November 16, 2020
On Campus

Ready to Serve

Students Volunteer as Contact Tracers to Aid the Clark County Combined Health District

The Susan Hirt Hagen Center for Civic and Urban Engagement is partnering with the Clark County Combined Health District (CCCHD) to offer students the opportunity to make contract tracing calls as the number of COVID-19 cases continue to rise in Ohio as well as across the country.

“We set up calling stations in the Hagen Center thanks to our folks in IT, and students are volunteering to make the calls,” said Kristen Collier, director of community service at the Hagen Center. “We are just trying to offer a little bit of help as the number of cases continues to spike. The stations were set up last week. and the first volunteers started on November 12th.”

The first students to help were community engagement scholars Kathleen McGuff, class of 2021 (pictured above), and Olivia Norbut, class of 2024 (pictured below the story). Emma Smales, health planning supervisor with the CCCHD, is training students to make the calls.  

As a contact tracer, students call individuals who have been in close contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19. Contract tracers follow a script provided by the CCCHD. They let the person know that they have been exposed, how long to quarantine, and that they will be sent an official quarantine letter either by mail or email.

“This is another opportunity for the Hagen Center to invest in the ongoing partnership we have with the CCCHD,” Collier said. “During this pandemic, the demand on many of our partners to continue offering services or offer them in creative ways has been great. Due to circumstances related to COVID, it has been challenging to have as many students out serving in the community as we had before the pandemic started.”

Collier is hoping to set up more long-term service opportunities next semester with the CCCHD to help students fulfill their community service requirement.

Cindy Holbrook
Cindy Holbrook
Senior Communications Assistant

About Wittenberg

Wittenberg's curriculum has centered on the liberal arts as an education that develops the individual's capacity to think, read, and communicate with precision, understanding, and imagination. We are dedicated to active, engaged learning in the core disciplines of the arts and sciences and in pre-professional education grounded in the liberal arts. Known for the quality of our faculty and their teaching, Wittenberg has more Ohio Professors of the Year than any four-year institution in the state. The university has also been recognized nationally for excellence in community service, sustainability, and intercollegiate athletics. Located among the beautiful rolling hills and hollows of Springfield, Ohio, Wittenberg offers more than 100 majors, minors and special programs, enviable student-faculty research opportunities, a unique student success center, service and study options close to home and abroad, a stellar athletics tradition, and successful career preparation.

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