Institute for Public Engagement » News and Events

Final Innovative Spring Engaged Teaching Luncheon Discussion

Norma-May Isakow — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 13:21:51 +0000

The Institute for Public Engagement invites you to REGISTER for our final innovative Spring Fellows & Friends Luncheon

Join engaged faculty from 11:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. in Reynolda Hall 301.

Inspired colleagues share their experience and insights followed by open discussion.

Lunch is provided.

Engaging about Hunger – a Topic for Every Discipline

Monday April 1

Register: http://pdc.wfu.edu/event/p5747V9Rr69/

“Food – food access, food quality, food production – is one of the defining issues of this generation.” Forsyth County ranks as one of the highest for childhood hunger in the nation and the causes and consequences are complex – hunger needs to be addressed through the lens of every discipline. Speakers will share about opportunities for engaging students to think critically about hunger and initiate action to bring about change.

Dr. Mark Jensen, Associate Professor, School of Divinity, and his colleagues, noting the rise of food-related challenges such as hunger, obesity, food access, and ecological damage from agriculture, established the Food, Faith and Religious Leadership Initiative to equip leaders with the knowledge and skills necessary to lead their congregations and communities around food issues. Together with Dr. Sara Quandt he teaches “Faith, Food Justice and Local Communities.”

Dr. Sara Quandt, Professor of Public Health Sciences, was named “Outstanding Researcher” by the National Rural Health Association (NRHA). She conducted a study of community gardens and farmers markets to assess their role in Forsyth County and made recommendations to enhance their success in improving the local food environment. She involves many Wake Forest undergraduate and graduate students in her work.

Shelley Sizemore, Assistant Director of Campus Life/Service, oversees campus-wide community initiatives including Campus Kitchen, a food recycling program that uses cooked but never served food from the campus dining hall to make healthy and nutritious meals for the needy of our community. She is a recognized food justice advocate and has presented on ” Building Community Relationships to Reduce Waste and Combat Hunger.”

*******

Lunch will be provided!

Wake Forest named to 2013 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll

Norma-May Isakow — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 17:34:13 +0000

Wake Forest has been named to the 2013 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll. The University is one of 28 schools in North Carolina to be recognized for engaging its students, faculty and staff in meaningful service that achieves measurable results in the community.

Spring 2013 Engaged Teaching Luncheon Discussion Series

Norma-May Isakow — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 20:06:05 +0000

REGISTER NOW!

The Institute for Public Engagement promotes engaged teaching that fosters critical thinking, gives each student a voice, and encourages students to engage with issues affecting the Wake Forest community and the community beyond.

Within the broader concept of engaged teaching is the recognized pedagogy of service-learning, usually involving direct service to meet community needs. Other forms of engaged teaching may not involve such service but nevertheless engage students in the process of identifying and understanding community issues.

The purpose of this discussion series is to afford faculty the opportunity to share their ideas, challenges, and rewards relating to engaged teaching and to be of mutual inspiration in an enjoyable, informal setting.

The Institute is proud to announce its Spring 2013 Lunch Discussion Series to be held in Reynolda Hall Room 301 from 11:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. on

Monday February 4

Topic: Engaged Teaching relating to Systemic Social Change.

Description: “Systemic social change delves behind immediate problems, involves new ways of applying resources to underlying causes and results in tangible and enduring benefits.” Skoll Foundation. Faculty will share best practices to engage students to think critically and initiate action to bring about systemic change.

Potential Speakers: Stephen Boyd (Religion) , Peter Gilbert (Documentary Film), Mark Wilson (Public Health/Translational Science)

Monday March 4

Topic: Engaging Students to Think Critically

Description: Featured Faculty will share how they encourage students to think critically (analyze, assess, reconstruct) as part of teaching in their respective disciplines.

