The Rochester Review, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, USA

Meliorist

JENNIFER ROMANO '95,
CO-FOUNDER, COMMUNITY SERVICE NETWORK

Romano

In 1993, Jennifer Romano helped found the Community Service Network, an organization run by undergraduates of the College to provide information on volunteer opportunities in the Rochester metropolitan area. Over the past academic year, she worked in the Office of the Dean of Students as the advisor to the organization. Her job, she says, was to "guide and assist the students involved with this program. There's a student board as well as student coordinators who organize events and community-service activities. My role has been to help with any problems that come up."

Off campus, Romano worked for the Rochester Toy Library, a nonprofit agency run by the Society for the Protection and Care of Children. About 800 inner-city children visit the library each month to play with any of the 5,000 toys available there free of charge.

Here's a look at a young alumna who has made a difference in undergraduate life in the College and in the lives of many individuals in the Rochester community.

Hometown: Cherry Hill, N.J.

Family: In February, she married David Canning '95, who
was in NROTC as an undergraduate and took part in the Take Five program for 1995­96. (Take Five students remain at Rochester for a fifth year, tuition free, to broaden their academic scope by studying subjects unrelated to their majors.) He's now in nuclear-power school in the Navy. The couple lives in Albany, N.Y.

As an undergraduate: Romano graduated with dual degrees in math and statistics. For three of her undergraduate years, she lived in Tiernan, a special-interest dorm devoted to community service. After graduation, during the 1995-96 academic year, she participated in the Take Five program, studying contemporary social issues.

Why she chose Rochester: "When I was looking at colleges, I stayed in Tiernan as a pre-frosh. The idea of a community-service dorm really appealed to me and had a big influence on why I came to the University."

Most memorable individual she met at the University: "Jody Asbury was a great influence during my undergraduate years," she says. "My sophomore year, when we were trying to start the Community Service Network, she gave us the financial and emotional support to get it up and running." (Asbury, who holds a doctorate in education from the Warner School, was associate dean of students and is now interim director of the Interfaith Chapel.)

Why she believes in community service: "I really enjoy volunteering. It's fun to do--and in this day and age, it's a necessary part of our society, because there doesn't seem to be enough money to go around. Nonprofit organizations do so much, in so many different ways, for people who are in need, but they are always under-staffed and under-funded. They need help to continue their work."

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