Sara Melley ’23, M.A.’24 was appointed assistant director of Faith-Justice Institute at the end of last semester. Melley graduated from St. Joe’s with bachelor’s degrees in political science and psychology and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in public policy. During her undergraduate studies, Melley worked with the Faith-Justice Institute in the Service-Learning Program. The Hawk sat down with Melley to learn more about her new role.

The Hawk: How did you become involved with the Faith-Justice Institute?

Melley: At the end of last semester, I started working in Faith-Justice, where I worked with the Service-Learning Program all through undergrad as a service scholar. And now I’ve moved into a full time role in the office where I am the supervisor of the service scholars and the service-learning classes.

The Hawk: What are the responsibilities of your position?

Melley: My primary role is to supervise the service scholars, who are student employees within the Service-Learning Program. We have two sets of student employees: The placement liaisons, who work primarily with our community partner organizations, and our service scholars, who go into service learning classes and check in on the students, coordinate their service experience and facilitate social justice discussions within the classroom. So I get to oversee all of that and work really closely with each of our service scholars. My other main role is for [the] development of our student employees overall and more outreach on campus.

The Hawk: What has it been like to go from a student to an employee at St. Joe’s?

Melley: It’s definitely an interesting transition because I’m working with so many of the same people that I worked with as a student. They’re some of the best people on campus. It’s a real privilege to be able to continue working here. I always say, in my biased opinion, the service learning program is the best part of St. Joe’s, and it’s what really formed my St. Joe’s experience as a student and, thinking about the long term, how I want to use my degree. So I feel very lucky to be able to come back and work with everyone again. And it’s been really cool just to see everything from the other side of things.

The Hawk: Why is this role important to St. Joe’s?

Melley: I really think service-learning is a really underrated component of the St. Joe’s curriculum. One of my goals is to bring more awareness to the wider student population about service-learning because not every one even knows that it’s an option for classes, and I think it’s such a great way to combine a bunch of different St. Joe’s core values. I think it really creates a holistic learning experience that you don’t get from just staying in the classroom and learning about things theoretically.

The Hawk: What is your favorite part of the job?

Melley: Definitely working with all the students. It’s so much fun because so many of them were my coworkers and my peers and my friends when I was an undergrad, and so now getting to see them grow over the past few years, and now working with them. And this new capacity is just a really amazing opportunity.