How Citizen Schools inspired Sue to give back with Northeastern University students

Sue Freeman is Director of the First Year Engineering Program and Teaching Professor at Northeastern University. She is also a longtime Citizen Teacher in our Massachusetts campuses.

When Sue Freeman was in middle school, she loved math and according to her, that was definitely “weird”. But in recent years, she has seen many more students name it and science as their favorite subjects. Students in her classes don’t just want to be basketball players or dancers, but also mechanical or industrial engineers that design cars or invent robots. This was why Sue’s robotics apprenticeships were so popular with students--building and programming robots got even the rowdiest kids focused and engaged in scientific concepts. 

But the biggest key to success in Sue’s classes wasn’t the robots but the college students she brought in with her. It all began about 9 years ago when Sue was looking for a way to give back to her community with the unique skill set she had. 

“Citizen Schools was my start. So I went to the Service-Learning organization [at Northeastern] and said how do I get involved in something that I can do but that uses my skills? And when I met the person in charge of Service Learning, she said let me tell you about Citizen Schools. And so I looked up Citizen Schools and what it did, and I said that seems like a good fit. I then put it out to my class as a design project. First time, I think I got one group with four [college] kids.”

That first group of four students volunteered with Sue to teach our students at the Orchard Gardens K-8 School in Roxbury back in 2011, which was a huge success. Eventually, Sue alone couldn’t keep up with the demand on both sides--more organizations in the Greater Boston area wanted fun, hands-on learning experiences:

“In the Roxbury neighborhood where Orchard Gardens is, people heard about me. Yawkey Boys & Girls Club asked can you come do something with our Lego Robots? And then Yawkey told Blue Hill Boys & Girls Club and they wanted to work with me. Another person contacted me from the Timothy Smith Network about working with 29 different sites. So then I said to support you, I need more students who want to do this.”

And she had no problem finding them. In fact, more and more Northeastern students were eager to volunteer as mentors. Eventually, her students suggested starting a club, through which upperclassmen would coordinate groups of student volunteers and train freshman.

“There’s only one of me, so we had to figure out what was going to work. And so we started a club on campus called Roxbury Robotics, which supports my first year students. I call it layered leadership--these are mentors for my students because I can’t go to all the sites. I have upperclassmen called Lead Mentors, who work with my first year students to teach them how to work with the kids and how to do the p rogramming, etc. because I can’t do it at every site. [Roxbury Robotics] grows every year. It started little, it’s now 90-100 members. They’re supporting this in huge ways, it’s absolutely been fantastic.”

Citizen Schools is proud to have been the inspiration behind Sue’s service-learning legacy at Northeastern. Deeply embedded in the Boston community, clubs like Roxbury Robotics are the kinds of programs and initiatives we support through our Makers + Mentors Network.

Through the Makers + Mentors Network, we bring together 21 coalitions dedicated to STEM education, who not only receive support but also share best practices and lessons learned with each other. A community organizer in our Cincinnati, Ohio coalition may see the success from a STEM learning project a nonprofit director tried through the Pittsburgh coalition and try implementing it in his neighborhood. To help all students thrive in school and beyond, great ideas have to be shared, improved and tailored to fit a community’s needs as none looks the same as another.