Helping students, helping communities: An interview with Wayne Meisel

Wayne Meisel is the president of The Corella and Bertram F. Bonner Foundation, a non-profit organization he’s helped guide since 1989 – much to his surprise. “I took the job at age 29 and thought I might lead the foundation for a couple of years,” he explained. “Anything longer than that, I thought, was just way over the top.”

What’s kept Meisel at the foundation and motivated are the successes of the Bonner Scholars Program, the Bonner Leader Program and the Crisis Ministry Program. According to the Bonner Foundation web site, the foundation has provided more than $9.5 million in grants to thousands of religious, community-based hunger relief programs across the country in the last 11 years and has awarded more than $12 million in scholarship support to more than 2,500 students at 27 colleges.

The son of a Presbyterian Church (USA) minister, Meisel met the Bonners through Nassau Presbyterian Church in Princeton, N.J., where his father was serving as pastor and they were parishioners.

“They took a real interest in me,” he said of the couple.

And they had reason.

Meisel, who had overcome struggles with dyslexia as an adolescent and gone on to not only enroll at Harvard University but graduate cum laude with a bachelor of arts degree in government, had shown an extraordinary passion for service and social justice as a young man. Awarded a John Finley Traveling Fellowship in 1982, he walked from Maine to Washington, D.C., visiting some 70 colleges and universities along the way to champion student and campus involvement in community service.

One year after his graduation from Harvard, he founded the internationally known Campus Outreach Opportunity League (COOL), a platform for students and graduates to lead, sustain and challenge their peers to serve others and bring about positive change.

So when the Bonners approached Meisel about overseeing their young foundation that would focus on hunger and education, he listened.

And envisioned.

Creating a model program

The Bonner Foundation was already operating a crisis ministry program for the hungry, but Meisel wanted to expand the non-profit’s scope. Seeing huge promise in college students, he proposed the Bonner Scholars Program, an initiative that would provide scholarships to students in exchange for hours given in community service.

“I consider myself something of a community artist,” Meisel explained. “I like to take what’s already around and try to build something better. With the Bonner Scholars, I saw a real variety of challenges and opportunities within the same program.

“Society had an idea of what it meant for college students to do community service – things like all-night dance-a-thons and opportunities to join a Big Brother/Big Sister program,” he added, explaining that the foundation’s vision was geared toward making a larger, more long-term impact. “And in the beginning, people didn’t think it could be as bold as it has been.”

Specifically targeting students of limited financial means, the scholarships, he proposed, would make college affordable to young people, thereby fulfilling the foundation’s mission of serving the underprivileged. And focusing on college students in the Appalachian region would please Mrs. Bonner, a native of Eagen, Tenn. “We started at Berea College,” Meisel said. “Then we said, let’s look around the area. We ended up including 11 colleges and universities in that first round of proposals.”

Maryville was among that first group asked to participate. Meisel was vaguely familiar with MC, having traveled to campus with Earl Rash, who led a February Meetings in the mid 1980s. Other than its location in Appalachia, the College fit two other criteria: It demonstrated a commitment to making a difference in its community and region; and fiscally and curricularly, it operated from a point of strength.

From the beginning, the Bonner Scholars Program has been dedicated to providing students access to education and an opportunity to serve, but it has also been interested in how it impacts campus cultures and surrounding communities.

Over time, it has become a nationally recognized service-scholarship model.

Giving students the tools and opportunities to learn servant-leader concepts and providing support and resources to faculty and Bonner coordinators to build the infrastructure to create and sustain a “culture of service,” the Bonner Scholars Program was designed to remind participating schools (most of which were liberal arts colleges) of their institutional missions and in doing so, have a significant impact in the community.

 “It is a goal of the Bonner Scholars Program for [the college or university] to be a telling presence in the community, fully engaged in the community,” Meisel said. “We’re not just sending forth an army of volunteers, students are not just ‘showing up.’ Instead, what we have is a thoughtful strategy of service.”

Assessing MC’s program

Making his annual tour of the 27 Bonner Scholar schools last fall, Meisel said he is and has been pleased with the program at Maryville. “It’s a strong Bonner program that we’re proud of,” he said. “In some respects, the story of the Bonner Scholars Program at Maryville College is the story of the Bonner Scholars Program in general. Sort of like a bellwether, we’ve asked ‘How’s Maryville doing?’ when considering how the Bonner program is doing at other schools.”

Although they are linked by common requirements and a clear mission, Bonner Scholars Programs vary from school to school and have their own kinds of successes, Meisel said. Learning best practices from the various Bonner schools, the foundation is able to “raise the bar” in expectations and outcomes.

One area where MC is paving the way for other Bonner Scholars Programs is in international service, Meisel said. Groups of MC Bonners have completed service projects abroad, but individual Bonners have traveled also to China, Thailand and Ireland during the summer to volunteer with non-profits and missions.

“In the area of international service, Maryville College is providing real leadership, making it work and not just be ‘volunteer tourism.’ The students here have arranged trips and service that make sense.”

Another affirmation of the success of the MC program can be seen in its leadership, Meisel pointed out. Jennifer Cummings West ’95, a Bonner Scholar from that very first class, came back to work with the College’s program in 1996 and stayed for nine years. Her successor, Preston Fields ’03, also a Bonner alumnus, has coordinated it since 2005.

Stories of Bonner alumni often make it back to Sheldon House, the foundation’s headquarters in Princeton. From those stories, Meisel and other foundation officials are assured that the program’s goals are being met. “We hear of several Bonners who’ve made service a life commitment or at least a significant part of their life,” he said. “Nothing is more affirming.”