November 18, 2019 | |||
In This Issue:
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President Allen serves alongside campus and community volunteers
A day of service at
Volunteers created nature trails, restored a nursery, assembled picnic tables, and removed litter from the beach.
At the start of the event, President Allen and Guy Forchion, executive director of the Virginia Key Beach Park Trust, delivered remarks. They spoke about the strong partnership between Barry and the Trust.
Allen noted that the day of service emphasized the importance of collaborative service and social justice – two of Barry’s core commitments. It also honored Barry’s commitment to the sacredness of Earth, the president added.
Forchion said the historic beach park was “the result of successful civic activism – action taken nearly 75 years ago, [when] heroic activists waded into Baker’s Haulover Beach to force the powers that be during segregation in America and Miami to create a safe place for African Americans and people of color to recreate and enter a South Florida beach.”
Volunteers from North Miami Senior High School and the Honey Shine program for girls took part in the service activities.
Barry Founders’ Week 2019 was November 9–15. Among the week’s highlights were the Core Commitments Luncheon on Monday and Allen’s inauguration as Barry’s seventh president on Wednesday.
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Barry Among Universities Getting the Gold for Student Voter Engagement in Last Midterm Elections
Barry University has been awarded a gold seal for achieving a relatively high student-voting rate in the midterm elections of 2018.
At an awards ceremony in Washington, D.C., on November 12, the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge recognized Barry and other universities for excellence in student voter engagement. Recipients of the gold seal achieved a student-voting rate of 40–49%.
The student-voting rate for Barry increased from 29.5% in the midterm elections of 2014 to 42.6% in 2018. Barry’s voting rate was higher than the average voting rate of 39.1% for all U.S. colleges and universities in 2018.
“We are excited to honor Barry University with an ALL IN Challenge gold seal in recognition of their intentional efforts to increase democratic engagement and full voter participation,” said Jennifer Domagal-Goldman, executive director of the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge. “More institutions like Barry are changing culture on campus by institutionalizing nonpartisan democratic engagement efforts that are resulting in the incredible student voter turnout rates that we’ve seen across the country.”
Tufts University’s National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE) found an almost 21 percentage-point increase in the voting rate of registered Barry students – from 39.9% in 2014 to 60.8% in 2018. NSLVE further found that college students across the United States more than doubled their rate of voting from the 2014 to the 2018 midterms.
The ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge is a nonpartisan, national initiative recognizing and supporting campuses as they work to increase nonpartisan democratic engagement and full student voter participation. The Challenge encourages higher education institutions to help students form the habits of active and informed citizenship and make democratic participation a core value on their campus.
Over 560 colleges and universities, enrolling more than 6.2 million students, have joined the Challenge since its launch in summer 2016.
Institutions received digital seals for the following voting rates: platinum: 50%+, gold: 40–49%, silver: 30–39%, and bronze: 20–29%.
Barry promotes student voter registration and engagement through the Campus Democracy Project.
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The Equal Justice Initiative has documented three instances of public racial lynchings in Miami-Dade County during the early 20th century. The Miami-Dade Truth, Education, and Reconciliation initiative, or TEAR, is a community collaboration that “brings to light instances of racial terror in order to better understand how this history has shaped the social, political, and economic realities of people who call this region home.”
Against that background, the CCSI will host the next forum in this year’s Deliberative Dialogue Series this Thursday afternoon. The forum will take place in Weber Grand Hall from 4:00 to 5:30 p.m.
While exploring racial violence and systemic discrimination as part of Florida’s past, the forum will consider the effects on current residents of the Greater Miami area. The forum also will consider what South Florida residents can do to help the community heal, become more inclusive, and promote social justice.
The CCSI organizes the Deliberative Dialogue Series as an approach to civic learning and engagement in addressing hot-button social issues. Free and open to the public, the series brings together campus and community stakeholders to weigh perspectives on the issues and to work towards practical solutions.
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Nominations for Community Engagement Awards 2020: Engaged Scholarship Category
Engaged Scholarship is one of the seven categories for which Community Engagement Award nominations are being accepted.
Students, faculty, and staff members, as well as community partners, are invited to submit nominations by January 27.
The other award categories are Community Impact,Community Partnership, Community-Based Research, Community Engagement Educator, Service-Learning Faculty, and Engaged Department.
The Center for Community Service Initiatives (CCSI) will host Barry’s seventh annual Community Engagement Awards on March 25.
The nomination forms are available in CEMS, the Community Engagement Management System <http://web.barry.edu/service/ProgramView.aspx?ID=1494>. | |||
Social Work Student Serves as Community Advocate in Efforts to Combat Sexual Assault
Dozens of Barry students have signed up to be allies of the sexual assault survivor community – and their decision came with some help.
Odet Sanchez, a community advocate in the Center for Human Rights and Social Justice, encouraged her peers to join in solidarity with survivors of sexual assault. She also told them about the many ways survivors are often blamed for their own victimization.
Sexual assault is any kind of unwanted sexual activity, from touching to rape. It is a major issue in our community. Those who have been assaulted need support – often just a listening ear and reinforcement of the message that it’s not their fault.
Sanchez is a senior majoring in social work with a minor in psychology. She was inspired to pursue a social work degree after meeting with an academic advisor at her transfer institution, Miami Dade College. However, it was the Barry Service Corps that encouraged her to apply for the community advocate position.
The Center for Human Rights and Social Justice is a unit of Barry’s School of Social Work, and the Barry Service Corps (BSC) is a program managed by the Center for Community Service Initiatives. BSC members participate in Federal Work-Study Community Service.
Sanchez hosted a sexual assault awareness campaign on campus, which caught the attention of about 40 students. Some of those students have committed themselves to spreading the message off campus and to be supportive of people in the local community who have been victimized.
The sexual assault awareness campaign is part of Odet’s community involvement. Next year, she plans to shift her attention to human trafficking. She hopes to help in shedding light on the prevalence of human trafficking in Miami while spreading information about the warning signs of potential human trafficking.
Her service as a community advocate has taken Sanchez out of her comfort zone. She is learning that “sometimes you are going to stand alone in what you believe in, but speaking up about what you believe in is enough to start a whole chain reaction.”
According to Sanchez, “You are one person, but you have a lot of power. Speaking up can inspire someone else to speak up too.”
It is with this mindset that she has been using her campus-based position to have an impact on the wider community.
“I see the ripple effects of her hard work,” says Brittney Morales, the CCSI-based program coordinator for Federal Work-Study Community Service. “Students are being inspired to serve the community and to stand up for what is right.”
Odet Sanchez graduates in December and plans to go straight for her master’s in clinical social work.
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Two Posters at Campus Event Highlight Community Engagement Projects
The Committee for Inter-professional Collaboration’s Scholarly Poster Fair on November 7 included two posters that highlighted community engagement projects.
Students Lilyveth Mesa, Jose Hurtado, Fabian Ramos, and Michaela Reyes, with faculty mentor Dr. George Fisher (College of Arts and Sciences), presented a poster titled “Barry University Chemistry Club: Cultivating Scientific Zeal Through Service and Community Engagement.”
“Developing a Health Garden Through Interdisciplinary Collaborative Service” is the title of the second poster. Dr. Ann Lamet (College of Nursing and Health Science) created the poster to share information on her special project.
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Community Engagement News
Posted On : November 18, 2019
