I had the wonderful opportunity to sit down with Delanie Muenchen, whose fiery red, curly hair pales in comparison to the amount of fire and passion she breeds inside of her. We talked about her journey towards finding a meaningful pathway for her life and career and her current determination here in St. Louis to deal with inequality in the public school system. When we sat down and started talking, I immediately realized I wanted to record her voice and transcribe her answers in order to capture her remarkable ability to tell her own story. She speaks confidently and honestly, portraying in every way that she cares immensely about her place in the world and how she can use her privilege to make the world better for others. And it wouldn’t be Delanie without some humor, especially in the face of obstacles.
Name: Delanie Muenchen
Major: Social Work with a Minor in Criminal Justice
Year: Junior
Hometown: Cincinnati, Ohio
I know you’re a Social Work major with a minor in Criminal Justice. How did you choose to study these disciplines?
I’ve always struggled with traditional schooling, such as things like math and science. Never excelling in those subjects always made me feel like I wouldn’t be able to contribute to our modern society; that was until my mom took my friends and I to a place called Tender Mercies in Cincinnati, Ohio. There, we served meals to those struggling with mental illness and also suffering from homelessness. It started out as just a transaction between me as the server and them as recipients, and then I realized what I said and did could make their day much better. Having that ability to change people’s moods and even impact how their day was going made me feel like there was something more I could do.
In high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do when I got to college, so I began researching being a psychiatrist or something of that sort. I talked to my high school counselor and she suggested I look into Social Work. Once I did that, I realized there were so many avenues I could take with that major that would lead to a career that mattered to me. Criminal Justice was also something I was interested in, so I did a lot of shadowing in high school and determined that I wanted to pursue that avenue as well.
You are also the President of The Overground Railroad to Literacy, a student-run organization on campus. What is Overground and what does its members seek to accomplish?
Overground is an organization created by students that focuses on tutoring and mentoring in the St. Louis community, and we are currently partnered with four elementary schools and one high school. We have many goals as an organization, but I’ll mention our main three goals. Many of our students here in St. Louis fall far below what they should be in literacy, so first, we want to bridge this literacy gap. Our next goal is to break the school-to-prison pipeline , which is basically the idea that kids are being pushed out of our school systems and into the criminal justice system. We want to keep kids interested in schoolwork and also keep them in a safe space after school, at a time when their parents are potentially not at home and when there is ample opportunity to get in trouble. Our last main goal is to break the “SLU bubble.” SLU tends to shield students from the communities in St. Louis beyond campus, so we try to push kids past what we call the “SLU bubble” and work in those communities in order to show that they’re not as scary or as destitute as people may make them seem.
Have there been any barriers or obstacles you have had to face in your role as Overground’s president thus far?
Well, that’s a fun joke. Basically, we call it the curse of Overground. Let me bring you back to a year ago, fall semester, when everything was going fine and dandy. The entire executive board was new besides a few people, but we were really hopeful that this one member who had been on the e-board for a long time and was one of the founding members would be able to lead the group. Then, all of a sudden, we received a text saying this person moved to Mexico for Dental School. We were surprised to say the least. A different e-board member then got Salmonella and was no longer able to fulfill his duties in Overground.
Eventually, we were able to get ourselves off the ground, but one of our biggest sites, North Campus, lost its funding. It wasn’t a part of the school system and was simply an after-school program that relied on outside funding, and there were many kids from local schools going there as well as the largest number of our tutors. We had to find new after-school programs for these kids and new places to send our tutors. Our club advisor worked in many public schools, working on trauma training and other things of that nature, so he was able to connect us with three additional schools, which was incredible. We were able to really fulfill a need in those schools and also give tutors an experience that they wouldn’t have otherwise had.
In early November of 2017, I believe, our advisor, Norm White, passed away suddenly from a heart attack, which basically left us with nowhere to turn. So if we had a problem, we were going to have to figure it out on our own. And it was also just a devastating loss for the entire St. Louis community and SLU.
I left for abroad in Spring of 2018, leaving Overground in the hands of someone else, but Spring semester tends to go more smoothly because the public schools aren’t just coming back from Summer vacation.
Now, we are back in the fall curse of Overground. We haven’t heard from North Campus despite our constant attempts to contact them and fear that they may be having the same issues as before. Another one of our sites has specifically asked for African American to tutor their high schoolers, which I completely understand and respect but also leads to many conversations that have to be had about how to make this happen.
We had 185 people sign up at the involvement fair this year — which is awesome — but with a loss of two tutoring sights, we may not have anywhere to send them. As of now, we have sent emails to the superintendent of all St. Louis public schools and to multiple other organizations in order to fill that gap and take full advantage of our resources and the students who want to tutor.
So, yes, there have been some issues.
What are your plans for Overground this year and how do you plan on tackling these kinds of obstacles as they come in the future?
I just have one very short-term goal, and that is to get tutors into the schools that need tutors. I don’t believe that it is an unmanageable goal, so then my next goal would be to create a more diverse and sustainable organization. This means reaching out to other organizations and trying to get them involved in Overground, whatever that might look like. I also have reached out to Harris-Stowe State University, asking if they would be willing or wanting to join Overground to, again, bridge that gap of diversity. We also have bi-weekly meetings to talk about social justice issues and tutoring practices, so I believe that if we are able to have people with different perspectives and different backgrounds it will greatly benefit not only the kids we are tutoring but also the tutors.
If there were one thing you want SLU students to know about Overground or your experiences through Overground, what would it be?
I have said this many times before, but I really, truly do believe that Overground has influenced my reasons for staying at SLU. In the beginning, it was really tough — I don’t know, I guess everyone has that weird Freshman year — and there were very few things keeping me here. Overground gave me a sense of purpose, a sense of why I was here, why I made the right choice of studying Social Work, and why I made the right choice of coming all the way to St. Louis to do it. It honestly has put me in a position where I am extremely passionate about what I’m doing and where I continue wanting to keep this organization afloat, as hard as it may be. I have also met some phenomenal people through this organization who are very passionate and willing to help you succeed, even if it doesn’t have anything to do with Overground or tutoring or anything like that. It really has been an amazing ride so far.