Gustavus Adolphus College

Student Organizations

Education Majors are very active on campus and within student organizations.

Gustavus education students are leaders in community service learning projects and are often sponsored by the Student Educators’ Association (SEA), Kappa Delta Pi National Honor Society (KDP), the Chicano-Latino Youth Leadership Institute (ChYLI), and the National Youth Sports Program (NYSP), as well as campus-wide activity sponsoring by the Community Service Center and the Diversity Center. The Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) has provided funding to and continued support of the innovative community service programming generated by Gustavus faculty and students.

Student Educator's Association (SEA)
The SEA provides many opportunities outside the Department of Education for students wishing to complete a teacher education program. These opportunities include teacher panels, speakers from other colleges and universities, faculty forums from area school districts, and a host of other activities.

Membership is encouraged for all teacher education students and the officers and board members of SEA invite you to become an active member. Monthly meetings and workshops are given throughout the year preceded by a membership drive and banquet in the fall. There is a minimal membership fee.

Kappa Delta Pi (KDP)
KDP is a national honorary organization with an active chapter at Gustavus. Teacher education students with strong academic performance, records of leadership, and an ethic of service are nominated for membership. At Gustavus, KDP is a subset of SEA.

MERGE
MERGE is a student initiated and lead group with a mission to offer social and other activities to mentor first and second year education students and give them opportunities to know education faculty, staff and students. They offer answers to many questions from student's prospective and support through the selective admission process and other education milestones.

ChYLI
Chicano-Latino Youth Leadership Institute (ChYLI) provides services directly to Latino high school students from area schools. Goals include increasing school connectedness among students, increase involvement of Chicano-Latino parents, and to help youth connect with alternative resources to complete their education.

ChYLI uses several key strategies and intentional outreach approaches to serve youth. Every year students are recruited and selected to be part of the program through an application process. They being their journey with ChYLI by participating in the annual ChYLI Service Conference. Following the conference, students return to their communities with strong commitment to better their school, community and themselves. ChYLI staff then provides an eight-week follow-up program during school and/or after-school. Sessions include communication skills, importance of education, personal values, goal-setting and decision-making, family or parent involvement, confronting cultural barriers and developing allies in school, post-secondary options, college visits and civic responsibility.

NYSP
National Youth Sports Program (NYSP) is a day camp held in July for low income youth living in a 50 radius around St. Peter. Approximately 150 campers, ages 10-16, are bussed to Gustavus for three weeks to participate in a mixture of sports and academic programs including swimming, aerobics, volleyball, soccer, yoga, tennis, basketball, art, dance, computers, science, math or reading. Many education majors have participated as group leaders and teachers.