October 22, 2018 |
Students, Faculty, and Staff Urged to Support Hurricane Michael Relief Drive Nursing Students Perform Health Screenings at St. Mary’s Cathedral School Doctoral Students Prepare for Research Project Focused on Refugee Experience Students Encouraged to Educate Themselves on Political Issues – and to Vote Next Deliberative Dialogue Forum Focuses on U.S. Hunger Policy Faculty Learning Community for Engaged Scholarship Meets October 29 Students Take Trip to Immokalee During Fall Break to Learn and Serve Student Leaders Participate in Student/Farmworker Alliance Event Applications for Alternative Spring Break Trips Still Being Accepted Miami-Dade Special Olympics Looking for Volunteers for Various Events
|
Students, Faculty, and Staff Urged to
Barry students, faculty, and staff are urged to support a disaster relief drive to assist people affected by Hurricane Michael.
Organized by Miami Shores Village, Hurricane Michael Disaster Relief is aimed at collecting specific hygiene and food items, which will be turned over to Feeding South Florida.
Donations being sought are personal hygiene items, diapers for adults and babies, cleaning supplies, pop-top canned meals, peanut butter, cereal, and instant soup mixes. Feeding South Florida will not accept opened or used items, homemade items, and items in glass jars.
Collection boxes are located in the Landon Student Union and Thompson Hall. Miami Shores Village is accepting donations until October 31.
Dr. Scott F. Smith, Barry’s vice president for mission and student engagement, is encouraging the entire campus to support the hurricane relief effort.
“So many in the Florida Panhandle have been impacted by Hurricane Michael. Some have lost everything,” Dr. Smith said. “As we hold all of those affected in prayer, we encourage students, staff, and faculty to support this drive by donating the items requested to help those in need.”
Feeding South Florida is the region’s leading domestic hunger-relief organization. A Barry community partner, the Pembroke Park-based organization was a recipient of the university’s Community Partnership Award in 2014.
|
Nursing Students Perform Health Screenings at St. Mary’s Cathedral School
Barry nursing students and faculty recently performed vision and scoliosis screenings for students at St. Mary’s Cathedral School in Miami.
A total of 391 students received vision screening and 55 sixth-grade students were screened for scoliosis, a sideways curvature of the spine that occurs most often during the growth spurt just before puberty.
Twenty-five nursing students and five nursing faculty members performed the screenings, which were coordinated by Dr. Faye Milne, an assistant professor of nursing. In all, they provided over 100 hours of service.
St. Mary’s Cathedral School Principal Eduardo L. Flor and School Counselor Camilla Tamargo thanked the students and faculty for their “excellent service.”
In a letter to Dr. Milne, the school officials wrote: “Because of these invaluable screenings, many students were identified with visual or physical problems. As a result, this has facilitated these students to receive the medical attention needed. We are very grateful to you and your nursing students for the proficient and professional services provided to our school.”
|
Doctoral Students Prepare for Research Project Focused on Refugee Experience
In preparation for their experience-based research project, students taking Dr. Ruth Ban’s HSE 705, Introduction to Qualitative Research, recently welcomed a Barry community partner to their class.
Focused on refugees, the project is titled “Examining Belongingness in the Refugee Experience: An Arts-Based Approach.” The project aims to shed light on refugees’ involvement with their communities since arriving in Miami.
Kenneth Fuentes, a refugee resettlement program caseworker at the Miami office of Church World Service (CWS), was the guest speaker during an HSE 705 class meeting. He spoke to the doctoral students about the CWS resettlement program and provided details of how students support it.
During the same class meeting, the students were able to test their interview protocol by simulating the interviews they will conduct with Miami-area refugees.
The Doral-based Miami office is one of three CWS South Florida offices that provide resettlement and legal support to refugees from such countries as Afghanistan, Burma, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, and Iraq.
A professor in the School of Education, Dr. Ban received the 2018 Community-Based Research Award from the Center for Community Service Initiatives.
|
Students Encouraged to Educate Themselves on Political Issues – and to Vote
As part of Barry's Campus Democracy Project (CDP), students are being encouraged to continue educating themselves on political issues and to vote in next month's general election.
The CDP Committee has referred to a Statement on Civic Engagement and Voting from the American Political Science Association (APSA), which emphasizes that "registering to vote, getting educated about issues and candidates, and casting a ballot on Election Day are key elements of an engaged and participatory citizenship."
Dr. Sean Foreman, a professor of political science and former co-chair of the CDP Committee, shared the association’s statement with the CDP Committee last week.
Noting that political science is a discipline devoted to understanding government and politics, APSA said it encourages the civic participation of its members and the public. The association also said it encourages political scientists to share information with their students and communities to increase awareness of public issues and to inform deliberations.
"A healthy civic life is one of engagement," APSA emphasized in the statement.
APSA has made several civic engagement resources available at its website <www.apsanet.org/civic-engagement>.
The CDP is a nonpartisan initiative that promotes civic learning and democratic engagement through get-out-the-vote activities, including voter registration, education, and mobilization.
|
Next Deliberative Dialogue Forum Focuses on U.S. Hunger Policy
The next forum in this academic year’s Deliberative Dialogue Series will focus on U.S. hunger policy.
