Community Engagement News

In This Issue:

Barry Service Corps Members Assist 33 Community Partners

Sixty-five students participated in Barry’s Federal Work-Study (FWS) Community Service Program this academic year, supporting a variety of community-based or community-focused programs.

Participating as members of the Barry Service Corps, students served mainly as tutors and mentors, program assistants, environmental preservationists, and social advocates reported Brittney Morales, the FWS Community Service coordinator.

Thirty-three community partners provided community service opportunities for the Barry Service Corps members, who were assigned to schools, social service agencies, economic development organizations, public health facilities, and similar places.

Among the community organizations participating this year were Branches;Easter Seals South Florida; Gang Alternative; Special Olympics Florida – Miami-Dade County; the Women’s Breast and Heart Initiative; Urban Promise Miami; and URGENT, Inc.

“Students applied their academic knowledge and skills to their work with community partners,” Morales said.

A Barry Service Corps member serving at A New Start: Financial and Social Services drew on Barry’s undergraduate finance curriculum to assist agency clients during the tax season, Morales reported. At Amor en Acción, she added, another member provided fundraising support for programs in Haiti while a psychology major served as a crisis helpline counselor at Jewish Community Services of South Florida.

Barry’s Office of Mission Engagement (OME) and the School of Social Work’s Center for Human Rights and Social Justice hosted some of the FWS Community Service participants this year.

Students on Barry’s Green Team worked with OME to support the campus-based Food Recovery Network chapter in packaging leftover food from the main dining hall for delivery to a community site.

Barry Service Corps members assigned to the Center for Human Rights and Social Justice contributed to advocacy initiatives in partnership with Pridelines, the Life of Freedom Center, and other community agencies.

The Center for Community Service Initiatives coordinates FWS Community Service in partnership with the offices of Financial Aid and Human Resources.

Director of Catholic Charitable Organization Visits Campus to Discuss Public Health Projects

Pere (Father) Phechner Julmisse, a Haitian priest, visited Barry’s main campus recently for discussions centered on support for clinics and public health projects in Haiti’s northwestern region.

A priest in the Diocese of Port-de-Paix and the director of Caritas (Catholic Charities) Port-de-Paix, Julmisse met with administrators and faculty members of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences. In attendance were Dr. Carl Cramer, professor and associate dean of the college; Dr. Corvette Yacoob, assistant professor of nursing and interim director of the nurse practitioner program; Drs. Claudette Chin and Mureen Shaw, assistant professors of nursing; and Tamara LaCroix, an adjunct professor and doctoral student.

They discussed opportunities for graduate nursing students to assist Caritas in addressing public health concerns in Port-de-Paix and its environs.

“Many graduate nursing students speak Haitian Creole and can contribute to public health projects in Haiti by preparing popular education materials,” noted Courtney Berrien, associate director of the Center for Community Service Initiatives (CCSI), who participated in the meeting. “Other students can contribute through research while others may travel to Port-de-Paix to provide direct support to public health projects through Caritas.”

Since 2016, Julmisse and his staff have served as hosts in Port-de-Paix to teams of Barry students and faculty/staff who have participated in Alternative Spring Break and partnership projects focused on health and education. The teams have assisted at Caritas clinics and with public health projects in Haiti’s northwest.

Shaw and Chin met with Caritas staff members in Port-de-Paix to explore opportunities for graduate nursing students to assist with efforts to prevent the spread of cholera and sexually transmitted diseases.

Cramer, the associate dean, oversees the administration of the Project ADVICE (Advancement of Interprofessional Collaboration and Education) grant, which partly funded two visits to Port-de-Paix by faculty/staff teams from Nursing and the School of Education.

Dr. Glenn Bowen, executive director of the CCSI, attended the meeting, as did Dr. Sean Buckreis, associate professor of education, and Vladimir Lescouflair, an adjunct instructor in the Department of Communication.

School of Social Work to Support Violence Intervention Initiative in Miami-Dade County

Barry’s School of Social Work will be involved in the Group Violence Intervention Initiative that Miami-Dade’s Board of County Commissioners will be implementing.

The Circle of Brotherhood has asked the school to become a partner in supporting the initiative. The school has signed a memorandum of understanding with the organization and is finalizing a research plan.

Earlier this year, nine members of the Circle of Brotherhood staged Operation Hunger Strike in an effort to stop gun violence. Members highlighted “senseless killings in our community,” according to a news report.

County Commission Chairwoman Audrey M. Edmonson and Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez announced recently that the Group Violence Intervention Initiative would be aimed primarily at combating gun violence.

Community Engagement Administrator Participates in Asia-Pacific Conference

Dr. Glenn Bowen, executive director of Barry University’s Center for Community Service Initiatives (CCSI), presented two papers at the 7th Asia-Pacific Regional Conference on Service-Learning in Singapore on June 21.

The papers are titled “Exploring the Effects of a Service-Learning Designation Process on Pedagogy and Course Outcomes” and “Professional Advancement for Service-Learning Scholars: How to Get Published in Peer-Reviewed Journals.”

In addition, on June 20, Bowen joined Dr. Andrew Furco, a nationally recognized community engagement scholar, in facilitating two conference breakout sessions on “Developing a Global Research Agenda for Service-Learning and Community Engagement.” Furco is the associate vice president for public engagement and a professor of higher education at the University of Minnesota.

