Campus skill swap

On the surface, Adam Bortner and Donzella "Donnie" Franklin appear unlikely friends.

He's 21 years old; she's 45. He's a sociology and anthropology major at Swarthmore College; she's working her 20th year as a custodian there. He hails from suburban Baltimore; she grew up in hardscrabble Chester. He's white; she's black.

Yet the two have found much common ground. On a recent morning, they walk across campus in easy conversation, catching up on his school life, her family life, and coming student concerts. "It's sort of like being a big sister," she says. "I should say 'mom.' "

Franklin and Bortner are partners in Swarthmore College's unusual Learning for Life program, entering its eleventh year. It has brought together hundreds of students and staff members in a two-way swap of skills and knowledge that promises to break down barriers of race, class, and campus hierarchy, one partnership at a time.

Together, they play piano duets. Thanks to Bortner, Franklin has figured out the mysteries of texting on her phone (well enough to keep in touch with him over summer break) and created a powerful digital video story for an ailing relative. On this day, she's returning the favor with a long-promised line-dancing lesson.

"It's almost like an exchange of gifts," said Diane Downer Anderson, the associate dean of academic affairs at Swarthmore who helped establish the program, known as L4L on campus.

Educational exchanges between students and staffers at the nation's colleges are rare, according to Anderson, also an associate professor of educational studies who has presented and published papers on the subject. Bryn Mawr College, which has invited her to speak, established a similar learning initiative for students and staff in 2006.

"Everyone knows something, and everyone has something to learn," Anderson said. Swarthmore staff, who work in environmental and dining services or facilities, have taught students to cook Jamaican recipes, understand the rules of football, and speak Vietnamese. Meanwhile, students have reciprocated with tutelage on how to use computers, master algebra, and write poetry.

One student helped a dining services employee with disabilities make a video marriage proposal to his coworker and sweetheart. Others have traded boxing and photography skills, gym workouts and language lessons, badminton and urban history. Some pairs have tackled group projects, such as building a bench for the L4L garden or broadcasting a radio show.

Over two years, Bortner and Franklin have collaborated for up to three hours a week, time that staff members are allowed to take during their work shifts. On this day, Adam has decided to give line dancing, one of Donnie's favorite pastimes, a try.

"Donnie has been telling me that I'm going to be learning line dancing for a year," says the soft-spoken Bortner. "I figure it's time."

His instructor, wearing her maroon work uniform, fiddles with a blue boom box in Clothier Hall, a striking space with high arched ceilings and worn wood floors - perfect for kicking up their heels.

"It's fun. It's good exercise," Franklin says, encouragingly, as a heavy beat from the rapper V.I.C. bounces off the walls. "I'm going to teach you a little African American dance. I'm going to teach you the wobble."

As she counts aloud the beat and jumps forward, then gives a smooth jiggle and rock of her hips before she bounces backward, Bortner stiffly follows in his black ballroom shoes - a half-beat behind. He cracks up at his less than stellar moves even as the lyrics pound: "Wobble, wobble, shake it, shake it. . . . Show me whatcha you got."

"I'm not wobbling," he says, laughing. He confesses that "I don't have any rhythm."

"Everyone has rhythm," Franklin insists. She gently adds, "Sometimes, it's different."

And so the hour goes, a lesson in dance but also in building a lasting friendship and mutual respect. "We have a closeness," said Franklin, who has partnered with several students in the last decade. "It's hard to see them leave."

Bortner recalls his first meeting with Franklin. He was nervous, "not as much as a blind date," but pretty close, he said. Now he volunteers in her hometown of Chester at an AIDS/HIV clinic, and he has opposed wage freezes for Swarthmore staffers.

Over the months, they have become invested in each other. That, in large measure, is the point - more than mastering a particular skill, though plenty of that happens.

Initially, the program was conceived to foster adult literacy, but it quickly expanded to encompass more than comfort with reading basics. Many staff members might have limited formal education, but they still wanted to become proficient - become literate - in all sorts of new skills, computer know-how first among them. And each had a deep pool of expertise to offer the college community in return.

The equal exchange of knowledge allows for bonds that would falter in a traditional teacher-student arrangement.

Students and staffers, who volunteer for the program, are matched by interests. In addition, students enrolled in Anderson's Literacies and Social Identities course are required to participate. In many cases, relationships endure through the students' college years and beyond. "The people who do the work, huge amounts of work, are not invisible," Anderson said.

In Bryn Mawr's Empowering Learners Partnership program, staff members get time off during the workday and students earn an hourly wage - a fact that might surprise some but that shows the university's commitment to the partnerships, according to Alison Cook-Sather, a Bryn Mawr education professor and coordinator of the Teaching and Learning Initiative, which includes the partnership program. "This acknowledges their expertise," she said of both staff and students. She estimated that more than 100 matches have occurred.

Learning partnerships, she said, create a sense of community and break down stereotypes that assume only professors teach, students learn, and staff support. Students come to appreciate housekeeping and facilities, and those employees, who might have viewed the campus as only a backdrop to their jobs, "feel affirmed and much more connected to the students and college."

Why aren't such partnership programs more common? Colleges put great stock in titles and academic accomplishments that distinguish but also set apart people, Cook-Sather ventured. "I don't think many places think beyond those categories," she said. "This is about questioning those boundaries and insisting that people are a lot richer than their formal titles suggest."

Becca Kranz, 19, one of the student coordinators for the L4L program and a sophomore majoring in biology, certainly discovered that Shelly Mattison of West Philadelphia, who works in environmental services, has a wealth of knowledge beyond her job duties. The two are gym buddies, and Mattison has showed Kranz how to use weight machines - a skill Mattison learned a few years earlier from another student partner.

They also enjoy baking together. At 7:30 a.m. this day, Kranz leads the way through a banana muffin recipe as Mattison, at the tail end of her overnight shift, assists. They giggle over the stringy, very ripe bananas ("They look like worms," Kranz says) and joke about Mattison's sweet tooth.

"We talk about anything," Kranz said, spooning the batter into muffin trays. When her parents visited recently from Arlington, Mass., she made sure she introduced her friend. "They've heard so much about her."

After a taste test - delicious! the team concludes - the women pack up the muffins and depart, walking side-by-side to the train station.

Watch Donnie Franklin teach line-dancing to Adam Bortner at www.philly.com/watch_learningforlife

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