For my term as a Community Engagement Associate, I functioned as a teaching assistant for the class Giving and Volunteering in America taught through the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. I guided students through their service learning projects, ... helped improve the course for the future, and gained valuable team working and leadership skills along the way. Read more

Working to build more reciprocal relationships with local religious communities.

The mission of the IUSON Health Policy Academy is to serve as a facilitator for health policy education, mentorship, and leadership. To achieve this mission, the Health Policy Academy will lead individual and overall Academy health policy initiatives ... and the marketing assistant will be responsible for branding and marketing the overall Academy and individual programs. Read more

The primary purpose of this project is to create a detailed studies of the heritage of Indiana Avenue and the Old southside Neighborhood, Indianapolis. My responsibility in this project is to gather as much statistical and archival data as possible s ... o that we can create genealogical histories of people of different races, do outreach with the descendants who either are living here in Indy or outside of the state, get their side of the histories of the area, and to create storytelling experiences through the data. The primary sources we are currently using for the study are censuses, newspaper archives, old maps, photographs, Green books, and historical narratives. Once the study is analyzed and prepared in final format, it will then be used as part of a wider community engagement initiative which has been a long-standing tradition of our institution. Read more

During the project/service learning opportunity, I had the privilege of training an IU faculty member. During the spring semester of 2023, the IU staff member and I worked on their personal Fitness goals. During this time I designed weekly plans for ... him, and help design a weekly schedule of exercise for them. This was a great hands on learning experience for me to better developed my exercise programming and client relation abilities Read more

The benefits of access to higher education for people with justice-involvement are well-documented. Benefits include: encouraging greater civic participation, providing better economic opportunities, and offering the opportunity to create supportive ... social networks. Yet, many universities have created barriers to entry for formerly incarcerated individuals that discourage them from even applying, including requiring them to disclose any prior charges or convictions. Not only can this be an uncomfortable and demoralizing experience, but often, applicants are then asked to produce documentation from the courts detailing the charges and convictions, as well as any other imposed requirements from the corrections departments. This documentation may be difficult and costly to obtain. This project centers around a campaign to educate the public, policy makers, and the university community around higher education as part of reentry. We hope to inform changes to the admissions policies of Indiana University and other postsecondary educational institutions to remove questions regarding arrest records, convictions, or other justice-involvement experiences from the application questions to eliminate one barrier from the long list of difficulties in pursuing a college education for individuals impacted by the criminal legal system. As part of comprehensive goals for Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in education, universities must seriously consider how their application process serves to further or hinder these goals. Read more

While working in this program, I have analyzed and prepared data for presentation from a large study researching a new model for encouraging youth in to be involved in philanthropic extracurriculars. This study was done with the Three Pillars Initiat ... ive and the IU Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. Read more

My job as a CEA with the Center for Earth and Environmental Science (CEES) is to help with Service learning projects which is our on campus stewardship opportunities that CEES provides at IUPUI. I help the students at IUPUI better understand environm ... ental impacts of invasive species and trash, along with identification of birds, and other service learning events held on or around IUPUI. I also partake in trash clean up and identification and eradication of invasive plants such as bush honeysuckle. These plants tend to grow around all of Indiana and has become an overgrown issue due to the rapid spread. So removing these plants helps native plants survive. Plus, because of the toxins in invasive plants they stunt the growth of the trees around them so when they are eradicated newer native trees will grow more efficiently. Last semester CEES has also started an event that tracks and collects data for the number or window bird strikes on campus there are so that way IUPUI can understand just how often this happens and hopefully come up with a solution to reduce this issue. So not only do I help the students and educating on negative impacts to the environment but we also have events to implicate sustainability on campus and better protect the environment around IUPUI. Read more