Community, BGSU celebrate partnerships for mutual benefit

From literacy projects to environmental awareness efforts, the winners of this year’s partnership support grants given by Partnerships for Community Action and the Center for Innovative and Transformative Education will be honored Wednesday (Feb. 9). This year’s theme is “Reclaiming and Revitalizing Public Education: Threats, Rights and Responsibilities.”

The 2005 campus participants and their community partners will be introduced at noon in the Lenhart Grand Ballroom in Bowen-Thompson Student Union. Funded projects from 2004 will be on display, and partners will be available to talk about their work. The day’s events include a symposium and artistic residency.

Ten mutually beneficial University/community partnerships were funded for a total of $44,914. The projects, their partners and the amounts awarded are:

• Bringing Books to Life: Engaging School-age Students in Book Reviewing—Sara Bushong, BGSU Libraries; Stacey Osborn, English; Kathy East, Wood County District Public Library, and Amy Laukhuf-Fitch, Otsego Middle School, $4,650. The project introduces area educators and librarians to BGSU’s Children’s Book Center in the Curriculum Resource Center, Jerome Library. In conjunction with area schoolchildren and students in BGSU's English 342 course, a substantial number of exceptional picture books will be explored, critiqued and reviewed during an artist-in-residence series.

• Cultural Awareness for At-Risk Youth—Sandra DiCarlo, student and campus activities coordinator, BGSU Firelands, and Ben Yourkovitch, Erie County Juvenile Detention Center, $3,200. The program’s design is to give at-risk youth greater access to education concerning cultural awareness. It is also a bridge connecting BGSU Firelands students, by way of the opportunity to share their knowledge, with the at-risk youth at the Erie County Juvenile Detention Center.

• “Educating the Jurors” Media Campaign—Deidra Bennett, Women’s Center; Amy Dugan, Student Health Service; Colleen Busboom, interpersonal communication/marketing student; Julie Broadwell, Behavioral Connections of Wood County; Gary Bishop, Wood County Prosecutor’s Office; Sandra Carsey, Wood County Job and Family Services, and Lauri Conkey, Wood County Hospital, $4,975. Targeted to all persons of voting age in Wood County, “Educating the Jurors” is a countywide media campaign to reach potential jurors and raise awareness about the types of sexual assaults most common in today’s society.

• Family House Service-Learning Project—Gordon Ricketts, School of Art; Autumn Beechler, BGSU art major; Dr. Tom Klein, professor emeritus, Chapman Learning Community, and Janet Hill, Family House of Toledo, $4,844. The project involves faculty and students with the staff and residents of the Family House homeless shelter in Toledo. The alliance between these diverse groups provides cultural awareness while promoting personal growth.

• First Steps: A Children’s Dance Experience—Tammyan Metz Starr, human movement, sport and leisure studies (HMSLS), and Jennifer Jarrett, the Toledo Ballet Association, $4,727. Working in eight kindergarten classrooms of three Toledo Public Schools, BGSU dance education students will assist Toledo Ballet instructors and document the curriculum utilized in the Toledo Ballet’s First Steps program. The finished curriculum will comprise 10 lesson plans integrating dance and music with lessons from required academic curriculum.

• Improving Literacy Through Service Learning—Dr. Alexander Sidorkin, College of Education and Human Development, and Janet Murphy, East Toledo Junior High School, $4,800. Students from East Toledo Junior High, in collaboration with BGSU teacher education students, will create children’s books, then read and present them to senior citizens from Wright Harvey House, an assisted living facility. The East Toledo students will write and illustrate their own children’s books; BGSU students will help develop the books. The completed books will then be read to the assisted-living patients, and each patient will be given a copy of a book written by junior high students.

• Learning to Play Again: A Leisure Wellness Project for Recovering Addicts—Dr. Julie Lengfelder, HMSLS; Shannon Phillips, Focus Health Care, and Mounir Elkhatib, director, Great Lakes Center for Integrative Medicine, $4,900. HMSLS faculty and students from the Recreation and Tourism Program are collaborating with Focus Health Care on a new recovery program beginning this fall at Focus Health Care. The project will offer patients leisure-awareness workshops and leisure education in order to lead a more vibrant, sober life.

• Linking Horticulture, Environmental Stewardship and Art—Dr. Karen Kakas, School of Art, and Andreanna Rivera and Richard Dennis, Toledo Friendly Center, $4,945. Youth and adults will work together on a community garden in Toledo and participate in educational programming provided by Toledo GROWS on gardening, nutrition, culinary arts and environmental stewardship. A summer art program for participants will emphasize art activities linked to the garden project and neighborhood environment, and art programming for both the youngsters and adults will continue in the fall.

• Northwest Ohio Food System Congress (The Congress)—Dr. Holly Myers-Jones, director, Center for Environmental Programs, and Michael Szuberla, Toledo GROWS, Toledo Botanical Garden, $5,000. The Congress is a two-day conference that will examine all aspects of our most basic need: food. A cross-section of food-system representatives will come together to examine the local food system as a whole to seek collaborative solutions to issues surrounding food production and distribution.

• The Vision of Tomorrow: Celebrating Diversity of All Youth—Judy Kiser, BGSU Social Work Program, and Sarah J. Lewis, Genesis After School Program, $3,000. The project introduces a new element into the existing relationship between Genesis and BGSU’s Social Work Program by matching BGSU students with high-risk juveniles, not only to provide a positive relationship, but also to help to create works of art celebrating the diversity of all youth.