Meet the 2014-2015 VISTA Cohort!

North Carolina Campus Compact's 2014-2015 AmeriCorps VISTA cohort has started off their year
of service with lots of learning!

VISTA Breakout-session

To kick-off their year, all 15 of our new VISTAs attended the VISTA member Pre-Service Orientation (PSO) in Atlanta, GA for four days starting August 4. They discussed causes of poverty, how to make heads-or-tails of their VADS, and met VISTAs from across the country. On August 6, the Compact's VISTA Leader Carla Davis led an evening session where the new members had the chance to gather as a group for the first time (but certainly not the last)! The cohort discussed what knowledge, skills, and attitudes they need to be successful in their year of service, and all of the resources that North Carolina Campus Compact and our Host Sites provide, to ensure VISTA success.

VISTAs get the chance to discuss
project goals with Supervisors

While PSO brought together new VISTA members from projects throughout the Southeast, NC Campus Compact held our own Orientation just for our VISTAs and their Supervisors. This was the first time supervisors and VISTAs in their second year of service joined the incoming VISTA group, and there was lots of energy in the room as we learned about communication styles, MBTI's from Allan Mueller of Guilford College, and went over the Nuts & Bolts of the NC Campus Compact VISTA program. After lunch, we broke out into two groups, one for VISTAs and one with Supervisors, to have smaller conversations about the coming year.

The VISTAs brainstormed up a VISTA Survival Guide, and the five returning VISTAs shared lessons-learned in their first year, which, if we had to boil it down to one word would be: COMMUNICATION. The Supervisor breakout session allowed supervisors from different projects to discuss expectations of both the VISTAs and the project.

The day ended with supervisors and VISTAs alike eager to return to their projects and get started!

Now that they have had the chance to settle in to their new service positions, we would like to introduce you!

2014-2015 VISTA Cohort with Supervisors sporting the VISTA "V"!

To meet each of our new VISTAs, and our five returning VISTAs, head on over to our VISTA Annex, where each of them has shared a short biography. To read each project description, check out our recent post outlining all 20 of them!

Wish them luck as they traverse their NC Campus Compact AmeriCorps VISTA year!

2013-14 VISTA Orientation

Each year North Carolina Campus Compact invites new VISTAs and their supervisors to join us to share ideas, get to know one another and us, and learn about what it means to be a NC Campus Compact VISTA. On Friday, August 16, seventeen VISTAs, their supervisors, and their community partners met at Elon University for NC Campus Compact VISTA Orientation.

To kick off the day and break the ice the group got to arrange themselves as though the room was a map of North Carolina. Groups introduced themselves and talked briefly about their projects. The group also participated in an Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator session led by NC Campus Compact Executive Director, Dr. Lisa Keyne and discussed different ways they can work together and use differences in their type preferences as strengths rather than challenges to overcome.

Dalton Hoffer and Aubrey Swett talk VADs.

In the afternoon Mary Morrison, Assistant Dean of Students and Director of the Kernodle Center for Service Learning and Community Engagement joined the group to lead a session on Making Campus and Community Partnerships Work. Afterwards, during breakout sessions returning VISTAs Takira Dale (Duke), Christina D'Aulerio (Queens), Marion Hudson (ECSU), and Ariel Mitchell (LRU) moderated conversations with the new cohorts about case studies and professional expectations. They also shared their knowledge about everyday life as an NC Campus Compact VISTA and how to live on the VISTA stipend.