Civic and Community Engagement Commons^™

Finding Comfort In Discomfort: A Cross-Racial Dialogue On Race And Racism, Otterbein University

Social Justice & Activism

St. Matthew's Episcopal Church and Otterbein University Office of Social Justice and Activism present the Fall 2018 Symposium with Jim Mulholland and Cherie Bridges Patrick. Includes speakers stories, a reparations workshop and an implicit bias workshop.

Community Initiatives Multiply University Partnerships, Christopher Lafontaine

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

Christopher LaFontaine is a senior studying psychology and sociology at Indiana Purdue Fort Wayne (IPFW). He has concentrated on community engagement and service learning as areas of focus for the past year. He plans to pursue a career in applied sociology and he has been involved with applied research among vulnerable populations. Christopher has worked with homeless veterans in Fort Wayne and has studied health conditions in a rural county that ranks low in health outcomes. In this article, he describes his experience with service-learning partnerships between community organizations and an institution of higher education.

Slacktivism: Social Media Activism And Its Effectiveness, Abby M. Foreman

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"Engagement is costly in terms of time and often money."

Posting about the pros and cons of slacktivism from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

https://inallthings.org/slacktivism-social-media-activism-and-its-effectiveness/

Fearless Friday: Melanie Pangol, Melanie Pangol

SURGE

Today, we celebrate the work of Melanie Pangol ’21. Originally from Ecuador, Melanie was raised in Philly, and has been living in New York in the last few years. On campus, Melanie is part of the Brown Nipple Collective, works for the Center for Career Engagement, and acts as program coordinator for the Painted Turtle Farm through the Center for Public Service among many other activities. [excerpt]

Five Full Four-Year Scholarships To Arizona State University For Sex Trafficking Survivors, Arizona State University Office Of Sex Trafficking Intervention Research

Dignity: A Journal on Sexual Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Faith And Environmentalism: A Personal Reflection, Jessica T. Davis

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

This paper was presented as a culminating capstone project at North Cascades Institute as required by Western Washington University’s M.Ed. program in Environmental Education. Guided by seven themes, this paper seeks to demonstrate the connection between Faith and the environment. The seven connections explored include the following: prayer and meditation, peace, food consumption, seasons, material consumption, taking care, and fellowship. While environmentally responsible decisions may not necessarily be a top priority for all people of Faith, religious beliefs and Spirituality may influence some to develop a deeper connection to the environment. Although this paper is a personal reflection ...

Eating Is An Act Of Learning; Eating Is An Act Of Love, Annah Young

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

Environmental Education should exist to address injustices in our world, be they social or environmental since the two rarely exist isolated from each other. Environmental Education should exist to unite people, transcend social boundaries, and bring about solutions to shared socioecological challenges. One of the most pertinent socioecological challenges we face today revolves around our food system. We now have an opportunity to change our education system to reflect the current reality of our food system and reimagine a future where all communities have control over the cultivation, production, and distribution of the food on their plates all while treading ...

Phylogenetics: A Catalyst For A Biophilic Revolution?, Holli N. Watne

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

A biology framework in Environmental Education can inspire biophilia, the love for the complex array of lifeforms on this planet, in students. In this paper, a simple, multi-scaled phylogenetic tree is presented to express such a framework. When viewing life from a framework such as a phylogenetic tree, the human species is seen as just one part of something vastly complex. This view is contrasted to another framework, more anthropocentric in nature, that seems to be more typical in the developed world. Challenging students to view the role of humanity from a biocentric, rather than anthropocentric, framework can lead to ...

Braiding Identities In Nature Through Preschool, Hannah E. Newell

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

Preschool is an age when many things are yet to be discovered. This capstone presentation engages the public in what free play in nature is like. Often as adults, we lose our ability to think with our imagination first. Preschool aged children can lose this ability as well if they are not allowed the time to explore freely. More importantly, they can lose the opportunity to develop a sense of place making it less likely that they will feel connected to nature. It is also pertinent that children of this age are introduced to the many differences and similarities that ...

Querencia, Sasha Savoian

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

Querencia, where I am are strong from. Querencia, translated literally from Spanish to mean “beloved place”. It informs identity, it gives us a place of belonging in the world, and it roots us to a particular memory experienced through landscape. It is as broad as it is narrow, but it inextricably links us to a literal or metaphorical landscape we call home. Querencia is a place where we know exactly who we are. It is often a physical location, a landscape, but it may also be a movement of music, a perfect wooden chair, a lyrical linking of words in ...