Potential Speakers: Cindy Gendrich (Theatre), Paul Thacker (Anthropology), Gloria Muday (Biology), Hana Brown (Sociology)

Monday April 1

Topic: Engaging about Hunger – a Topic for Every Discipline

Description: Hunger can (and should) be addressed through the lens of every discipline – Forsyth County ranks as one of the highest for childhood hunger in the nation and the causes and consequences are complex. Speakers will share their ideas and best practices for engaging students to think critically about hunger and initiate action to bring about change.

Potential Speakers: Grace Wetzel (English), Sara Quandt (Translational Science food justice), Mark Jensen (Divinity), Shelley Graves (Campus Life – Campus Kitchens)

Join us by registering for one or more sessions at http://pdc.wfu.edu/events/1242/ .

Lunch will be served!

Celebrating Wake Community Law & Business Clinic

Norma-May Isakow — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 17:48:49 +0000

This month, the Community Law & Business Clinic will complete its fourth year as part of the Wake Forest University School of Law. Over this short time, the Clinic has had a marked impact on our students, clients and community and as we end the year I would like to highlight some of the work that was accomplished this last year and pass along a few notes about 2013.

Practice and Impact – The Clinic provides an interdisciplinary forum for law, business and divinity students to work on community economic development projects across North Carolina. We work in four practice areas - Nonprofit Law and Capacity Building; Small Business Development; ARTSLaw; and Foreclosure Defense.

28 students participated in the Clinic during 2012 and assisted 148 clients with projects in one of our four practice areas. These students provided more than 5,000 hours of pro bono professional services to targeted needs in our community. 31 families facing foreclosure were assisted by the Clinic in 2012. Since 2009, 133 students have practiced in the Community Law Clinic and have worked on more than 600 individual matters for small businesses, nonprofits, artists and families facing foreclosure. This represents more than 23,500 hours of pro bono professional service, equaling an in-kind investment of more than $2.9 million in our community. Moreover, this investment is targeted to local community economic development efforts leading to even greater impact. By any measure, the Community Law & Business Clinic is having a significant impact with our students and across our community.

Going Forward – The Community Law & Business Clinic will undergo several significant changes during 2013. While continuing our core practice areas within Community Economic Development, the ARTSLaw practice will expand to serve more artists and arts based nonprofits. This is in response to the increasing interest in arts-based economic development in North Carolina. Also, an additional practice area will be added to advise clients who are assembling capital for community development efforts, a growing need in the increasingly entrepreneurial world of social ventures. Both of these developments will be described in depth in the clinic’s revised website, which will launch in mid January 2013.

Finally, as part of the School of Law’s overall strategy to locate clinics within Worrell Hall, the Community Law & Business Clinic will relocate to the Wake Forest campus during the summer of 2013. The move presents both a challenge and an opportunity for enhancing our practice and more information will be available this spring.

As we close 2012, I look forward to another successful year that matches our students with needs in our community. As always, I appreciate your insights and your input is always welcome.

All the best,

Steve Virgil, Director of Community Law & Business Clinic, Director of Institute for Public Engagement, Wake Forest University

Great News from Dr. Hana Brown ACE Fellow 2011-12

Norma-May Isakow — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 15:56:00 +0000

Hana E. Brown, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Sociology has exciting news about students in her fall Sociology 360: Social Inequality class. Instead of having her students jump right into service learning this term, Dr. Brown decided to have them do group projects which involved researching a particular aspect of social inequality in Winston Salem, reaching out to local organizations working on the issue, and using sociological research to propose a potential project that Wake Forest students could initiate to help out.

They recently completed their final presentations for the course. ”My students did a wonderful job on all sorts of topics (gay rights, immigration, sports, secondary education, adoption, etc). But the most exciting result from the project is that the group studying health inequality actually formed a partnership with the Maya Angelou Center for Health Equity (MACHE) through their research. MACHE is working on health access issues with local adults, and my students are joining forces with them to add a child health education component to the new MACHE program. They are starting to research grant opportunities to ensure the project has adequate funding and gets off on the right foot, and they have masterfully used the sociological research on health inequalities to identify likely barriers to implementation and possible solutions.”

Congratulates Dr. Brown for availing your students of these engaged learning opportunities and to your students for achieving a sustainable outcome!

