Faculty Award for Excellence in Community-Engaged Scholarship
About the Award
Offered by the Division of Academic Affairs, the Faculty Award for Excellence in Community-Engaged Scholarship recognizes and celebrates a faculty member's extraordinary contributions to Loyola's students, community partners, and institutional mission through sustained involvement and excellence in one or more types of community-engaged scholarship. The award is given to one faculty member at the Maryland Day Celebration each spring. Awardee receives a plaque and $500 and designates a community partner to be given $500. Awardees may receive the award only once.
What is Community-Engaged Scholarship?
Community-engaged scholarship at Loyola University Maryland is ideally a product of reciprocal, mutually beneficial partnerships between the university’s knowledge centers—the faculty, students, curriculum, classrooms, and library—and community agencies, persons, and other resources. By advancing social justice, engaged citizenship, transformative learning, and disciplinary knowledge, such partnerships are an example of Loyola’s Jesuit mission in action.
Characteristics of Community-Engaged Scholarship at Loyola
- Often combines the traditional work of research, teaching, and service
- Can take the form of “traditional,” peer-reviewed scholarship
- Frequently interdisciplinary and collaborative
- Places a special priority on under-resourced communities in the Baltimore
Current Awardee
2024 - Nouf Bazaz, education specialities 
Nouf Bazaz is a Clinical Assistant Professor of School Counseling at Loyola University
Maryland and the co-founder and Mental Health Director of the HEAL Refugee Health
& Asylum Collaborative.
Through innovative partnerships and education, HEAL expands access to responsive health
care and supportive services for immigrant survivors of torture and trauma seeking
refuge in the U.S. Dr. Bazaz provides direct clinical counseling services, completes
forensic psychological evaluations, leads mental health related training/supervision
and leads the development of overall mental health services. Her recent research includes
a study that developed an arts-based peer support program to promote social emotional
wellbeing among Spanish-speaking unaccompanied immigrant children (UCs) in Baltimore
as well as a study examining the characteristics and policy implications of torture
survivors who engage in advocacy in the U.S.
Dr. Bazaz is also a faculty associate at Loyola’s Center for Equity, Leadership, and Social Justice in Education. Her clinical work, research, training and consulting focuses on trauma, torture, grief, and loss with survivors of war, violence, and persecution, as well as on culturally responsive care for Muslim youth and families. Her clinical work, teaching and supervision is informed by an expressive arts and social justice lens. Previously, she was the program director of a mental health agency serving refugees and immigrants in Maryland and has developed a range of integrative community mental health programs. She holds a PhD in Counseling from George Washington University and an M.A. in Trauma and Violence Transdisciplinary Studies from New York University. She is from Kashmir and was raised in New York.
Previous Awardees
2023 - Masudul Biswas, communication
Diversity has been a common focus of Dr. Biswas’ academic research and professional
services since 2007, when he began his doctoral program at the Louisiana State University’s
Manship School of Mass Communication. He sees diversity as a method, either in journalism
or in a learning environment. Diversity has become a driving force behind Dr. Biswas’
engaged scholarship that connects his pedagogical research with teaching. Dr. Biswas’
major research interests are ethnic and community media, inclusion in journalism and
diversity in journalism and mass communication education. He is intentional about
his pedagogical approaches, which is shaped by his research on diversity in media
education, in addressing diversity, equity and inclusion through content, assignments
and classroom management beyond diversity-focused courses. Communication senior capstone
in digital media is one of the non-diversity courses where he incorporates diversity
and inclusion.
Dr. Biswas purposefully partners with community organizations outside Loyola that
either serves under-resourced communities in Baltimore area or promote programs on
inclusion and justice by a campus entity. Partnering with such organizations area
offers students a valuable perspective that many of them might not have gained otherwise,
which is acknowledged in students’ reflection essays. In this regard, this comment
by Emily Thompson, co-founder of PIVOT a reentry program serving women impacted by
the criminal justice system in Baltimore City), is very telling: “When we work with
[digital media capstone] students, they spend much of their time on-site at our program
location in East Baltimore interviewing the staff and participants, capturing content
and gaining a deeper understanding of the context and issues we face. Many of the
students we’ve worked with over the years expressed that working with PIVOT was an
eye-opening experience and taught them so much about the issues women face after incarceration.”
