The Best Measurement: Measure in Love, Measure in Life.

21 November 2009

As a young girl, my family took me to the Broadway opening of “RENT” three different times. RENT, a now-cult-classic, is a musical performance that dynamically explores topics of sexuality, gender, disease, art and activism at the turn of the millennium in New York. The hit song, “Seasons of Love,” was a song my mother and I would sing from a tape she had recorded and played ad nauseum in her glaringly red, Pontiac Firebird. The chorus went like this:

“525,600 minutes, 525,000 moments so dear.
525,600 minutes - how do you measure, measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee.
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.
In 525,600 minutes - how do you measure a year in the life?
How about love? How about love?
How about love? Measure in love.
Seasons of love.”

Measurement is ever-present in the work we do. As we work our way through November, two CLP Board Members, Rachel Meeker and Sydney Craft, are in the throes of Clinton Global Initiative University applications. CLP has been represented at CGIU the passed two years (2008 a nd 2009) with a special invitation to attend this Spring (2010). CGIU is a non-partisan effort developed by former President Clinton in 2005 as a call to action for college students and universities to tackle global problems with collaborative and innovative solutions. CLP was awarded on-stage in 2009 as an “exemplary approach to addressing a specific global challenge.” This was followed by our being awarded $4,000 by the Pat Tillman Foundation as an Outstanding Commitment Award.

One key question in a CGIU application is the organization's quantitative, measurable benchmarks that demonstrate its reach and impact. How do you measure your year? How does the organization prove its effectiveness? How many bed-nets were given? Loans? Scholarships? Computers? How many students enrolled? How many students retained? How much money donated?

In my “day job” as Coordinator of Undergraduate Research at the University of California, Riverside, I recognize the importance of benchmarks, assessments and analysis in determining whether or not we have reached our desired learning outcomes and goals. My office sits squarely next door to the Office of Institutional Research, housing a determined Sociologist that pumps out incredible amounts of information as to the success of our student population. By the sounds of her typing and printing alone, I am well aware of the mass of information and work required to have quantified, statistic information about the retention and graduation rates of university students and the “success” of the university, no matter how narrow that may be defined.

However, CLP does not strive to model itself after the public university system. Nor does it measure its success in the number of “things” re-distributed across the world or in our local community. If a CLP student dropped out of CLP or did not matriculate into higher education, I know we would not have “failed.” If a book club is attended by three people or ten people, we would not have failed. If two scholarships are given or twenty scholarships are given, we would not have failed. If the organization no longer exists one year from now, CLP would not have failed-- the purpose is not to protect the organization, the purpose is to use the organization as one of an infinite number of tools by which we come together collectively to make change.

CLP “goals” are simple: we create spaces where we become fully human, where we engage oppression, where we reflect on the fragmentation resulting from that oppression and where we take action to address it or bring other people into awareness of it.

So, how shall we measure our year? I think it is represented in the number of conversations we had; the number of hearts broken open in tenderness or awareness; the people who feel more conscious of their individual lives and their lives in relationship to others; those who are mindful of the world and their power in the world; those that feel capable of contributing their piece to life.

We shall be measured by the number of organizations and people that led us in a better direction; the ways we became more conscious of our work; the scholarships given to students who are excited to go to wherever they are going; the parents involved; the obstacles-turned-opportunities; the strangers-turned-board-members who are excited to add their piece to the puzzle; the board-members-turned-strangers who have grasped their own deeper calling and feel ready to plunge into the unknown with it based on the learning they experienced in CLP. As said by civil rights leader Rev. Howard Thurman, “Ask not what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive... then go do it. Because what the world needs are people that have come alive.”

This is not an organization of numbers-- this is an organization for the pursuit and engagement of life. Let us hold ourselves to no other standard than the ways we bring life, engage life and discover life within ourselves and our global community.

In gratitude for your support,
Samantha