Center for Community Solutions – Call for Proposals – Deadline Dec. 21, 2012

Norma-May Isakow — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 15:33:25 +0000

The Institute for Public Engagement is pleased to announce its call for proposal for the Center for Community Solutions. The Center for Community Solutions is a new enterprise that builds upon the successes of IPE’s Engaged Scholarship Initiative where faculty and community partners collaborate to promote positive social change throughout Winston-Salem.

The Center for Community Solutions aims to rethink traditional academic research in an effort to better serve Winston-Salem; develop greater support for community based projects; and, foster a more cooperative environment and open lines of communication between Wake Forest’s faculty and the Winston-Salem community. Efforts are underway to hold four, Community Partners-WFU Faculty workshops during the upcoming Spring semester. Community-identified topics include: homelessness, educational child readiness, infant health and teen pregnancy.

Click on CCS 2013 Application for the full call. Interested faculty are encouraged to take part in the inaugural cohort during the Spring 2013 semester. The deadline for submitting a proposal for the CC is December 21, 2012. For more information, contact Prof. Sherri Clark or Steve Virgil

Congratulations to 2012-2013 ACE Fellows!

Norma-May Isakow — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 19:16:00 +0000

Welcome to a wonderful cohort of 2012-13 ACE Fellows and the courses in which they plan to integrate service-learning:

R. Jarrod Atchison, Director of Debate, Assistant Professor, Communication

Argumentation Theory COM 302 which focuses on civic development, leadership, critical thinking, and ethical decision making.

Margaret Bender, Associate Professor, Anthropology

Linguistic anthropology courses including Language in Education and Fields Methods.

Carole Browne, Professor, Biology

Cell Biology BIO 214.

Philip Clarke, Assistant Professor, Counseling

Undergraduate Helping Skills in Human Services Course CNS 337, Health and Human Services in a Diverse Society CNS 335

Patricia Dixon, Senior Lecturer, Music

Music and Political Power (MALS Program), Music of Protest (FYS), Music and the American Dream (FYS), Performance Chamber Music (M120)

Barbara Lentz, Associate Professor Legal Analysis, Writing & Research, Law

Art and Cultural Property law course, Business Drafting, proposed Interdisciplinary Program in Non-profit Leadership

Dee Oseroff-Varnell, Lecturer, Communication

Communication and Identity (COM 370), Public Speaking courses.

Christina Toules Soriano, Associate Professor, Theatre

Movement and the Molecular DCE 122B

Neal Walls, Associate Professor, Divinity

Service-learning in short-term international travel courses

Ron Von Burg, Assistant Professor Communication and Interdisciplinary Humanities

Public Life and the Humanities HMN 282, Humanity and Nature HMN 380.

Elisabeth Whitehead, Instructor, English

English 111 Writing Seminar for first-year students possibly focusing on bully prevention, mentoring high school students in creative writing, personal narrative, aging, politics and rhetoric of food.

Wake the Vote: IPE presents Provost Rogan Kersh: “Showdown 2012 One Month Away”

Norma-May Isakow — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 17:35:19 +0000

Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Kulynych Auditorium in Byrum Visitor Center, 5:30 p.m. “Showdown 2012 One Month Away.”
Provost Kersh is a nationally recognized expert on U.S. politics. He is a well respected writer, and frequent contributor to print and broadcast media, on several of the issues that will shape the November election, including campaign finance and health care. Provost Kersh’s has recently commented on the companies who supported Obama’s campaign four years ago and are now contributing to Republican coffers. Provost Kersh is the author of “Dreams of a More Perfect Union,” a study of U.S. political history and “Medical Malpractice and the U.S. Health Care System.”

IPE Supports Wake the Vote and Faces of Courage

Norma-May Isakow — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 17:29:29 +0000

The Institute for Public Engagement supports initiatives across campus that promote public engagement and link Wake Forest’s academic mission to the wider community.