2021 - Marianna Carlucci, psychology and Amy Wolfson, psychology
Dr. Marianna Carlucci came to Loyola University Maryland in the fall of 2011. She earned her B.A. in Psychology (with a certificate in Women’s Studies) and Ph.D. in Legal Psychology from Florida International University. Originally from Venezuela, Dr. Carlucci grew up in Miami, Florida until 2011 when she moved to Baltimore. She teaches Introductory Psychology, Forensic Psychology, Psychology of Gender, Research Methods, Advanced Research Seminars in Psychology, and graduate courses in Research Methods. She has taught in the classroom, online, and at correctional institutions in Maryland. Dr. Carlucci’s research lies at the intersection of psychology and law, and includes investigations into eyewitness memory and juror decision-making. She is particularly interested in understanding injustice in the criminal justice system. Recently, she (with colleague Amy Wolfson) has partnered with the Department of Juvenile Services to understand and enhance the sleep-wake environment during residence in juvenile justice facilities in the state of Maryland. Dr. Carlucci is also the current Equity and Inclusion Fellow for Faculty Affairs, working to advance equity and inclusion goals for Academic Affairs and working with divisions and groups across campus to further equity, inclusion, and belonging on campus. Her favorite place to be is in the classroom with her students!
Amy R. Wolfson is a professor of psychology at Loyola University. She received her A.B. in psychology and social relations from Harvard University and her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Washington University in St. Louis. Her longstanding scholarship focuses broadly on adolescents’ sleep health and daytime functioning with a deep commitment to preventive-interventions including delaying school start times and her Sleep-Smart program for early adolescents. Her current collaborative work (with Maryland’s Department of Juvenile Services, Drs. Marianna Carlucci and Stephanie Crowley, Rush Medical College, and Loyola students) is examining the sleep health, schedules, and environment of youth residing in the juvenile justice system. Moreover, she is also working with colleagues at the University of Houston and Fairleigh Dickinson University on a study examining sleep in the foster care environment and with colleagues at Johns Hopkins on improving sleep for hospitalized children. Dr. Wolfson is one of the co-authors on the AAP 2014 Policy Statement on healthy school start times and co-edited Sleep Health’s special issue on school start times. Dr. Wolfson is an Associate Editor of Sleep Health and on the Board of Directors of Start School Later. In all of her sleep health projects, she loves engaging her students in her passion – sleep health research and interventions!
2021 - Qi Shi, education specialties
Dr. Qi Shi is an Associate Professor of School Counseling at Loyola University Maryland. Her research interests include school counselors’ role in personal, social, and academic development of underrepresented student populations in K-12 schools, broadening the participation for immigrant youth and English Language Learners in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) majors and careers, and school counseling profession’s development in international contexts. Moreover, she has been working on developing partnerships with local community agencies to provide Loyola school counseling students early exposure/experiential learning opportunities to work with immigrant youth and English Learners in Baltimore. Currently, Dr. Shi is working on a project funded by National Science Foundation to examine Latina English Learners’ interest development, access and persistence in STEM. She has published in well-regarded peer-reviewed journals, such as, Professional School Counseling, The Professional Counselor, Journal of College Access, Journal of LGBT Issues in Counseling, Journal of Behavioral and Social Sciences, Asia Pacific Education Review and International Journal for the Advancement of Counseling. Dr. Shi is serving as the Associate Editor for the Journal of School-Based Counseling Policy and Evaluation (JSCPE), the official journal of the International Society for Policy Research and Evaluation in School-Based Counseling (ISPRESC). Also, Dr. Shi is on the research board and serves as an institutional lead for the Baltimore Education Research Consortium (BERC), a partnership between Baltimore City Public Schools with universities in Maryland.