Both Bowen and Furco are members of the Board of Directors of the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement. Bowen is also a co-editor of the International Journal of Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement, and he was a member of the proposal review panel for the conference in Singapore.

The Singapore University of Social Sciences hosted the service-learningconference from June 19 to 21.

Professors Present at National Meeting on Civic Learning, Democratic Engagement

Two Barry professors were presenters at the 2019 Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement Meeting (CLDE19) last month.

Dr. Jalane Meloun, professor of administration in the School of Professional and Career Education, and Dr. Sean Foreman, professor of political science, presented a 60-minute session titled “Of the People, By the People, For the People: Students = The People.” They shared information on Barry’s Campus Democracy Project, including the BucsVote initiative, which engaged students in the electoral process during the recent midterm elections.

“The information was well received and the audience was extremely engaged,” Meloun reported.

Foreman added that the presentation elicited discussion about the challenges of voting on and around college campuses across the United States.

Held June 5–8 in Fort Lauderdale, CLDE19 was a conference intended to facilitate exchanges of knowledge and develop a sense of community around the shared civic learning and democratic engagement of colleges and universities. The conference was designed around the CLDE Theory of Change, which suggests that institutions consider how best to construct campus cultures and contexts that foster civic ethos, civic literacy and skill building, civic inquiry, civic action, and civic agency.

Social Work Faculty Member Facilitates Panel Presentation at National Conference

Dr. Tisa McGhee, associate professor of social work, facilitated a panel presentation on data sharing at the Network for Social Work Management’s 30th Annual Conference in Chicago, Illinois, recently.

Saliha Nelson, vice president of URGENT, Inc., was one of the panelists. Nelson is chair of Barry’s Community Advisory Committee.

Titled “Harnessing Technology for Impact: Developing a Data Sharing Community,” the presentation was organized around the theme of the conference, “Accelerating Impact: Harnessing the Power of Human, Social, and Financial Innovation.”

The panelists demonstrated the benefits of data sharing through the case example of an initiative developed by the Overtown Children and Youth Coalition. They provided information on how to develop a data-sharing culture, create a data-sharing memorandum of understanding, develop metrics through a participatory process, and collaborate with funding agencies to support quality data and strategic data-sharing goals.

Other panelists were Tina Brown, CEO of the Overtown Youth Center; Jason Pittman, CEO of Touching Miami with Love; and Daniel Gibson, Allegany Franciscan Ministries’ regional vice president for Miami-Dade.

The Network for Social Work Management conference took place from May 29 to June 1 on Loyola University Chicago’s Lake Shore campus.

Dr. Tisa McGhee Appointed to Miami-Dade County’s Census Task Force

Students Take Part in ‘Design for Good’ Poster Festival, ‘Recycled Runway’ Fashion Show

Five Barry graphic designers – Ana Smith, Hamzh Elmi, Marian Parajon-Downing, Angelina Lang, and Victoria Roman – made the cut at AIGA PosterFest: Design for Good 2019. They were among the 10 jury-selected finalists at the event held at the Wolfsonian–FIU,located in the Art Deco District of Miami Beach,

“Barry also took home three honorable mentions in this challenge – for graphic designers Savannah Parker, Daisean Foster, and Mykaella Panier,” reported Nicole (Nicky) Beltran, associate professor of graphic design.

The finalists’ artwork was displayed in the main entryway of the Wolfsonian alongside vintage AIDS awareness posters from that museum’s collection.

AIGA PosterFest featured displays, interactive presentations, and a keynote conversation about how visual communication has transformed the fight against HIV, the AIDS virus.

Among the supporters of PosterFest were the Florida Department of Health of Miami-Dade County, which manages a Sexually Transmitted Diseases Control and Prevention Program as well as an HIV/AIDS Control and Prevention Program.

Beltran’s graphic design students also took part in the “Recycled Runway” Fashion Show at Florida Atlantic University’s MetroLAB in downtown Fort Lauderdale. Among those on the runway was Ana Smith, who modeled an outfit that she and classmates Savannah Parker, Ryan Parker, Abigail Solorzano, Jerrayah Dawson, and Mykaella Panier designed with only recycled materials.

Drawing inspiration from the Bauhaus, a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933, Smith’s piece was made from muslin, newspaper, electrical wire, felt, and bottle caps.

The Box Tops for Education Drive organized by the Minority Association of Pre-health Students (MAPS) and the Center for Community Service Initiatives (CCSI) is continuing throughout the summer terms.

Proceeds of the Box Tops donations benefit two schools – North Miami Elementary in Miami-Dade County and Sheridan Hills Elementary in Broward County.

Staff, faculty, and students are urged to show their support by donating box tops.

“Simply identify the Box Tops logo on household products you already purchase, including many grocery items, and cut the logo from the packaging,” the organizers explain. “You may submit your box tops in the donation boxes on campus. Donation boxes are at various locations, including in the CCSI office, Adrian 208.”

Box Tops donations also may be sent via interoffice mail to Dr. Stephanie Bingham in the Department of Biology, Siena 309.

Next Issue of Community Engagement News Slated for August 19