Campus Election Engagement Project (CEEP) is a non-partisan project that helps America’s colleges and universities get as many of their 20 million students as possible to register, volunteer in campaigns, educate themselves, and turn out at the polls. Focusing on administrators, faculty, and staff, and ways they can help engage their students, we worked with 500 schools in 2008 and hope to work with even more this round. Check out Wake the Vote 2012 Events!

Faces of Courage includes a wide variety of programming that recognizes and highlights Wake Forest’s ongoing commitment to diversity and inclusion. Many events are free and open to the public; and students, alumni, faculty, staff and friends of Wake Forest are encouraged to attend.Check out Faces of Courage Events!

Summer Nonprofit Immersion Intern J’Taime Lyons Named Truman Scholar

Katherine Gill — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 19:34:18 +0000

Junior J'Taime Lyons receives congratulations from President Nathan Hatch for grant from Harry S. Truman Foundation. Each merit-based scholarship provides $30,000 for graduate study for students who plan to pursue careers in government or other public service.

Lyons is one of 54 students from 48 U.S. colleges and universities named Truman Scholars. She is the 15th Truman Scholar at Wake Forest.

Lyons, who is majoring in sociology, plans to pursue a graduate degree in public policy with a focus on education.

“After graduation, I plan to become a Teach for America Corps member. In order to influence education and social policy, I must see what is happening first-hand,” says Lyons. “After graduate school, I hope to become an education policy advisor for a U.S. Senator, Representative or Governor. Eventually, I would like to be a state senator and eventually governor of North Carolina.”

Lyon’s reflects below on the value her experience in the Institute of Public Engagement’s Summer Nonprofit Immersion Program.

“I always knew that I wanted to make the world a better place for disadvantaged populations and that is one of the reasons I did the internship. The research I did in courses at Wake Forest showed me the power of education. I realized that education would be the mechanism through which I would work for those who are disadvantaged. ”

Q & A with Truman Scholar J’Taime Lyons

When did you participate in the Summer Nonprofit Immersion program?

I did the program in the summer of 2010, before my sophomore year.

What would you say to other students about the summer immersion program?

The nonprofit realm has so many things to offer for anyone from any walk of life. Do not discount an experience because you feel it is only for certain majors and personality types. It provides training, support, a network on campus and in the city of Winston- Salem.

What motivated you to apply for the program?

As I completed my first year of a liberal arts course load I became highly interested in social issues. I had taken a writing seminar that focused on HIV and AIDS and this was a major influence.

Where were you then in your thinking about your career future?

Before the summer immersion experience, I was focused on a medical career. My writing seminar and the summer immersion internship showed me a whole new world and my passions.

Had you ever worked with a non-profit before?

Before this, I volunteered with my mother’s nonprofit, but this work gave me my first in-depth experience with the world of nonprofits.

What was your placement?

I worked at AIDS Care Service, Inc. (ACS) and I did many things: development, program planning, administrative work, and working at their home health facility. One of my most memorable activities was facilitating the support groups. I worked with a wide range of individuals who were HIV positive and really got to understand their daily lives, obstacles, and triumphs. This experience opened my eyes to my calling of serving underserved and stigmatized populations.

How would you describe the intensive business-training seminar?

The business training seminar provided me with another layer of development on my path towards having my own educational nonprofit. It showed me that in order to make the change we need, we must have our house in order. That is exactly what I learned how to do thanks to the nonprofit management component.

What did you find valuable about the reading and reflection portion of the program?

The readings allowed me to truly perform self-reflection, to find what areas of life make me happy and to discern what I most wanted to pursue. They opened a box of possibilities.

Did you meet people through the program who have influenced your choices?

The passion of my cohort of fellow interns had a powerful effect on me.

How did you become interested in education and education policy?

I became interested in education and education policy through my major, through the documentary, Waiting for Superman, and through reflecting on my life.

I always knew that I wanted to make the world a better place for disadvantaged populations and that is also one of the reasons I did the internship. The research I did in courses at Wake Forest showed me the power of education. I realized that education would be the mechanism through which I would work for those who are disadvantaged.