2020 - Stephanie Flores-Koulish, education specialties
Stephanie Flores-Koulish is an associate professor of curriculum and instruction for
social justice. Her primary area of expertise and research has been within the field
of Critical Media Literacy Education. She also has conducted research interests on
identity and adoptees, education policy, creativity, spirituality, and critical multicultural
education. Her research provides her with many opportunities to practice engaged scholarship
in and around Baltimore City. She serves on the board at Archbishop Borders dual language
Catholic school. Flores-Koulish is also an alumna and mentor of the Institute for
Recruitment of Teachers (IRT).
Specifically, related to this award, she has faithfully and intentionally served in
the capacity of an engaged scholar since arriving at Loyola in 2002. She views herself
as someone who is compelled to advance social justice through teaching, research,
and especially service both locally and nationally. Engaged citizenship is her mantra
not only for herself, but also for her students, all practicing teachers. Transformative
learning is her aim in the ways that she pushes students to think outside the box
to reach their own students who might be marginalized, or likewise, to push boundaries
for their privileged students’ entitlements. Finally, she eagerly shares disciplinary
knowledge in education and social justice to create robust and deep partnerships which
enact Loyola’s Jesuit mission.
Dr. Flores-Koulish is an interdisciplinary thinker with a collaborative mindset, which
has led to engaged work within and outside of Loyola’s campus. Specifically, she has
been a project manager on a variety of social justice events that Loyola has hosted
since the early 2000’s. Additionally, she oversaw program curricular revisions that
have intentionally fronted social justice themes across the program. Program alumna
and current Baltimore City teacher, RaShawna Sydnor wrote, “My experience of (Dr.
Flores-Koulish’s) bravery, courageousness and truth during our very first course session,
demonstrated to me the possibility of what I could be for my students.” Beyond the
Loyola classroom, Dr. Flores-Koulish has had numerous community collaborations including
with Wide Angle Youth Media, the Baltimore County Public Schools, The Archdiocese
of Baltimore, The Odyssey School, etc. The Odyssey School Head of School, Marty Sweeney
wrote, “Dr. Flores-Koulish is a masterful educator whose work has ignited our community’s
dedication and its capacity to expanding our students’ higher-level critical thinking
skills and developing their abilities to demonstrate empathy” through media literacy,
social justice, and immigration. Even online, Dr. Flores-Koulish has been a collaborator
with a Twitter chat, #BmoreEdChat which has a reach of thousands of educators.
Finally, Dr. Flores-Koulish frequently seeks to use her privilege to help others through
service. Namely, she has served as a mentor to the Institute for Recruitment of Teachers
(IRT), an organization that seeks to increase the number of faculty of color in K-16.
Specifically, Dr. Flores-Koulish has mentored 17 aspiring graduate students over 3
years with her mentees attending fully funded institutions like Vanderbilt, Stanford,
and Michigan State University to name a few.
2019 - Michiko Iwasaki, psychology
As a psychology faculty, Dr. Iwasaki strives for engaged scholarship and exercises
social justice perspectives through (a) the Service-Learning (SL) pedagogy and (b)
her
research mentorship. She implemented a SL component in Adult Development (PY243)
for students to increase their understanding of developmental normalcy, cultural diversity,
and social forces. Students in this course worked closely with various community organizations
(e.g., GEDGO- CARES Career Connection, Don Miller Homes, Keswick Multi-Care Center,
and Levindale Hebrew Hospital & Nursing Center). In order to expand students’ critical
examinations on social inequalities, Dr. Iwasaki continues revising her SL pedagogy.
By including personal consultants and exercising a change agent role, her students
have challenged their perspectives; they have gone beyond their recognition of injustice
and generated feasible solutions.
