{"id":1687,"date":"2014-12-01T13:45:40","date_gmt":"2014-12-01T18:45:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/?p=1687"},"modified":"2024-06-20T15:42:06","modified_gmt":"2024-06-20T15:42:06","slug":"student-feature-meet-timothy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/?p=1687","title":{"rendered":"Student Feature: Meet Timothy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Timothy Delong joins us from Michigan\u00a0and brings a great personality, a dedication to the community and a passion to learn with him. Find our more about Timothy\u00a0and his work below. Also, “if you see [him] around campus, just say hey!”<\/p>\n

\"Timothy<\/a>
Timothy and the Mayor of Detroit, Mike Duggan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n


\nNickname:
\n<\/strong>Funny story: I\u2019m named after my dad, so my family assumed, before I was born, that my nickname would be TJ (Tim Jr.). When I was born everyone took one look at me and said, \u201cnope, not a TJ\u201d. Most people know me as Tim, although my mom still calls me Timmy or Little Tim to avoid confusing my dad.<\/p>\n

Hometown:
\n<\/strong>I was born and raised in Troy, Michigan, a northern suburb of Detroit. That said, since I lived in the city for a short period of time and worked with various non-profits in the city, I consider myself a Detroiter through and through.<\/p>\n

Previous education:
\n<\/strong>Albion College – Class of 2014 (Go Brits!), BA in Religious Studies, Concentration in Public Service, Minor in Economics and Management<\/p>\n

A favorite of yours:
\n<\/strong>I hate to be derivative of my dear friend Alicia (previously featured)<\/a>, but I love to cook. There\u2019s something about playing with flavors that\u2019s incredibly exciting to me. On the weekends I\u2019ll pick out a recipe for each day, get the ingredients, and start cooking. If I\u2019m cooking something for the first time, I\u2019ll follow a recipe; if it\u2019s something I\u2019ve made a couple of times, then I\u2019ll get weird with it.<\/p>\n

Plus, I just started brewing my own beer!<\/p>\n

A quote\/motto that has significance to you:
\n<\/strong>I like to remember that life is about the little things. A lot of people (myself included) constantly look towards the big events in their lives as markers of success or happiness (when I get married\/buy a house\/graduate from school I\u2019ll be happy). I would much rather focus on happiness in the here and now by appreciating the little miracles that life presents to us every day. Some people refer to the concept of mindfulness. I also try to tout this message in the struggle to live a good life. I can\u2019t tell you how many times I\u2019ve been proud of myself for participating in some large service event and then come home and act rude towards my parents. Those big things are great, but life presents us with a million opportunities a day to do good for others. Those \u201clittle goods\u201d often go unnoticed, but they\u2019re the ones that really count. I\u2019ve heard it said, \u201chow you spend your days is how you spend your life.\u201d Something like that\u2026<\/p>\n

What were you doing before beginning your IPS journey?
\n<\/strong>I\u2019m fresh out of Albion; I graduated this past May. During the summer and part of the school year, I worked as an AmeriCorps Volunteer as a community organizer with Wayne State University\u2019s Center for Urban Studies, forming block clubs and tenant organizations while also managing large service projects like house board-ups, community clean-ups, and creating safe walking routes for kids going to school. Before that I took a summer to live in an intentional community in Detroit and work for the United Methodist Church. I also spent a semester in Chicago, doing research at the Newberry Library. Little did I know that I would be working on my Master\u2019s degree only a couple blocks away! So, in conclusion, I was all over the place doing all sorts of things.<\/p>\n

What made you decide to come to Loyola IPS?
\n<\/strong>I didn\u2019t see another program like it. I was working for all of these non-profits, and when I saw Loyola\u2019s program, I said: Wait, you can major in that? It was really interesting to see a combination of the practical and theoretical in one program.<\/p>\n

