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April 13, 2000

Johnstown sociology professor helps to link people, information

At the Johnstown campus, a sociology professor is emphasizing the outreach in the Office of Community Outreach.

Jon Darling, professor of sociology and director of the office, helped found the Civic Action Network (CAN), a regional community project designed to link people and information through computer technology and social interaction.

Darling acknowledged he's sometimes critical of the profession of sociology "for its relative lack of having the 'rubber meet the road'; that is, for focusing almost all its attention on matters that mean a great deal to academics — and only to academics — and very little on what matters to people."

The Civic Action Network represents a kind of applied sociology, Darling said. "For people on the wrong side of the 'digital divide,' in an area still officially classified by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as economically distressed, CAN gives people a way to provide valuable free community service where it is actually needed," he said.

The network has established two free public computer labs/training centers: the Civic Responsibility Center located in the Cambria County Central Park Complex and the Community Resource Center in the NORCAM Building in Northern Cambria Borough. Computer classes also are offered at the Murtha Education Center on the Johnstown campus as part of the project.

In addition to providing access to the Internet and the World Wide Web, the centers provide free non-credit user-support classes.

Prior to the lab operating as a public access site, it was used as a site for collecting user definitions and beta testing feedback as part of the CAN database design. that stage involved 500 people in 45 focus group sessions, Darling said.

More than 300 people — representing some 2,200 hours of computer-related activity — used the service at the Central Park Complex facility since last June, he said. More than 100 others have taken one of the free introduction to the Internet sessions held at the community lab.

The network's Web site (www.civicaction.org) includes a community calendar, a volunteer matching service, Yellow Pages (with regional listings for arts, business, child care, clubs and groups, health and human services, public safety, and recreation) and a community services listing.

Start-up funds for CAN were provided by a 1997-98 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's Link-to-Learn program. The $150,000 infrastructure investment award was augmented by equipment and matching funds from three principal partners, the Greater Johnstown School District, the Concurrent Technologies Corporation and the Pitt-Johnstown Office of Community Outreach.

CAN also is supported by contributions from community institutions, including area hospitals and health providers, Cambria County government and area businesses.

The network's database, launched last fall, is administered by the United Way of the Laurel Highlands, Inc., the Greater Johnstown Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Cambria County Family Center.

Intended as a community information system serving Cambria County, the network is expected to grow as resources allow to serve Bedford, Blair, Centre, Clearfield, Fulton, Huntingdon, Indiana, Somerset and Westmoreland counties, Darling said.

The sociology professor said CAN has curricular implications for his courses in addition to furthering the University's mission of community service.

"My involvement in the Civic Action Network has already increased my knowledge of, and contact in, the community, despite living here for 23 years. This has been translated into an increased capacity to support academic service-learning and curriculum-relevant internship options in my own courses."

Darling cited a student intern in the Office of Community Outreach as an example of how outreach activities and education go together. Patty Wharton, who completed her degree in communications at Johnstown last December, helped establish the Civic Action Network, he said.

In addition to creating publicity materials and updating the list of public access sites, Wharton researched Internet sites that focus on volunteering in the Cambria County area. She wrote a description of each site and then built up CAN's volunteer organizations database. She also developed a workshop to assist users of the database in navigating the Internet and using various software packages.

Beginning last summer, Wharton did her major internship at the Central Park Complex lab. She developed a course, The Internet for Parents, marketed it and taught it last summer and fall. The course became her senior project. "This experience was definitely applying what I learned in classes," Wharton said. "What I learned in public speaking classes, for example, helped me teach the Internet course. What I learned in interpersonal communication classes helped me deal one-on-one with adult students."

Wharton said that even though almost all the lab's customers knew little or nothing about computers, as many as 90 percent of those who took her Internet training classes now use the technology regularly.

Wharton, who plans to earn a Ph.D. in communications, added that graduate schools she's applied to seem impressed with her hands-on experience.

Darling said plans for CAN include the development of an academic internship opportunities database on the network.

"These efforts would recognize the reciprocal nature of teaching and learning by supporting the ability of faculty and students to integrate teaching, research and service with off-campus learning opportunities," he said. "We can cultivate new internships, academic service-learning activities, community partnerships and other innovative campus/community programs for further enriching the curriculum and developing the link between academic study and community experiences."

Darling, who was awarded a Chancellor's Distinguished Public Service Award in 1996, is a founder and past president of the American Association for Humanist Sociology, which was established in 1977.

From 1994 to 1996, he served as director of the Cambria Coalition Project, a community coalition-building project funded by the U.S. Department of Justice and forerunner of the Civic Action Network project.

–Peter Hart


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