In addition, Dr. Iwasaki addresses social justice issues in her research mentorship. She emphasized the importance of building trust with her community partner and listening to those who often do not have strong voice in our society. Dr. Iwasaki guided her former doctoral student (presently Dr. Amy Henninger) to provide volunteer work at TurnAround Inc., an organization providing mental health services to sexual assault survivors. This volunteer work connected Amy to Baltimore’s Sexual Assault Response Team (SART). In 2014, she developed a mutually beneficial project with the SART to examine the effectiveness of its newly implemented guidelines for their sexual assault reporting and response procedures. Dr. Iwasaki and Amy developed a survey and obtained a Kolvenbach Research Grant to examine survivors’ satisfaction with five groups of response personnel: (a) patrol officers, (b) detectives, (c) forensic nurses, (d) victim advocates, and (e) State’s Attorney’s Office (SAO) staff.
Due to some unexpected events occurred in 2015 (e.g., Baltimore City’s intense public scrutiny after the death of Freddie Gray, and a leadership change at the SART), the original project had become difficult to pursue. However, Dr. Iwasaki took it as an opportunity to reflect and learn. She guided Amy to persevere by reaching out sexual assault survivors nationwide. With the data from 460 female sexual assault survivors, Dr. Iwasaki assisted Amy to successfully complete her dissertation and her first publication in Journal of Violence Against Women. Although it was a long and hard journey, Dr. Iwasaki believes the project has brought her many rich stories to share with other students, scholars, communities, and policy-makers. Dr. Iwasaki states, “I exercised the Ignatian value of discernment, which calls for critical thinking, following one’s conscience, and ongoing self-reflection. I have taken these values to heart, and Loyola students have helped me to become a better instructor and an engaged citizen through transformative learning.”
2018 - Margarita Gomez, literacy education
Margarita Gómez is an assistant professor of literacy education at Loyola University
Maryland where she teaches courses in processes and acquisition of literacy and in
assessment and instruction of literacy. Her research aims to better understand how
classroom contexts play a critical role for culturally and linguistically diverse
learners’ writing development. Margarita earned her doctoral degree in Language, Learning,
and Literacy from Boston College, and previously taught in elementary bilingual school
context in California and an inclusion classroom in New York.
For Margarita, it is inherently vital to connect community service with both scholarship
and teaching (Boyer, 1996), therefore as an engaged scholar/teacher her goal has always
been to help schools build capacity for working with multilingual and multicultural
students. In this role, she sees herself as more of a facilitator that helps to coordinate
the sharing of knowledge between all stakeholders, so that the teachers and staff
fully contribute to their programs. She has co-planned and presented with teachers
in professional development sessions, often inviting teachers to share their knowledge
with peers, rather than assuming a “sage on the stage” model. She has presented at
the Maryland Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (MDTESOL) conference
and has co-authored a publication with the dual language coordinator at Archbishop
Borders K-8 Catholic School (ABBS).
Last fall, she was able to establish Archbishop Borders as a field-placement partner
to bring Loyola University students to tutor the students in literacy as part of their
clinical experience, which provides a reciprocal relationship between both schools
and students. The Loyola students have the great benefit of working with English learners
and the students at ABBS are provided with tutoring in their second language. She
strives to provide Loyola students the opportunity to enact part of Kolvenbach’s (2000)
mission to “perceive, think, judge, choose and act for the rights of others, especially
the disadvantaged and the oppressed” in order to be able to create more transformative
educational experiences for the community. She constantly reflects about the best
way to improve and serve the school, but more importantly the families and students
that make up the school community through honoring the cultural and linguistic knowledge
of all of its members.
2017 - David Carey, history 
Prior to holding the Doehler chair in History at Loyola University, David Carey, Jr., was Professor of History and Women and Gender Studies and Associate Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Southern Maine. He received his Ph.D. in Latin American Studies at Tulane University and his B.A. in Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. His teaching and research interests include immigration, gender, ethnicity, indigenous peoples, environmental change, medicine and health, crime and punishment, and oral history. A crucial component of his pedagogy, service-learning has allowed him to challenge Loyola students to serve and learn from Latin American immigrants, Latinos, Latinas, and Ayslee women. By approaching his community partners as co-teachers, he has facilitated their participation in the curriculum and classroom. In addition to writing some two dozen peer-reviewed articles and essays, he has authored or edited over a half dozen books. His publications have won awards from academic associations and professional organizations.
