About Us

Our Mission

Idealist On Campus connects, educates, and mobilizes students, campuses, and communities to build a world where all people can live free and dignified lives.

Our Work

By offering resources, events, educational tools, networking opportunities and other programs, Idealist On Campus supports students and campuses in strengthening communities through service, activism, and civic engagement. In addition to providing useful tools and resources, Idealist On Campus connects people to one another both online and in person and supports those working to build a better world through local actions and larger cooperative efforts.

Idealist On Campus believes in:

• Creating lasting institutional and community change;
• Fostering a lifetime of civic engagement through service, activism, politics and socially-responsible work;
• Developing student leaders and leadership;
• Valuing student and community voice;
• Appreciating and creating opportunities for diversity;
• Supporting meaningful, asset-based action; and
• Strengthening and connecting the higher education and nonprofit fields.

In 2004, Idealist On Campus merged with the Campus Outreach Opportunity League (C.O.O.L.)which provided new opportunities to engage students, campuses and communities in unique and meaningful ways. Like C.O.O.L., Idealist On Campus values the power that college students and their campuses have to strengthen communities and the world at large.

Our Staff

Felecia Bartow, Director, Campus Programs
Felecia joined Action Without Borders as the Director of Idealist On Campus in May of 2005. A graduate of the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis and Macalester College in St. Paul, Felecia has been an avid Idealist.org user since 1995. Prior to joining Action Without Borders, Felecia worked for various nonprofit organizations on issues related to immigrants' rights and human rights, including the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in Philadelphia and the Midwest Immigrant & Human Rights Center (MIHRC) in Chicago. Her experiences also include international work and study in Costa Rica and Honduras, where she served as a consultant to an alternative community-marketing network. As a recent transplant, Felecia is always happy to list lots of reasons why Philly is such a great place to live… and why people should be able to bring their pets to work with them.

Heather Cronk, Campus Organizer
Heather was born in Texas, and was raised mainly in Lexington, KY, a pleasant mix of southern, midwestern, and mid-atlantic cultures. She graduated from Berry College, in Rome, GA, and then spent three years at Wake Forest University Divinity School. Following divinity school, Heather answered the call of rural life, living for a year in Vermont while working at Middlebury College. She now lives in Philadelphia, where our campus program is based. When not working, Heather enjoys reading and knitting, and has recently fallen in love with skydiving.

Hannah Kane, Campus Organizer
Hannah is a happy to be working for Action Without Borders as a Campus Organizer, after consulting on several national student conferences with the Campus Outreach Opportunity League (COOL), the organization that merged with AWB in 2003. She has worked in various communities in Seattle, Boston, and Washington, D.C. to develop in-school and after-school programs for young people, specifically focusing on the connections between community service, politics, and activism. She feels fortunate to have found a job that combines her interests in social justice, working with students, curriculum design, event planning, and web development. She's currently working to figure out a way to incorporate her dreams of rock stardom into the mix.

Trish Tchume, Campus Organizer
In January of 2004, Trish returned to her personal and professional roots to work as a Campus Organizer for Action Without Borders. As a melodramatic middle child in a family of four siblings, she learned from an early age to be a champion for the voiceless and underserved. Her eventual realization that there were other things besides having your own room that were worth standing up for led her to the world of service-learning as an undergrad at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia. After leaving Philly, she spent a few years in Burlington, VT where she earned a Master's in Education, did community development work for the city, learned how to play Frisbee golf, and connected with some of the most inspiring change agents she's ever met. Trish feels very fortunate to be connecting with the next generation of inspiring change agents through her campus work with Action Without Borders.