The Northside Residential Fellowship seeks to bridge Northside residents and UNC undergraduate & graduate students together in a mutually beneficial relationship. Through intentional programming, students live, work, and play alongside new and long-term neighbors and build lasting relationships. We hope to create a space for UNC students to become active members of the Northside community and to re-establish a multigenerational neighborhood where all residents feel supported.
Program Details
Mission: The Northside Residential Fellowship (NRF) builds on the Jackson Center’s mission to honor, renew, and build community in Northside and UNC’s Partnerships in Aging Program’s (PiAP) mission to cultivate age-embracing people and communities.
How it works: The Jackson Center provides a cohort of UNC undergraduate, graduate, and professional students with quality housing in the Northside neighborhood. These students, as Northside Residential Fellows, are active participants in the Northside community, engaging in community events and service opportunities through the Jackson Center.
Vision: The NRF envisions a neighborhood where the history of Northside is honored and valued. We see a neighborhood where every age is celebrated and supported and where elderhood is viewed as a time for continued adaptation, growth, and contribution.
NRF Experience
The Northside Residential Fellowship brings like-minded UNC undergraduate and graduate/professional students together in intentional community. While NRF Fellows have different academic backgrounds, their interests and values complement each other. Throughout the year-long fellowship, students:
- build relationships with other fellows
- create friendships with neighbors, both young and old
- participate in community-wide events
- engage in life in Northside
Background
To understand the importance of participating in this fellowship, we’d like to tell you about the history of the area. Northside is a historically Black neighborhood in Chapel Hill whose residents, many of whom have lived in Northside for multiple generations, live and die by the mandate to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” However, in recent years, Northside has experienced “studentification” marked by a shift from a predominance of single-family owned homes to a predominance of rental properties shared by college students. This process has disrupted the sense of community in Northside. Residents express seeing a changing neighborhood that is not “for them,” one in which social integration and community engagement are threatened.
The Northside Residential Fellowship is a program the community has envisioned for years. It is an opportunity for UNC undergraduate and graduate/professional students to honor, renew, and build community while in Northside. Through program activities, students will live, work, and play alongside new and long-term neighbors and have the opportunity to build lasting relationships. The ideal student would desire to learn by listening to stories from Northside neighbors, to see the same faces and share a smile of love: a smile that says “I’m glad to see you.” Through these experiences, Northside will soon begin to feel like home. As one life-long resident said: “Whenever I came back to the neighborhood and was walking down the street and I saw my house, I felt security. I saw a family. I saw my whole life.”
Philosophy
Place Attachment: The emotional bond between person and place. Place attachment motivates people to be more involved in community. By providing opportunities to interact with neighbors, we hope Northside begins to feel like home.
Community Attachment: The emotional and personal bonds that tie individuals with a community group. Community attachment creates feelings of belonging to the community. We have intentionally designed the fellowship to create community attachment. We want you to feel integrated into this community.
Aging in Community: Building vital community that engages people of all ages and abilities in a shared, ongoing effort to advance the common good. Aging in community creates social interaction, meaning, and purpose for its community members. By encouraging relationship building across generations, this program promotes aging in community. We want you to realize the contributions of everyone in your community.
Abundance-Based Community: An approach to community that focuses on the tangible and intangible strengths in a community, an abundance-based community is generous, hospitable, and interdependent. To maintain this approach, we must build and honor, learn and enjoy, and support and facilitate community members in action. As a fellow, you will participate in abundance-based community action.
Values
We are a community. We are a group of people living together within a greater society. We actively participate in the community. We take the time to learn about each other, our neighborhood, and our neighbors. This is not just where we live, but who we are.
We are inclusive. We are inclusive of each other and of all people, regardless of age, race, gender, sexual identity, or ability. We welcome and invite all who are willing to engage. We desire to meet people across generations and backgrounds.
We are respectful. We value how we are all different and welcome diverse opinions. We truly listen to other’s points of view. We consider each other’s needs and feelings.
We believe in reciprocity. We help others who help us and teach those that teach us. We understand that relationships have many sides and will act to create mutual bonds. We are here for our neighbors and our neighbors are here for us.
We recognize balance. We understand our commitment to the fellowship and to academia. We will commit to creating equilibrium between these two pillars. When we feel overwhelmed, we communicate our feelings and find a way to restructure our priorities. We do not allow one thing to dominate our life.