2016 - Tania Cantrell Rosas-Moreno, communication
For the past six years, Dr. Rosas-Moreno has taught Loyola's capstone course in public
relations, in which her students serve nonprofits with their public relations skills.
Dr. Rosas-Moreno and her students continue ongoing partnerships with a number of agencies
by producing media kits that include success stories, executive biographies, brochures,
and videos. Student projects also include marketing research, such as surveys and
data on fundraising.
Dr. Rosas-Moreno’s community partnerships include Acts 4 Youth, a local after-school
program providing support, education, and faith-based fellowship to neighborhood youth.
With Safe House of Hope, Dr. Rosas-Moreno and her students help fight human trafficking.
This assistance includes successful lobbying for legislation to help pass Maryland’s
first and to-date only human trafficking penalty--Asset Forfeiture for Human Trafficking
(HB 713), which went into effect October 1, 2013. For these efforts, Dr. Rosas-Moreno
and her students have been recognized by national organizations, such as the Public
Relations Student Society of America and their top award, the Teahan Award in the
area of Community Service in 2014. The President of the Public Relations Students
Society of America also acknowledged her stellar community work in a unique letter
of recognition in 2015.Locally, Dr. Rosas-Moreno’s engaged scholarship has been recognized
by her community partners. According to Denene Yates, Executive Director and Founder
of Safe House of Hope, “we have been the beneficiaries of an outstanding community
partnership with Dr. Rosas-Moreno for the past four years…where we have been able
to engage countless students in our important work of providing services to victims
of Human trafficking throughout the Baltimore region.”
2015 - Allen Brizee, writing
Dr. Brizee’s foray into engaged scholarship began before he joined the Loyola faculty
during his graduate studies at Purdue University. He brought a depth of knowledge
with him to Loyola and, upon arriving in Baltimore, Dr. Brizee soon partnered with
the Richnor Springs Neighborhood Association in Richnor Springs, an at-risk community
just off York Road, to incorporate a service-learning component that enabled Dr. Brizee
and his writing students to assist in boosting civic capacity and refining communication
within the community. Students collected community narratives, practiced the art of
technical writing, and authored grant proposals to revitalize the Richnor Springs
adopted lot.
Dr. Brizee’s commitment to engaged scholarship soon grew from service-learning to
the incorporation of communitybased research. Dr. Brizee developed a partnership with
GEDCO/CARES toward the creation of the York Road Literacy and Employment Initiative
and the beginning of an empirical community-based research study. Through this collaboration
Dr. Brizee, and students under his mentorship, collaborated with local community members
to develop and use literacy and employment workshop resources. The resources educate
community members on using the Internet and Microsoft Word, writing cover letters
and resumes, and preparing for job interviews. He is busy collecting qualitative and
quantitative data to examine the impact of these efforts, and he has already authored
a book chapter reporting the study’s findings that will be published later this year.
Moreover, according to D’Anne Avotins, the Employment Services Coordinator at GEDCO,
7 of the 14 participants in Dr. Brizee’s workshop obtained employment within three
months of their participation. Karen McIntyre, President of the Richnor Springs Neighborhood
Association, said the following of Dr. Brizee and his commitment to the community.
She wrote, “RSNA believes that Professor Brizee’s commitment to our neighborhood goes
well beyond that of fulfilling his professional obligation to Loyola University. Our
association firmly believes, he truly has a heart for community service and has personally
aligned himself with RSNA in seeing to it that our vision for our community comes
into fruition. In this way, he models Loyola University’s commitment to reach its
arms into its surrounding communities to improve the lives of its neighbors, and in
turn, make our community a better place to live.”
