Bringing It #41: Congrats to Joyce Bylander, a New Webinar Series, and Grantee Spotlights
Dear friends,
Please join us in congratulating our dear friend and Advisory Board Member Joyce Bylander as she begins her new journey at Haverford College as Interim Dean! Joyce has served in a variety of student-centric roles, the most recent being Vice President and Dean of Students at Dickinson College. Her experience mentoring students, bringing communities together in collaboration, overseeing student life, and championing an inclusive campus environment will find a home at Haverford. To learn more, click here.
Like Joyce, other members of our community are finding success through community work. Read on to learn more.
Please Join Our Friends for Their Webinar Series
Our friends at the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life are hosting an eight-part weekly webinar series: “Navigating the Pandemic: Knowledge, Resilience, Civic Purpose and Engagement.” The webinars are taking place on Wednesdays, 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. ET. The series began on June 10, but you can still register and take part. To learn more about the series, including information on topics and presenters, click here. The series is free and open to anyone–you can register here.
Grantee Spotlight: Oberlin College and Lorain County Community College
In May 2019, Oberlin College and Lorain County Community College (LCCC) launched the 4D Liberal Arts Initiative, supported by a Multi-Institutional Innovation Grant. Creative writing students at LCCC visited Oberlin’s campus, touring the Special Collections and the Letterpress Studio located in the Terrell Main Library to learn about the history of typeface and printing technologies, make their own prints, and consider the role of print design in fostering meaning. Oberlin students learning about the development of the modern Maker Movement visited LCCC’s Fab Lab (the second in the nation) to learn the history of these community-oriented fabrication laboratories. Students at both institutions gained a window into each other’s lives through the Postcard Project, a pen pal exchange between partner courses at LCCC and Oberlin. The 4D initiative also supported in-person collaborations, with LCCC students in Gregory Little’s drawing, animation, and digital design course joining Oberlin students from Holly Handman-Lopez’s choreography course to explore intersections of Virtual Reality and dance. The faculty then presented their research at the Conference for Research on Choreographic Interfaces at Brown University in early March, 2020. The 4D Liberal Arts initiative was highlighted by local media and plans are underway for continued collaborations across institutions for the 2020-21 academic year. Photographs from this year’s collaborations can be found here. (Photo courtesy of Jack Lichtenstein)
Grantee Spotlight: The University of the South and The Algernon Sydney Sullivan Foundation
What is the best way to bring formal opportunities in social impact and social entrepreneurship into the college experience? That was the topic for a weekend long retreat at the University of the South (Sewanee), hosted in partnership with the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Foundation, as part of their Multi-Institutional Innovation Grant project. In early November 2019, 21 faculty members, administrators, and students from six colleges and universities, and the Sullivan Foundation, met to “define a social impact hub.” The meeting was facilitated by Spud Marshall of Sullivan and Karen Proctor from Sewanee. The outcome? Plans to form a learning network or community of practice that would serve to strengthen the social impact outcomes of Sullivan Network schools. Supported by the Foundation, the hub would facilitate peer to peer learning, project collaboration, and the sharing of best practices. Sullivan has been developing student opportunities in social entrepreneurship for several years and is ready to move the program to a new level. Sewanee is building a strong practice in civic engagement that involves building robust local partnerships that lead to community thriving, developing curricula, and mentoring students as they work with the community.
Despite all the unforeseen COVID setbacks, our grantee community and strategic partners have still flourished throughout the spring and early summer. We are encouraged by their strength and look forward to fostering these relationships and successes from our new home at Elon University.
With warmth,
David, Caitlin, Mercedes, and Kate