Campuses and Communities Recognized for Working Together to Make a Difference in Indiana

March 14, 2011 - PRLog -- INDIANAPOLIS – Imagine mobilizing hundreds of students state-wide to communities in need.  Imagine faculty and staff members at universities and colleges throughout Indiana introducing their students to learning by serving.  Imagine organizations that have identified a need in their communities and are successfully partnering with colleges and universities in Indiana to meet those needs.

That is exactly what the members and partners of Indiana Campus Compact have been doing for the past 18 years.   Each year, Indiana Campus Compact recognizes their work and its impact on the citizens of Indiana through its annual awards program.  The awards program recognizes one engaged campus faculty member, staff member, student, and one community partner organization.

This year’s recipients are:  2011 Brian D. Hiltunen Faculty Award: Michael D. Guebert , PhD, Professor of Geology at Taylor University
Dr. Michael (Mike) Guebert has made an active decision to engage his classes in service learning and to assist fellow faculty in adding service learning to their courses across the disciplines. In each of his courses, he involves students with civic engagement. “The holistic combination of learning, serving and reflecting strengthens students’ critical-thinking ability for competent science, deepens their conscience for effective stewardship, and enhances their technical skills for useful service,” he says. Outside projects enable students to understand the meaning behind what they are learning and appropriate applications. In addition, community impact from Mike’s work can be felt as close to home as Upland and as far away as South America.  Mike’s students have worked with local middle school students on stream assessments and Guatemalan community members to implement appropriate technologies of water wells, filters, latrines, and hygiene education.  Mike also makes himself available to meet one-on-one with colleagues who are incorporating service-learning into their discipline and has hosted several faculty development events which have been open to faculty from across the state.

2011 Community Service Director Award: Andrew Antonio, Director of Diversity, Engagement, and Alumni Affairs at Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana-Lafayette During his three years at Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana-Lafayette, Andrew Antonio has developed campus community partnerships that have had a profound effect on students and the greater Lafayette community.  He developed a partnership with the Cities of Lafayette and West Lafayette to provide them with classrooms of students who could engage in projects which the local government did not have the resources to complete. These partnerships lead to several projects including a reading program for at-risk elementary children and surveys conducted by students for the police department. Andrew brought student volunteers together to re-landscape the front of the Lafayette YMCA and develop a summer camp for at-risk high school students. Andrew oversees the expansion of various initiatives which benefit diverse populations within the college and the community. Some of these initiatives include the growth of the Tippecanoe Latino Festival, building a Diversity Awareness Initiative among college employees, and leading the College’s Martin Luther King Day Ceremony & Day of Service. Many of his engagement activities help build outside collaborations, such as the Tippecanoe Art Federation’s cultural plan which Andrew has implemented on his campus. “Whether it is learning how to talk, how to play well with others, or machining aluminum into parts for a vehicle, we ultimately hone our knowledge by ’doing’ and the entire community is our classroom,” he says.

2011 Richard J. Wood Student Community Commitment Award: Caitlin J. Ryan, a Senior Biology Major at Indiana University Bloomington.  Caitlin Ryan is currently pursuing a major in Biology with minors in Spanish, Chemistry, and Studio Art. She is a peer instructor who has taught 3 sections of a Global Villages courses at Indiana University Bloomington, a math tutor, and a writer/photographer for the World, Arts, and Campus pages in the Indiana Daily Student. Caitlin is the Documenting Team Leader and Writing Partner for Books and Beyond. The Books & Beyond project brings together three unique groups of students from the US and Rwanda to author and illustrate children’s stories. College students at Indiana University Bloomington are paired with middle school and high school students from Newark, New Jersey, to write children’s stories. In the process, the mentoring experience empowers the young students to believe that college is a real possibility for them, while the older students are learning how to be good role models. At the same time, students at the partner school in Kinigi, Rwanda, write their own stories. At the end of the academic year, the stories are compiled into an anthology that is then printed and delivered to each student in the project. With Caitlin’s assistance, Books and Beyond has delivered over 4,000 books to the students in Bloomington, Newark, and Kinigi in the last three years. Caitlin led a team of eight students in learning how to document the project effectively by guiding her fellow students in their growth from hobby photographers and videographers into young professionals, who are documenting with a purpose. “Nothing has connected me more to my community, both locally and globally, than my involvement with this project,” she says.

2011 Indiana Campus Compact Outstanding Community Partner Award: Marion Country Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD), nominated by Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)“I can think of no other organization in Indianapolis that has done more for the community and this university than the Marion County Soil and Water Conservation District,” says Frederick L. Bein, Professor of Geology at IUPUI. The Marion County SWCD has been actively engaged in Indianapolis for the last 33 years, governed by a board of volunteer supervisors. The work they do is significant in improving the community and they have engaged IUPUI students in the sciences, liberal arts, and public and environmental affairs. IUPUI students have been instrumental in enhancing the technology of the SWCD including website development and Geographic Information Systems applications which enabled the district to better communicate with the citizens of Indianapolis and to provide logistical support to other city and county operations. The students have focused on erosion and sediment control, backyard conservation, drainage and water management, and many other significant geological facets that benefit the community.  One former student, Douglas S. Campbell, made a career out of his experiences with Marion Country Soil and Water Conservation District. “My career has been in the natural resources or environmental management field… the basics that I learned from my work with the Marion County District helped me in working with the water issues I encountered in the job.”

The award winners will be recognized at an evening reception and awards program as part of the Indiana Campus Compact Service Engagement Summit on March 31, 2011, in Indianapolis, Indiana.  Along with his or her public recognition, the award winners will receive a cash gift to donate to the community partner of his or her choice in order to further its service to the community.

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As the only state-wide higher education association dedicated solely to campus-based community engagement, Indiana Campus Compact helps member campuses forge effective community partnerships through resources, grants, networking, and training.