Plus it\u2019s Chicago\u2026so there\u2019s that.<\/p>\n

What are your studies focused on?
\n<\/strong>Social Justice right now; I\u2019m also looking into the School of Social Work\u2019s certificate in Non-Profit Management<\/p>\n

What are you most looking forward to accomplishing during your time here at Loyola IPS and how does that relate to your future goals?
\n<\/strong>I\u2019m interested in theory and application. There\u2019s this drive that I think all of us in the program have to do good things for the world, but sometimes it\u2019s hard to articulate why. Hopefully I can use my time at Loyola to build a framework around my work and develop a fuller understanding of myself in the process. I need to ground my work in something, that\u2019s what will make it sustainable over my lifetime. Now I\u2019m realizing that I used \u201cframework\u201d and \u201cgrounding\u201d analogies, which seem contradictory. I never said I was an English major.<\/p>\n

Do you have a favorite class or one you look forward to taking?
\n<\/strong>Right now I have Rabbi Goldstein in Leadership for Social Justice Organizations. He does a great job of bringing real-world experience to the topic of leadership. Right now we\u2019re working in groups to create our own, fictitious non-profit!<\/p>\n

Do you have any recommendations for future students?
\n<\/strong>Another Social Justice first-year, Daniel Guzman<\/a>, gave me some great advice when we first started. He told me that you have to have a purpose going into graduate school, you have to know exactly what you want to get out of it, and why. I would echo his advice to future students.<\/p>\n

In what way will you go forth to \u201cchange the world\u201d?
\n<\/strong>One house at a time! Let me explain\u2026<\/p>\n

I work full-time for a non-profit organization in Winnetka called Open Communities as a Housing Counselor. If people start to have trouble paying their mortgage, they come to our office and we advocate on their behalf to the bank. Sometimes it feels like you\u2019re drowning in a pile of paperwork or running into a brick wall, but at the end of the day, I remember that we\u2019re helping people save their homes, which is pretty humbling. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s \u201cchanging the world,\u201d but it\u2019s a step in the right direction.<\/p>\n

Are you currently working on any interesting project(s) that you wish to share?
\n<\/strong>I started at Open Communities a little over a month ago, so I\u2019m still learning every day, which is exciting and challenging all at once.<\/p>\n

In the future, I\u2019m going to have the opportunity to sift through foreclosure data for Cook County to look at different trends in terms of predatory and fair lending practices. I get really excited about trend analysis, so that will be a fun project.<\/p>\n

What is a fun fact or story about you?
\n<\/strong>I was a bit of a rabble rouser back in my community organizing days\u2026.<\/p>\n

There was one apartment building owned by a man who kept the structure in terrible conditions: lead paint, the elevator never worked, and infestations. After working with some of the residents and hearing about all of the issues, our team decided to show up one morning with an inspector from Building Safety and Engineering. I was met at the front door by the building\u2019s security guard, as the inspector started issuing thousands of dollars\u2019 worth of fines\u2026.<\/p>\n

To this day, I am still banned from the building.<\/p>\n

Any additional information you would like to share:
\n<\/strong>Detroit is one of my favorite places in the world. Don\u2019t believe the negative hype: go there and check it out for yourself. If the spirit moves you, ask me for a tour, I love showing people around when I\u2019m in town!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Join the conversation by\u00a0following\u00a0@BrianSchmisek<\/a>\u00a0on Twitter and @LoyolaIPS on Instagram! Also, network with the Loyola Chicago IPS<\/a> community on LinkedIn.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Timothy Delong joins us from Michigan\u00a0and brings a great personality, a dedication to the community and a passion to learn with him. Find our more about Timothy\u00a0and his work below. Also, “if you see [him] around campus, just say hey!” Nickname: Funny story: I\u2019m named after my dad, so my family assumed, before I was read more <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[121,145,219],"class_list":["post-1687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ips","tag-ips","tag-loyola","tag-student-feature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1687"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4628,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687\/revisions\/4628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}