By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Changing names is nothing new for the Center for Public Impact at Bowling Green State University, formerly known as the Center for Community and Civic Engagement.
The new moniker means more than new signs in and about its University Hall offices. The director V Rosser said the center is building on the work done under different names. “I think the shift is to really bring more focus on public impact. It’s really thinking about our role in region.”
Faculty are already doing important work in those areas, including addressing water quality, public health, educational opportunities, and local economic development, Rosser said. “How do we tell the story of faculty who already do research that has public impact and then develop new ways to support and encourage that work? How do we bring our expertise to bear on pressing issues that affect our community, our world?”
This puts the Center for Public Impact at the heart of President Rodney Rogers’ mantra that BGSU must be “a public university for the public good.”
On Wednesday, the center hosted the Community & Civic Engagement Awards ceremony. Faculty, staff, and community members were recognized for their work forging partnerships between the university and the community.
That work takes place in a corrections center and in libraries, in the Toledo museum and on East Toledo streets.
Rogers said all this is important to the university’s mission and success. He attributed the university’s good showing in national rankings for student satisfaction and quality of teaching to this commitment to engagement. Students like to feel they are making a difference.
Graduates from a public university have a special obligation, he said. “The taxpayers of Ohio and the nation in many ways are supporting this education that they are getting, and they have an obligation to be involved in their communities, be leaders in their communities… their state, nation, world.”
The university is increasing its efforts to see that they understand that obligation and take their first steps in meeting it while still students at BGSU.
Those honored showed a few ways this is being done.
Paul Valdez, the associate director of the center, said that students were honored for their work in April.
Those faculty, staff and community members honored on Wednesday are:
- Khani Begum, associate professor of English, for work with her African-American Film class, and Dan Rzicznek, lecturer in Creative Writing and English, received Faculty Excellence Awards for Community-Based Teaching.
- NorthWest Community Corrections Center, represented by Jacob Bowman, received the Organization Excellence Award, for its extensive use of interns, more than half of whom end up with jobs at the facility.
- Jodi Gross, director of the East Toledo Family Center, and Mary Wilson, East Toledo community activist, received the Individual Excellence Award, for their support of a seven-year-long project to paint murals along the East Broadway Viaduct and Vinyl Street by BGSU students directed by Gordon Ricketts.
- Marilyn Shrude, distinguished professor of education, the Doctor of Musical Arts in Contemporary Music, and the Toledo Museum of Art received the Outstanding Partnership Award for the EAR / EYE performance series at the museum.
- Lenee Hammersmith, administrative assistant in the Office of Learning Communities and the Office of the Provost, received the Staff Excellence Award.
- Also, Jolie Sheffer was recognized for having received the state honor, the David Hoch Memorial Award for Excellence in Service for outstanding work in service learning and civic engagement.
Begum, who has had students from several previous classes make public presentations of their work, said a panel discussion at the Way Public Library on race relations actually was suggested midway through the semester.
The library was screening the film “Get Out,” which Begum had also shown. Students led a panel discussion and then engaged in a question and answer session with those attending. The students took charge, Begum said.
Natalie Dielman, programming specialist at Way, wrote in nominating Begum that it as one of the best programs the library has presented.
Rzicznek said the program at TSA helped break through the mystique of the author, helping students see that they were people just like themselves.
An offshoot of the project also had TSA teacher Justin Longacre come and get professional development at BGSU by shadowing faculty. Also, a student did a one-week internship working on the journal MidAmerican Review and other writing projects.
Gross said the murals have instilled a greater sense of pride in the community, transforming a blighted area. Children even join the university students to do their part creating the work.
And while blank walls in the Ironwood neighborhood are targets for graffiti, the murals are never touched.
Bowman said the most rewarding part of working with university interns is to see them come in “fresh faced” and watch them grow in their careers.
One woman came in 2013 and was later hired part-time. Now she’s the manager of security.
EAR / EYE brings students in the doctoral program into spaces in the museum to perform pieces of contemporary music paired with artwork. Shrude said four different women who took part in EAR / EYE have gone on to start similar programs in Cleveland, Omaha, Leipzig, Germany, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
“Part of process is trusting the people who you’re working with,” Sheffer said. Students will “bring things to the table you never could never have imagined.” Those can then grow into new initiatives.
The possibilities available to students were evident across the hall from the awards ceremony at the Expand Your Horizons Fair in the Lenhart Grand Ballroom. Dozens of entities offered students opportunities to engage in their communities on campus, in the region, and abroad.
