Fielding the Call

At Trinity, Meredith Goshell ’18  spent her senior year of work study helping countless San Antonio women and children escape the terrors of domestic violence.

Goshell, a communication major, worked for San Antonio’s Battered Women and Children Shelter (BWCS) as part of Trinity’s community-based Federal Work-Study program. At the BWCS—part of parent nonprofit Family Violence and Prevention Services, Inc.—Goshell got a first-hand look at how her communication skills can do good on a human level.

“These women calling in, they can feel tossed around, transferred around,” says Goshell, who helped callers find the services they needed at the shelter. “When someone is sobbing over the phone, sometimes they just need someone to talk to, someone who will talk to them like they’re human beings.”

The BWCS, which shelters about 160 women and family members every night, also provides schooling, counseling, and other support services to victims of domestic abuse. This nonprofit, according to Trinity assistant director of Experiential Learning Scott Brown, was one of a handful of nonprofits that Trinity’s community-based Federal Work-Study program partnered with as part of a pilot program in spring 2018.

“This program gives students a chance to get real-world experience, and it isn’t just an internship,” Brown says. “Students are able to apply their knowledge and skills learned at Trinity to nonprofit organizations in the San Antonio community.”

Through this innovative take on work study, Tigers can work with the University to use federal funding for work study at off-campus partners, such as Goshell did with the BWCS. Students just have to apply through the Trinity’s Center for Experiential Learning and Career Success, and if accepted, then undertake a matching process with one of Trinity’s many non-profit partners in the San Antonio community.

Brown, along with Glendi Gaddis, assistant vice president for Student Financial Services, Christina Pikla, associate director for Student Financial Services, and Jennifer Adamo, director of Risk Management and Insurance, has spearheaded the development of Trinity’s community-based Federal Work-Study program over the past year, with big plans for the program’s future. In spring 2018, the program saw Trinity students partner with the BWCS, San Antonio Youth Literacy, KIPP Academy, and Multi-Level Youth Educational Outreach.

“This fall, we’re expanding that group of partners to 15 or 20,” Brown adds.

These work-study positions, Goshell explains, don’t always have to correspond exactly to a student’s field of study.

“I don’t want to go into clinical or counseling services,” she says. “So, at the BWCS, I was able to study how a nonprofit works, file reports, work with data—you know, really go behind-the-scenes.”

Cortnee Wright, who works for Family Violence Prevention Services, Inc., was Goshell’s manager at the BWCS.

“Meredith really treated her time here like a job,” Wright explains. “She was kind and empathetic to the ladies and kiddos that were coming in for services, she didn’t get flustered, and that’s really important when we’re serving people in crisis; they don’t want to come in and see our front desk in crisis as well.”

One lady who Goshell befriended at the shelter even started making treats for her and the rest of the staff.

“This woman was just the sweetest person,” Goshell says. “And once we’d started working with her, talking to her, she really opened up to us.”

While Goshell will start her professional career at a New York marketing and advertising firm this fall, Wright says she’s looking forward to working with more Trinity students this coming semester.

“I think Trinity’s Federal Work-Study program is a great partnership,” Wright says. “The program helps students understand what’s going on in the community—not just for work experience, but for life experience, too. It takes a very special person to be able to work in the services that we provide, because this can be very heavy.”

“We need mature, competent students,” Wright adds, “and Trinity provides that degree of student.”

And for students such as Goshell, the work-study position ultimately provides another experiential benefit:

“When you get to your first job interview, you can talk about your classes as much as you want, but what employers want to see is your experience,” Goshell says. “They’ll ask you, ‘What have you done in the real world?’ And you can tell them, ‘well, this is what I did at my job, and this is what an actual client said back to me.’”