Should Congress fund federal hunger-relief programs like WIC (the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children) and summer meals for school-aged children? How does tax reform affect anti-hunger programs? Should the federal government invest further in agricultural development programs and continue to provide financial support to farmers? Who are the special-interest groups influencing hunger policy in the United States? Titled “Hunger Policy in America and the Politics of Nutrition Assistance,” the 90-minute forum will be held on October 30 in the Andreas 112 conference room, beginning at 4 p.m.
The CCSI organizes the Deliberative Dialogue Series as an approach to civic learning and engagement. The series brings together campus and community stakeholders to weigh perspectives on current social issues of shared concern and to work toward practical solutions.
For further information on the upcoming forum, contact the CCSI at service@barry.edu or 305-899-3696.
|
Faculty Learning Community for Engaged Scholarship Meets October 29
The Faculty Learning Community for Engaged Scholarship will have its second meeting for the academic year on October 29, from 1:00 to 2:15 p.m. The CCSI will host the meeting in Adrian Hall, Room 208.
All FLC members and prospective members are urged to attend the meeting.
|
Students Take Trip to Immokalee During Fall Break to Learn and Serve
Twenty-eight Barry students visited Immokalee during fall break to learn about farmworker justice and to provide service to the community.
Located in the southwestern region of Florida, Immokalee has been a U.S. agricultural hub and is home to a human rights organization whose work is built on the foundation of farmworker community organizing.
At the headquarters of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), the students attended a presentation on the history and accomplishments of the organization. A major CIW accomplishment is the Fair Food Program, an internationally recognized labor rights initiative. The students reflected on labor and power issues and modern-day slavery, and they discussed ways that they, together with university faculty and staff, could further support the CIW in seeking justice for agricultural workers.
Paris Razor, a Barry senior serving on the Student/Farmworker Alliance national steering committee, facilitated a conversation with her peers regarding the need to continue putting pressure on corporations that do not participate in the Fair Food Program. She identified Wendy’s and Publix as two of those corporations.
Earlier, one of two groups of students spent time interacting with children at the Guadalupe Center, which administers an early childhood education program.
The other group served at Immokalee Friendship House, a ministry center of the Naples-based St. Matthew’s House. They helping to clean and organize the facility, which provides temporary shelter and services to migrant, displaced, and homeless people.
Thirteen of the students who took the fall break trip are currently enrolled in service-learning courses in sociology or theology, or both. The others are fellows in the Barry Service Corps. Three CCSI staff members accompanied the students.
|
Student Leaders Participate in Student/Farmworker
Barry student leaders Paris Razor and Samantha Ternelus were among more than 80 students and young people who gathered in Immokalee recently for Encuentro, an annual event organized by the Student/Farmworker Alliance (SFA).
Razor and Ternelus are fellows in the Barry Service Corps, and Razor is a member of the SFA Steering Committee.
Immokalee, the farming community in Collier County, is the birthplace of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ (CIW) battle against poverty wages and systemic violence in the fields.
The Encuentro participants also staged a demonstration outside a Wendy’s fast-food restaurant off U.S. 41 in Lee County’s Estero village. They sought Wendy’s support of the CIW’s Fair Food Program.
|
Applications for Alternative Spring Break Trips Still Being Accepted
The Alternative Breaks executive board is still accepting student applications for participation in Alternative Spring Break 2019.
Trips are being planned for Port-de-Paix, Haiti; McAllen, Texas; Tallahassee, Florida – Montgomery, Alabama; and Immokalee, Florida, during the university’s spring break, March 2–9.
Alternative Breaks provides students with community-based immersion experiences designed to build awareness of social, political, and environmental issues through learning, reflection, and service that benefits diverse populations.
Applications should be submitted as soon as possible – preferably by this Friday, October 26. For further information, contact the Center for Community Service Initiatives at service@barry.edu or 305-899-3696.
|
Miami-Dade Special Olympics Looking for Volunteers for Various Events
Special Olympics Florida – Miami-Dade County is seeking volunteers for several upcoming events.
For its Area Bowling Games, the organization needs volunteers to assist with set-up, registration, score-keeping, awards presentation, cheerleading, and other activities. The event will take place on October 30, from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., at SpareZ Bowling.
Also on October 30, Special Olympics Florida – Miami-Dade needs volunteers to help with registration, escorting of athletes, scorekeeping, awards presentation, and other activities at its South FL Flag Football Invitational. The event is scheduled for 3–7 p.m. at Moore Park.
County basketball games are scheduled for November 20, 22, and 26 and December 4 and 5, from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., at various high schools. Volunteers are needed to help with setup, registration, escorting athletes to their station, scoring, and other activities.
In addition, Special Olympics Florida – Miami-Dade is seeking volunteers for a basketball skill-building event at Marion Center School, on November 16 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Volunteers will assist mainly with escorting athletes, scoring, and awards coordination.
To volunteer for any of these events, visit the Special Olympics Florida – Miami-Dade volunteer calendar page <https://specialolympicsflorida.org/miami-dade/volunteer/volunteer-calendar/>. For further information, contact Nicole Koretsky at nicolekoretsky@sofl.org.
|