Faces of Michigan
Name: Jaimie Philip
Year: Class of 2008
Field: Sociology; College of Literature, Science, and the Arts
Home: Michigan
Involvement in the Michigan Community Scholars Program has defined much of Jaimie Philip’s college career. MCSP, one of several Michigan Living Learning Communities at the University of Michigan, is designed to unite students and faculty who share a commitment to community service, social justice, and academic study. Jaimie has embodied all of these ideals throughout her time at Michigan.
Unique in her talent to create cohesion among a group of racially and ethnically diverse individuals, Jaimie spent her first three years working within the student leadership ranks of MCSP. She has served as a Peer Advisor for MCSP’s Programming Board, which presents public events relating to community service, the arts, culture, education, and entertainment. Jaimie also has filled the role of Peer Orientation Leader for domestic and international MCSP students, and currently, serves as an MCSP Resident Advisor.
In addition to Jaimie’s MCSP activities, she also has filled critical roles within SERVE, an umbrella organization that facilitates the work of several service-learning organizations on campus. Beginning her sophomore year, Jaimie was a participant in Alternative Spring Break, traveling to Toronto to spend her spring break volunteering in a refugee center for women and children. The following year, she was the site-leader for an Alternative Spring Break trip to New Orleans. Her current SERVE position allows her to develop sites for Alternative Weekends, through which she provides opportunities for students to spend weekends volunteering at locations relating to homelessness, immigration issues, and youth and education issues around Michigan.
Jaimie has also utilized the summer months to further her goal of “creating a world in which communities are built both locally and internationally with the prevailing notion that the problems of one person are the problems of all people.” In Summer 2007, she spent a month in Costa Rica as a participant in U-M’s Global Intercultural Experience for Undergraduates (GIEU), working with Reto Juvenil Internacional, an NGO that works to improve rural areas in Costa Rica and other parts of Central America. In previous summers, Jaimie has worked as a LeaderShape participant, as well as in an internship for AmeriCorps, focusing on at-risk youth in the Downriver region of southeastern Michigan.
According to Jaimie, diversity-related work appeals to her because, “It allows people to celebrate differences in the history and culture of others, rather than fear it. (Diversity-related work) stimulates awareness that allows you to see the potential of humanity through exposure to different perspectives.”
By Scott Roffman, Communications Intern, Media Relations & Public Affairs