Page 40 - BusinessWest October 27, 2021

the house can be used for fitness and recreation programs.
The Center for Leadership and Civic Engagement is perhaps the most visible manifestation of a 20-year stint at Springfield College that has been spent developing high-impact programs that seek to foster connections between
the college and the community while working collaboratively with partners to identify and serve their needs.
Elvers told BusinessWest this is very rewarding work, and one of the biggest rewards is seeing how this involvement with those in the neighborhood prompts students to ask poignant questions about what they see and hear — and start to develop the resolve to
help answer them.
“It’s great to have one foot solidly on
this campus and another foot solidly
in the community to bridge those two organizations,” she told BusinessWest. “It is great when college students really see things from a different perspective, when they develop relationships with people who come from a different place than they came from.
“I see them really begin to gain
a broader a broader understanding
of some of the social issues that are happening, and that’s when they begin to ask questions,” she went on. “They ask, ‘how did this happen? How did we end up here? Why are we in
a neighborhood where there isn’t a
grocery store?’”
Through her work to build these
bridges between the college and the community, and through her efforts to inspire those kinds of questions from students, Elvers has clearly shown she is a true Woman of Impact.
School of Thought
Elvers, who has spent her entire career in higher education, came to Springfield College after a stint at Mount Holyoke College as director of Student Activities. In that capacity, her work drew her increasingly toward helping students connect with — and serve in — the communities they call
home.
She summed up her career, and her
time at Springfield College, this way. “While I have taught in a classroom from time to time, mainly my teaching is outside the classroom, and it comes through facilitating experiences for students to enhance their educational experience as well as to develop them into leaders.”
This passion, and it can only be called that, has been taken to new and higher levels at Springfield College, where, for more than a decade, Elvers oversaw the school’s annual Humanics in Action Day, which provided direct service throughout the community, and also transformed it — from a day of service to ongoing grants and support for individuals and groups wishing to
“There has to be more that we can do to come together as a college and a local community and work together to make this neighborhood everything it can be and everything we want it to be.”
partner and serve with community organizations.
She also succeeded in building upon several existing programs, including a mentoring initiative, called the Partners Program, that has linked students at the college with young students at DeBerry and Brookings elementary schools for nearly three decades now.
“We have 80 pairs of mentors between the two schools,” she said, adding that the college has worked extensively with those elementary schools as well with organizations combating some of the long-standing issues in those neighborhoods, including food insecurity, homelessness, and others.
It was through these initiatives that Elvers came to understand that the college could, and should, take its involvement to a higher plane.
“Over the years, and from just getting to know a number of the families from the DeBerry school and the Brookings school, I began to realize that, in these two neighborhoods, there were a lot
of families that had great ideas and things they wanted to see in their neighborhoods that weren’t there. And I began to wonder if there were ways to connect our students and facility and
Elvers
Continued on page 59
REMARKABLE.
JUST REMARKABLE.
MBK is proud to support Women Of Impact.
Congratulations to all the winners.
Women of of IMPACT
IMPACT
330 Whitney Avenue | Suite 800 | Holyoke, MA 01040 | 413-536-8510 | mbkcpa.com
413-536-8510 | mbkcpa.com
A PROGRAM OF BUSINESSWEST
40 OCTOBER 27, 2021
Women of IMPACT IMPACT A PROGRAM OF BUSINESSWEST
Women
Women of
A PROGRAM OF BUSINESSWEST
WOMEN
BusinessWest