Kristi Blokhin/Shutterstock
“Campus to Community: Stories of Impact in Higher Education” is a series I’m writing to explore how colleges and universities show up for the world beyond their gates, and what that reveals about who we are and who we’re becoming. I will highlight higher education’s civic purpose through stories about the programs, partnerships, and people that connect campus to community.
What follows is the first story in the series: an inside look at one program at one college with truly global implications.
Dr. Jim Withers was doing more than practicing medicine when he began walking the streets offering medical care to people experiencing homelessness in Pittsburgh in the early 1990s. He was modeling a form of care rooted in trust, dignity, and presence — providing medical and social support to individuals experiencing homelessness directly in their environment, which is a form of care, he later learned, others were providing as well. Across the U.S. and around the world, others were practicing the same kind of medicine — unrecognized, under-resourced, and often isolated from others doing this work and the institutions around them.
But a visit to India and a conversation with Dr. Jack Preger, a physician serving “pavement dwellers” in Calcutta, deepened that realization. Street medicine, as it later became known, wasn’t a new idea; it was a global practice waiting to be named and a network of practitioners waiting to be connected. Withers returned home determined to build the infrastructure to do just that. What followed was the creation of the International Street Medicine Symposium (ISMS) in Pittsburgh in 2005, followed by the Street Medicine Institute (SMI) in 2009.
Since then, SMI has grown into a hub for knowledge, connection, and collective care.
And decades later, that same spirit of collaboration sparked something unexpected at Washington and Lee University (W&L) in the hills of Lexington, Virginia. What began as admiration in a classroom taught by a passionate (and compassionate) educator grew into a transformative partnership — one that would help shape the future of street medicine and cohorts of students alike. It started with a film, a question, and a shared sense of purpose. It continues today in the form of a global map, and a deeply human commitment to care without walls.
A Classroom Connection, A Global Collaboration
For years, Marisa Charley, a leader in W&L’s Shepherd Program for the Interdisciplinary Study of Poverty and Human Capability, introduced students to Dr. Withers’ work through the documentary “One Bridge to the Next.” She showed it to every class she taught for over eight years, always with a quiet hope that it would do more than inform.
In early 2023, that hope became action when a few students encouraged Charley to contact the Street Medicine Institute (SMI). That initial email from Charley to Withers, rooted in deep admiration for Withers and his work, and asking a simple question — How can we help? —became the foundation for a multi-year partnership that now spans six continents.
The Mapping Project: From Data to Dignity
The Street Medicine Institute had a problem: a fast-growing network of street medicine programs and no scalable way to track them. Their global provider directory was out of date and under-resourced, yet essential to their operations.
Led by Kristina Ayers ’25, a biology major double minoring in poverty and human capability studies and music, took on the project as her Bonner Scholar capstone project. With guidance from Charley and SMI leadership, Washington and Lee students stepped up and began identifying, vetting, and documenting street medicine providers worldwide. Now, because of their efforts, street medicine practitioners across six continents benefit from a dynamic, digital map that now includes more than 1,500 entries.
But the project isn’t just about maps. It’s about meaning.
“This is the type of learning that truly cannot be achieved within the confines of a classroom alone,” Charley says. “The students didn’t treat it as a technical exercise — they approached it with reverence for the practice of street medicine and all it serves.
Ayers, along with students Boris Pekar and Alexis Thompson, built infrastructure — advancing their technical skills — while engaging deeply with the ethical questions regarding care. Questions like:
- Who gets seen?
- Who gets left out?
- What does it mean to serve with humility and respect?
Wrestling with these questions has expanded their understanding of community, justice, and what it means to walk alongside others in solidarity.
The Shepherd Program: Learning that Listens
The Mapping Project didn’t emerge in a vacuum. It’s deeply rooted in the mission of W&L’s Shepherd Program, which blends academic study and direct service to confront poverty and inequality.
The program invites students to study social and economic challenges through multiple disciplines and then apply what they learn in real-world contexts. From public health and law internships to initiatives like Campus Kitchen and Bonner Scholar projects, Shepherd students at W&L are consistently asked to listen, reflect, and act with empathy and intention.
The Mapping Project exemplifies this perspective and approach to civic learning and engagement because it doesn’t ask students to “fix” a problem; instead, it invites them into a community of practice where they become partners in building something lasting and needed.
It’s also a model of sustainable engagement. Rather than a one-off project, the work is scaffolded across years: senior leaders mentor new students, and faculty and staff collaborators provide ongoing training and support. The result is a project with breadth, depth, continuity, and impact.
Looking Ahead: Mapping the Future of Street Medicine
The Mapping Project is still growing. Two rising sophomores have recently joined the team, working under the mentorship of senior leaders Boris and Alexis. Their next focus will be on distributing and analyzing surveys to enhance the map’s detail and usability.
Preliminarily, they plan to integrate new features into the map, including highlighted visual service areas and expanded data about the services offered which should make the map even more helpful to those seeking care or collaboration.
For Dr. Withers and the team at SMI, the map represents more than coordination — it’s a tool for strategic growth. By tracking the spread of programs and identifying “leader” initiatives, the map can inform advocacy, policy, and resource allocation across the broader landscape of healthcare and housing.
Why It Matters: Higher Ed with Heart
In an age when trust in institutions is fragile, the partnership between W&L and SMI offers a different story — one grounded in sincerity, relationship, and humility.
“This collaboration was born from something straightforward and heartfelt,” Charley reflects. “I was a fan of Dr. Withers’ work. I brought it into my classroom. And eventually, we reached out.
What followed from that initial outreach during a winter-term class was a deeply human partnership that honored the expertise of those doing the work while inviting students to show up, contribute, and grow.
Higher education at its best is a space where learning is lived, not just taught; where students engage with urgent, unsolved community problems not to fix communities, but to learn how to be part of them. It’s easy to call this work innovative, but it’s better to call it what it is — compassionate, connected, and necessary.
