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Students, Faculty, and Community Partners Honored with Community Engagement Awards Executive Committee Makes It Official: Barry’s Motto is “Learn, Reflect, Serve” Students Spend Spring Break Learning, Reflecting, and Serving in Panama City and Elsewhere Local Small-Farmers’ Produce Being Sold on Main Campus this Semester Sustainability Saturday Project Planned for Last Day of Barry’s Earth Week Deliberative Dialogue on Natural Disasters and Climate Change Set for April 11 Faculty Learning Community for Engaged Scholarship to Meet Next Monday | ||||||||||||||||
Students, Faculty, and Community Partners Honored with Community Engagement Awards
Undergraduate and Graduate Nursing Wins Engaged Department Award
Barry University honored two students, three faculty members, and two community partners last Wednesday with major awards for their participation and achievements in various areas of community engagement.
Undergraduate and Graduate Nursing in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences received the Engaged Department Award.
The occasion was the sixth annual Community Engagement Awards hosted by the Center for Community Service Initiatives (CCSI).
Barry Service Corps Fellows Paola Lopez-Hernandez and Antonio Rodriguez received the Community Impact Award from Saliha Nelson, chair of Barry’s Community Advisory Committee. The award is in recognition of exemplary civic engagement with a measurable impact on the community.
Dr. Anthony Sadler, assistant professor (School of Business), and Dr. Lauren Shure, associate professor (School of Education), were honored with the Community Engagement Educator Award. This award is presented in recognition of significant contributions to the institutionalization or enhancement of community engagement at Barry.
Dr. Stephanie Bingham, chair of the Community Engagement Awards Committee, presented the plaques.
The Service-Learning Faculty Award went to Dr. Silvia Macia, a professor of biology in the College of Arts and Sciences,for demonstrating excellence in using service-learning as a teaching and learning strategy. She received the award from Dr. Christopher Starratt, vice provost.
The recipients of awards in the Community Partnership category were the Haitian Youth and Community Center of Florida, Inc. and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office. Dr. Karen Callaghan, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and chair of Barry’s Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) Implementation Committee, presented plaques to both award winners.
Dr. Carolyn Hart, chair of nursing, accepted the award designated for engaged departments from Vice Provost Starratt.
Also at the awards ceremony, three individuals and one department were recognized for service. CCSI Executive Director Dr. Glenn A. Bowen presented plaques to graduate student Francesca Gerard; staff members Joanne Ittilucksatit (School of Education) and Merlene Nembhard (Barry Library); and the Department of Marketing.
At the start of the ceremony, the Rev. Dr. Carl Cramer, an associate dean of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences, gave the invocation. Provost Dr. John D. Murray later gave the formal welcome to the event.
Courtney Berrien, associate director of the CCSI, delivered the closing remarks.
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Executive Committee Makes It Official: Barry’s Motto is “Learn, Reflect, Serve”
“Learn, Reflect, Serve.” That has been a catchphrase on campus for years.
It is now official: “Learn, Reflect, Serve” is Barry University’s motto, says Provost Dr. John D. Murray.
Addressing the opening session of the sixth annual Community Engagement Symposium last Wednesday, Murray announced that the Executive Committee of the Administration recently voted to formalize “Learn, Reflect, Serve” as Barry’s motto.
The motto reflects the university’s mission and core commitments, Murray said. He referred to the university’s core commitments of knowledge and truth, inclusive community, social justice, and collaborative service.
Organized by the Center for Community Service Initiatives (CCSI), the symposium supports the implementation of the university’s Quality Enhancement Plan titled “Fostering Personal and Social Responsibility through Experiential Learning.” | ||||||||||||||||
Students Spend Spring Break Learning, Reflecting, and Serving in Panama City and Elsewhere
A group of Barry volunteers spent spring break learning, reflecting, and serving in Panama City and Tallahassee, Florida, and Montgomery, Alabama.
In Panama City, Barry alumna Sha’novia Warren welcomed the volunteers – Catherine Taveras Abreu, Gabriel Bouani, Johania Charles, Luca McLeod, Joseph Minani, Paris Razor, Dai Jonnai Smith, and Melissa Tumbeiro.
Warren, a 2018 social work graduate and former Barry Service Corps Fellow, shared her experience as she described the impact of Hurricane Michael, which struck the Florida Panhandle in October 2018.
Five months after Warren and thousands of other Bay County residents endured Michael’s onslaught, they are grateful that college students are willing to lend a hand with the ongoing recovery efforts.