Truth Grounding Education, Zachary Lundgren

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

The following is a transcript of an oral presentation delivered at the Environmental Learning Center in Diablo, Washington in March of 2017. It explores wisdom shared by personal relations to the author that relate to education and education systems. It takes a critical stance on education systems and celebrates learning as a fundamental human act.

The Making Of A Naturalist, Joseph Loviska

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

The purpose of this work is for you, the reader, to be sufficiently informed, entertained, and inspired that you find yourself reaching your own hands down into your soul, or your soil-filled gut, or the soles of your feet or your over-stuffed brain – wherever it is that you keep the meaning of your life — and press with your thumbs to make room for a new seed. Through story and poetry, I will use my own life as a site of inquiry to illuminate the educational structure and purpose of ideas around ecological identity. I see that dominant Western culture, driving ...

How To Make An Orchestra Alone: A Critical, Experiential Performance Of Ben’S Year In The Mountains, Ben Kusserow

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

This paper shares the hour-performance traveled from the boat house to the middle of the dam on Diablo Lake, WA. There were two distinct activities in each of the four sections. In each section, Ben shared a story from his year in the NCI Graduate Residency program. He then engaged the audience in some critical thought leading into an activity.

Education For Wholeness: La Womb De Mi Labor, Ginna Malley Campos

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

Conventional education teaches and reinforces disconnection from ourselves and disengagement from the world. This presentation considers power, privilege, and the act of listening in educational settings and identity development and explores the importance of holistic education for transforming self and society. Through a personal journey that interweaves the complexities of colonial history, heritage and identity with spirit and healing; we invite all to engage inwardly with the suffering implicit in our existence in order to reconnect with the wholeness that enables our shared journey towards healing.

Inextricably Season 1, Episode 1: “Now What”, Adam F. Bates

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

This is the transcript of a fictional weekly podcast called Inextricably, performed in front of a live audience at North Cascades Institute’s Environmental Learning Center in North Cascades National Park in March 2017. The author outlines and examines the personal themes and seasonal cycles throughout an entire graduate school residency, a Master’s of Education in Environmental Education offered in partnership with North Cascades Institute and Western Washington University. A search for the purpose in the way information and knowledge is transferred, a sense of disillusionment with traditional models of education, and the unexpected learning outcomes of this experience ...

The Greater Unconformity, Emily Ford

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

In recent light of sexual harassment cases going unaddressed at Grand Canyon National Park and other public lands, there is a need to call out the persistent social, political, and economic structures that allow such acts to occur and go undocumented and unaddressed. A thorough explanation of geologic unconformities, especially the Great Unconformity in the Grand Canyon, is used as a seamless metaphor for a lack of space for women in the outdoors. This graduate capstone presentation includes an exploration of the gender binary, feminism, the geology of the Grand Canyon, the nature of unconformities, intersectionality, and ecofeminism. In conclusion ...

Uniting Passions: The Transformation Of A Teacher, Emily Baronich

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

This presentation explores the formulation and evolution of an educator through the lens of mathematics, formal and informal settings. It leans on personal experiences, self- evaluation, and the process of developing a dream school that exemplifies environmental and mathematical learning.

Holding The Center: Story And Community, Emma E. Ewert

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

Stories are fundamental to our experience of being human. They help us to make meaning from our lives, and to construct and understand our identities. Although we sometimes struggle to define story in words, we easily recognize when a story is present. This capstone does not present an ultimate definition of story, but rather a series of ideas and patterns that are most commonly found in story. In particular, it says that most stories contain protagonists who overcome a series of obstacles to achieve a final goal and find a meaning or moral behind a series of events. Through examining ...

Fearless Friday: Raegan Gawronski, Raegan Gawronski

SURGE

This week, we are honoring Raegan Gawronski ’19. Raegan is a Women and Gender Sexuality Studies and Philosophy double major from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On campus, she works as a senior intern for the Office of Multicultural Engagement, and is currently in the process of starting a First-Generation Student Organization on campus. [excerpt]

Crumbling The ''Oreo'' Cookie, Lillian Cadet

SURGE

They will treat you as if you have come from an outer space planet. They will be amazed by how much you are different from others. People will make jokes about how much of an “oreo” you are. How your chocolate cookie layers are thinner than your cream filling. [excerpt]