2015 - Lisa Zimmerelli, writing
Dr. Zimmerelli also began incorporating service-learning pedagogies early in her Loyola career. According to Dr. Zimmerelli, “writing centers have a rich tradition of fostering social justice work, whether in implicit, counter-hegemonic ways, or via explicit advocacy.” Dr. Zimmerelli sought to continue this tradition by forming a partnership with the Bridges Program at St. Paul’s School, a program that provides a range of support services for students in the Baltimore City Public School system, including summer bridge programs, tutoring, job training, and social service guidance. Students in Dr. Zimerelli’s WR 323 Writing Center Practice and Theory course, a service-learning mandatory course, began offering tutoring to the Bridges students one evening a week at Loyola’s Writing Center. The evenings begin with pizza, followed by a grammar presentation, and then Loyola and Bridges students partner to work through homework, study for the SAT, and complete college applications. But the service does not end when the semester is over. Students of WR 323, as well as writing center tutors, continue to work with the Bridges students, providing tutoring for 23 weeks each academic year. The collaboration centers around more than tutoring, and features a College Night where Loyola students create a panel and answer college questions from the Bridges students, and lead a workshop on the common app, college discernment and selection, and financial aid. Moreover, the groups of students have fun together. They’ve engaged in tree planting, basketball games, and holiday parties. According to Victoria Brown, a veteran educator and leader in the Bridges high school program, “Professor Zimmerelli has a keen sense of the balance necessary to facilitate a service learning partnership where both parties have a vital role in helping facilitate change. There is no question that both groups take away tremendous benefits from the work we are doing. Some of our students are now in college and staying enrolled because of the mentoring and support they received from this partnership.”
2014 - Rev. Jill Snodgrass, pastoral counseling
Dr. Jill Snodgrass uses service-learning pedagogies in three of the graduate courses she teaches. As Jill will tell you if you ask her, graduate-level service-learning courses have unique challenges (among them, average student age, adult life experiences and responsibilities, and long commuting distances), and therefore often differ significantly from undergraduate service-learning courses. Dr. Snodgrass has encountered and survived all of these challenges, and has successfully transformed them into advantages for her students. In PC670: her “Introduction to Pastoral Counseling” course, Dr. Snodgrass had 18 different community partners, rather than the usual two or three. In PC701: her “Spiritual and Theological Dimensions of Suffering” course, Dr. Snodgrass has partnered with the Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center in Columbia, where her students have the opportunity to: [a] work with “the individuals and families experiencing homelessness who reside at the shelter” [Hudak letter]; [b] “see how agencies respond to experiences of human suffering, …[and help clients] grapple with their suffering through service, and [c] examine both the individual and systemic issues inherent in human suffering” [application]. In addition to her excellence in service-learning, Dr. Snodgrass has: (1) presented her work at the annual conference of the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement; (2) joined colleagues in publishing their work in the inaugural issue of the International Journal of Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement; and (3) conducted community-based research for and with Marian House: research for which she received a Kolvenbach Summer Research Grant.
