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When Beth Lanigan Chapin ’80 left a career in advertising to spend more time with her family, she wanted to volunteer with a group that involved art and education. She found Learning Leaders.
In its 50th year, Learning Leaders recruits, trains, and supports approximately 15,000 school volunteers who work with more than 219,000 students in 937 New York City public schools.
“About 70 percent of the people we train are parents of the kids in the public schools,” explains Chapin. “The other 30 percent are community volunteers, like myself, who don’t have kids in the public schools but still volunteer.”
Chapin is a trustee for the 50-year-old program, which operates in New York City public schools, and chairs the organization’s Marketing and Communications Committee. An English graduate who minored in art, she also volunteers in Learning Leaders’ Art Works.
In the six-week program, Chapin teaches third-grade classes about art and art history. Each week, she uses a slide show to instruct pupils about a different topic, such as architecture, sculpture, painting, and decorative art. In the fifth week, she takes the children to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, returning to the classroom in the final week to summarize the material.
“Some of these kids have not been exposed to art because budget issues forced schools to stop teaching it,” Chapin says. “Art is such a window to a different world for these children. It’s a time within a very active day that there’s an opportunity to think about something totally different and it’s a wonderful thing to share with them. Honestly, I think I get more out of it than they do.”
In addition to her work in the classroom, Chapin has a great deal of responsibility as a trustee.
“Learning Leaders has never had a trustee position for marketing,” she notes. “We’re about to launch our first advertising campaign in September. In addition to getting involved in the classroom, I get to use my advertising experience and help the organization develop more of a marketing focus.”
The goal of the campaign is to solicit funding for Learning Leaders. Chapin says that in addition to academics, she learned many skills at Lafayette that have helped in her career and work with Learning Leaders.
“I loved Lafayette,” she says. “I got involved in everything I wanted to. I wrote and did art work for the campus newspaper. I was a resident adviser, which prepared me for everything I did after in regard to handling people, situation management, and other responsibilities. In hindsight, I’m so glad I majored in English because it was a broad-based opportunity to become a good writer and communicator. I enjoyed my time at Lafayette.”