Participating in Alternative Spring Break (ASB) alongside the eight Barry students were Dr. Victor Romano, associate vice provost for student success and undergraduate studies; Liz James, experiential learning coordinator; and Asha Starks, a program coordinator in the Center for Community Service Initiatives (CCSI).
As part of Operation Clean Sweep, they did cleanup work in Millville, an unincorporated community in Bay County, where the effects of the storm were evident. Many houses had blue tarps for roofs; buildings showed structural damage; trees remained fractured or uprooted.
The volunteers donned orange vests and work gloves and then worked together to pick up storm debris and other litter.
In Montgomery, the Barry ASB group learned about the evolution of slavery, the legacy of lynching, mass incarceration of people of color, and the resistance to civil rights.
The group visited the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum and Memorial as well as the Dexter Parsonage Museum. The parsonage was once the home of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, and his family.
Afterwards, the visitors took a van tour to see other sites that hold significance in relation to the Montgomery bus boycott of December 5, 1955 to December 20, 1956.
At the Florida State Capitol in Tallahassee, where the legislative session was underway, the students met with DeeDee Rasmussen, executive director of Florida Campus Compact, for orientation on lobbying. The focus was on seeking support for legislation to reinstate funding for civic engagement in higher education through Florida Campus Compact.
The students later visited the offices of Florida State Senators Dennis Baxley, Lauren Book, Gary Farmer, and Jason Pizzo. There the students shared personal stories about how their university-based civic engagement experiences have helped to shape their lives and motivated them to continue to engage in social and political issues.
On their last day in Tallahassee, the students lobbied legislators in support of the Dignity for Incarcerated Women Act, aimed at ensuring free access to healthcare products and appropriate privacy for women in all correctional facilities throughout the state. They also expressed support for the work of three advocacy organizations – the Miami Workers Center, Florida Immigration Coalition, and Latina Women’s Institute.
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Local Small-Farmers’ Produce Being Sold on Main Campus this Semester
Produce cultivated and harvested by local-area small farmers who practice sustainable agriculture is being sold regularly on Barry’s main campus this semester.
The Barry FairShare Farmers Stand provides produce, including fruits and vegetables, for sale. Purchases provide income and livelihood for the farmers.
The Farmers Stand is in operation on Thursdays, from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m., near Thompson Hall. It will remain at that location every Thursday, except April 18, until the end of the month. To make it more accessible to the wider community, the stand is expected to be moved next month to the 11600 Building site (11600 NE 2nd Ave.), the former location of Barry’s Facilities Management.
Barry FairShare is part of the Barry Urban Garden (BUG), a community agriculture initiative, which is designed to support low-income neighborhoods that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has categorized as urban food deserts. Liberty City and Little Haiti are two such neighborhoods in Miami-Dade County.
BUG offers experiential learning opportunities to students and engaged scholarship opportunities to faculty.
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Sustainability Saturday Project Planned for Last Day of Barry’s Earth Week
April 13 is Sustainability Saturday, and it is one of the events on Barry’s Earth Week calendar. The day’s project will be at Historic Virginia Key Beach Park, where volunteers will clean up the grounds and shoreline.
Coordinated by the Center for Community Service Initiatives (CCSI), Sustainability Saturday is an annual event designed to promote sustainability practices by students in the wider community.
Sustainability Saturday supports the university’s social justice commitment, which calls for “all members of our community to …recognize the sacredness of Earth.” The day’s community-based environmental projects in Miami Dade County also advance the university’s commitment to collaborative service – “to engage with communities to pursue systemic, self-sustaining solutions to … environmental problems.”
For further information, contact the CCSI atservice@barry.edu or 305-899-5466.
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Deliberative Dialogue on Natural Disasters and Climate Change Set for April 11
The next forum in the Deliberative Dialogue Series will be focused on climate change. Scheduled for Thursday of next week, April 18, the forum is titled “Natural Disasters and Climate Change: Is Global Warming Causing More Hurricanes?”
The forum is a Barry Earth Week event organized by the CCSI. It will take place in Andreas 112 from 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. | ||||||||||||||||
Faculty Learning Community for Engaged Scholarship to Meet Next Monday
The semester’s final meeting of the Faculty Learning Community for Engaged Scholarship (FLC) will be held next Monday, April 8. The CCSI will host the meeting from 2:00 to 3:15 p.m. in Adrian 208.
Members as well as prospective members are invited to the meeting. | ||||||||||||||||
