Simpkins Serves Barnard and CB9

For many Barnard students, the name Will Simpkins is synonymous with community service.

As the Associate Director of Civic Engagement at Barnard, Simpkins has taken civil engagement beyond his full time job. He’s active on Community Board 9­, the Manhattan district that spans west of Amsterdam avenue to the Hudson River from 110th to 155th streets, and a Friend of The Neutral Zone, a safe haven for LGBT youth on 123rd street and 3rd avenue. It seems Simpkins lives to give back.

A member of CB9 since the spring of 2007, Simpkins has had to negotiate an awkward role when it comes to the controversy surrounding Columbia’s Manhattanville expansion. While he has made clear that he doesn’t represent Barnard or Columbia on the community board, he finds these overlapping realms of his life difficult to traverse at times.

For Simpkins, the Manhattanville project is complicated because of his joint membership in both invested communities. “The work that I do on campus influences the way I see the board,” Simpkins explained—and vice versa.

Last year, Simpkins spoke on an informational Manhattanville panel in Lerner Hall for an audience of Columbia College Democrats and members of the Student Coalition on Expansion and Gentrification. He weighed key points of dispute about the project, ranging from property acquisition to architectural design.

“Many of us who recognize that, to some degree, Columbia does need to expand, and has every right to expand when they’ve bought the property fairly,” he said during the event. “Looking at the plans for the glass and steel structures that are going to go up, it just doesn’t fit with what our notions of Harlem have been.”

Simpkins has been serving his neighborhood since he was a child growing up in the Appalachian mountains of Virginia. “The first community service that I did was court mandated,” Simpkins joked, clarifying that this compulsory service was the punishment for “a speeding ticket I got on Prom night.” Since his early foray, Simpkins has continued to find comfort in civic responsibility.

Now, Simpkins endeavors to spread his love of community work to students and to acquaint students with the beauty he sees in the area surrounding campus— as well as the services he does there.

The first step, he explained, is getting students off campus and out into the city. “There seems to be this myth that passed down from students to students” not to venture above 120th Street, Simpkins noted. “We’re trying to break that myth by getting enough information out about the area to students.”

Simpkins remarked that this uptown avoidance hasn’t only been on the part of the students. “It’s a reciprocal process, people are overly cautious of outsiders. ... Some honest conversation needs to happen on both sides.”

For Simpkins, getting students involved in the community and ushering them into service remains a key goal. “One thing that precludes students from volunteering is the commitment,” Simpkins said. According to Simpkins, 85 percent of students who come to Barnard have some experience with community service, but only about 25 percent of any class continues that service when they arrive. By the time they are seniors, only about 15 percent are still engaged in community service.

Simpkins explained that, before Barnard’s Office of Career Development expanded the scope of the outreach programs they offer, an effort which he was significantly involved in, “there was a black hole of public service on campus.”

Barnard’s First Year Reach Out program, which Simpkins runs, placed 170 students with fourteen charities last September.

For Simpkins, working in the community is the best way to “make the most of New York City.” For students cautious about finding a home in New York, Simpkins related his own experience. “Community service is a way to build a community for you,” he said. “It’s a good dating tool, too.”