USD President's Report 2003

ELAINE ELLIOTT direc tor , usd center for community se rv ice-learning

context of the civil war often meant taking one step forward , two steps back." Some might be frustrated by that reality, but Elliott measures success in a different way. "You don't stop working for good because you don 't succeed or because you suffer," she says. "Sometimes there's value in losing. You discover humili ty in your approach to tl1e world , and you identify with people who are suffering and the problems th ey face. " That's the lesson Elliott imparts every day through USD 's nati ona.lly recognized Conmmnity Service-Learning program , where she started as an administrative assistant nearly 10 years ago and worked her way up to the director's position in 2002. "The U.S. bishops have sa.id there are four points or essential characteristics of a Catholi c university, and servi ce is one of them," Elliott says. "Service is fundamental to the mission of USD , and th ere is a treasury of great Catholic teach.ings and principles that comes from faith about how we, as a Catholic university, should make the world look. Those are the principles we're trying to teach to our students." As she moves among th e countless community groups that need assistance - such as shelters for the homeless, migrant outreach organizations and San Diego 's Juvenile Ha.ll - Elliott watches for the chance to pair faculty and their classes with relevant servi ce projects. "l help students who are coming to terms with tl1eir own values see the world in new ways," she says, noting mat extensive co- curricular opportunities and more th an 100 courses at USO incorporate service-learning. "My j ob is to show students how to live a life in which at least some of their time is dedicated to improving the lives of others. I teach th em to listen to what th eir values tell th em about their responsibilities in th e world."

"My ch.ildhood set me in a different direction,·• says Elli ott, director of USD 's Center fo r Community Service-Learning, whi ch creates volunteer partn ersh.ips between the university and the community. '' In th e village where l lived, people were barely survi ving. Then we'd visit relatives in the United States and f'd see the contrast between the two worlds. It made me want to build a more just society and to make things more fair. " During the first part of her adult life, Elliott worked directly to improve the lives of those less fortun ate. N ow she's training oth ers to follow in her fo otsteps. "You can do so much good in th e world, no matter what you do, if you keep your values in mind ," he ays. " It's just a matter of thinking about how you can make a contributi on.' Elli ott thought long and hard about what kind of contribu- tion she wo uld makt:: when she returned to tl1 e United States at age 14. In college she met her future husband, Stephen, an American who grew up in Guatenu la. When th e pair traveled to Guatemala for a visit, Elliott knew she'd found the place to make her contributi on. ln 1978 the couple created a nonprofit organization , the lxil Fund, to support bilingual education, health care and business for th e !xii , indigenous Mayan people of Guatemala who, since the conquest of the country by Spain more than 500 years ago, have lived an impoverished and oppressed existence. The fun d also helped th e Elliotts, both evangeli cal Christi ans, work with the !xii people on educational, economic and spiritual development. Elli ott spent 15 years in Guatemala, mu ch of the time in th e midst of th e country's genocidal civil war, which ca used the deaths of more than 200,000 people and the displacement of a milli on mo re. As the chaos and vi olence escalated, she felt compelled to take th eir three children back to the United States. "We didn 't wa nt to leave, but we needed to," says Elliott, who saw almost two dozen fri ends di e. " It was hard , beca use although we felt that we made progress, working in the