The Sisters Incynch Club provides essential support for our diverse student population through a multicultural forum. Members design projects and programs that embrace diversity. The club arranges various social and cultural awareness activities, including educational trips and student-centered leadership programs sponsored by the Hudson Valley Student Senate. Our goals are to:

• Promote and provide friendly, informative and supportive services for students;
• Develop a systematic and integrated approach to student persistence in personal and professional success;
• Increase awareness of student support services, policies and campus events;
• Foster and promote student responsibility and involvement in his/her education;
• Promote the integration of pluralism within the college community;
• Develop and promote institutional programs and processes that embrace diversity;
• Increase the recruitment, retention, success and transfer of students from under-represented groups.

Katrina’s Closet Service Learning and Civic Responsibility
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Sisters Incynch traveled to Louisiana to assist in recovery efforts. When club members visited and interviewed the principals, teachers and students in the 9th ward who were forced to relocate to under served schools, they were inspired to find ways to assist economically challenged students and disconnected populations seeking career success in our own community. “Katrina’s Closet” was born from that inspiration, as a way for club members to provide a resource for gently worn career and professional clothing for women and men.

The Katrina’s Closet project promotes service learning in many ways, primarily by enhancing motivation and improving retention of academic skills by tying specific learning goals to community needs. Service learning is embedded in the experience through individual and collective responsibility in the management and operation of the project. In addition to learning how to apply classroom learning to a real-world context, Katrina’s outreach efforts seek to address the needs of various disadvantaged populations at Hudson Valley, as well as some of the real-life needs in their own communities throughout the Capital Region. Sisters Inc. members also have participated in bringing relief to national and global disaster situations such as Hurricane Katrina and the ongoing Haiti Relief Project.

Katrina’s Closet provides a compelling reason to learn, and an unobtrusive way to teach the skills of civic participation and to develop an ethic of service and civic responsibility.

Club Advisor: Tamu Chambers, FTZ 101, (518) 629-7431