saw nothing but smiles from everyone as they immediately thanked me for coming to play games with them!  The people that I stood in front of ranged in age from 21 to my grandmother’s age.  The youngest stood up, called me over to be next to him, then kissed my hand and pulled out a chair for me.  When he pushed my chair in as I sat down, I knew that I was starting down a path toward an unexpected and wonderful adventure.

Watching the group play improvised acting games, speak monologues, and act out scenes together was an eye-opener.  Although they were dealing with conditions such as Down syndrome, they were high-functioning and “smart” in their own ways.  I was able to help plan out different acting games, and when I found out that many of them loved music, I told them I’d been singing and playing piano for years.  They were so excited when I brought in my keyboard for them to listen to, sing along with, and even learn some of the keys.  We enjoyed Broadway and Christmas sing-alongs together.

After many activities and hours spent together with the NYSARC group, I started to feel like a friend to them, and, more central to my FYP course, a part of the group as I discovered more about how they operated as a community.  They couldn’t wait to tell me about their interests and hobbies, which included Star Wars movies, tap dancing, and “Backstreet Boys” music.  One of the men in the group was passionate about watching the Donald Trump TV show “The Apprentice,” and would play jokes on me by laughing hysterically and imitating Trump by yelling “you’re fired, Kait!” when I walked into the room.  The group would laugh and tell him to stop joking because they loved having me there every week with them, and didn’t want me fired!

The learning regarding communities continued within my FYP classroom.  Some of my classmates had been working to help children from harsh backgrounds, while others had been working with people in nursing homes and other organizations such as local soup kitchens.  We talked about the difficulties we encountered in the communities in which we were volunteering.  There were people facing Alzheimer’s disease in the nursing home, families who depended on Meals on Wheels for some of their food supply, and many who depended on food from the soup kitchens.  We started to observe how each community dealt with the issues it faced, and although some agencies didn’t deal with certain issues well, many of us found it rewarding to see that others used support to get through hard times.  They gave to others in their community and tried to keep upbeat attitudes. 

We then explored notions of what actually makes up communities, large and small, throughout society.  We read plays, short stories, and poems to learn about ideas such as diversity within groups.  As classmates, we even continued our discussions outside of class and compared our own communities and the differences and similarities among them.  Throughout the projects and discussions, we learned that a community isn’t just a town or city; it can be a classroom, workplace, school, home, or arena like NYSARC.

It was during my last volunteer session at NYSARC that I learned one of the biggest lessons of my life: you can never stereotype anyone or any community.  When I walked into the room that day, the group had all signed a lovely thank-you card for me, and the youngest member had made me a card himself. On simple notebook paper, the front had pictures he had drawn of people on a stage on Broadway.  On the inside he had written out, “Dear Kait, thank you for bringing music into my life.  You’ll always be my ‘Broadway diva/prima Donna/graceful voice/fancy actress.’  Thank-you with love from my heart.”  My eyes welled with tears as I realized that all along, I hadn’t been teaching the group; they had been teaching me.  I plan on framing the plain but meaningful card.  It will be a reminder to me of the nature of the different types of communities I learned of through my FYP.  Most important, though, it will remind me of what I learned about myself.