2014 - Jennifer Scaturo Watkinson, education specialties
Dr. Jennifer Scaturo Watkinson’s engaged research involves a partnership with the Harford County Public School System to “collaboratively mentor elementary school counselors in transformative leadership practices that intentionally and strategically support the academic goals of their schools." The three-year longitudinal study was awarded a prestigious “Elementary and Secondary School Counseling Program Federal Grant” of $1.1 million, and led to “one published article, one under review and two more being written, which focus on] vision as a transformative leadership skill.” Dr. Watkinson and her community partner, Dr. Kevin Ensor, will present on their research and mentoring of school counselors “at the American School Counseling Association conference” this summer. During this three-year research project, Dr. Watkinson and Dr. Ensor worked with 36 elementary school counselors: (a) to share their perceptions of, and help redefine, the counselors’ roles; (b) to “position themselves around their vision[s]; and (c) to assist them with other forms of “mentorship and resources [needed to develop new] skill sets to engage in actions that alight with their vision[s].” In his letter of support for Dr. Watkinson’s award application, Dr. Ensor writes, “ To my knowledge, there are no other higher-education partnerships with public or private school systems similar to this arrangement. Harford County Public Schools will benefit from a reduced student- to -counselor ratio at four schools, and all of our elementary counselors will be provided with post-graduate training to help improve their clinical skills and to provide them with assistance with their most difficult cases. Additionally, the professors in the Loyola University counselor education program will gain from this partnership an understanding of the challenges that are facing school counselors today, which will help inform them about changes that may need to be made at the graduate level to help better prepare students for the demands of the position. This type of mutual collaboration between higher education and the local area school systems is desperately needed and will no doubt be replicated by others after learning about the findings from Dr. Watkinson’s research.”
2013 - Cathy Castellan, teacher education
For over twelve years, Dr. Castellan has inspired students and colleagues with her sustained commitment to service- learning. Dr. Castellan has developed a strong, reciprocal partnership with neighboring Guilford Elementary/Middle School by serving alongside her students, in the classrooms and in after-school programs. She provides professional development opportunities for teachers, serves on the school’s Community Engagement Team, meets with parents, helps select principals and even attends political rallies with her students to support improvements for Baltimore City Schools. One Loyola student explains that Dr. Castellan works to ensure that those learning from the experience in the classroom are not only her Loyola students, but the Guilford students as well, which makes a difference in each of those student’s lives. Dr. Castellan’s integration of her service-learning pedagogy with her own qualitative research helps challenge students to think about social justice and diversity in the classroom, lessons that another student notes will certainly make a “lasting impact on [her] life.” The excellence demonstrated by Dr. Castellan is, as she notes in her personal reflection, “the longevity of the relationships, contributions and beneficial outcomes – twelve years of building, engaging, sharing and celebrating together.”
2013 - Karsonya Whitehead, communication
The City of Baltimore and My Sister’s Place Women’s Center serve as the canvasses upon which Dr. Whitehead’s students record, produce and edit original digital stories. In that course, students work with, and learn from, women who are temporarily experiencing homelessness, helping to bring “clarity out of confusion by addressing issues of social justice” within their own work. Dr. Whitehead explains in her personal reflection that as educators, we are expected to show our students, by word and by deed, how to challenge themselves, how to “integrate intellect with faith and action for justice,” and how to be compassionate without being judgmental. By her rigorous, engaged and conscious approach, Dr. Whitehead has done just that. For example, after her students reported that the women at My Sister’s Place were initially reluctant to share their stories, out of fear that they did not know how to give voice to their pain and struggles, Dr. Whitehead volunteered to teach a weekly Writing Workshop to help them claim their voices and own their stories. Dr. Whitehead’s commitment to teaching and research on issues of justice inform and strengthen one another, inspiring students, colleagues and community partners.
2012 - Beth Kotchick, psychology
In her nomination of Dr. Kotchick, Dr. Carolyn Barry highlights the fact that she has taught her Psychopsychology class (PY 202) seven times since she integrated service-learning into it in 2006. Dr. Barry goes on to point out that, “In addition to service-learning, Dr. Kotchick…has an ongoing form of engaged scholarship” with Dr. Papdakis, in which “they have partnered with the Archdiocese of Baltimore to understand the potential causes and outcomes of relational aggression and bullying on Baltimore’s children and adolescents. This project has incorporated Loyola students at all levels (undergraduate, master’s and doctoral) and has been implemented carefully and with much dialogue with the Archdiocese to ensure that the schools’ needs were met first and foremost.” In the personal reflection portion of her application, Dr. Kotchick writes about her Psychopsychology class (PY 202): “Reading their journal entries and engaging in an ongoing dialogue about their experiences is truly a remarkable gift for a teacher. And if that is not enough, I am provided with the opportunity to read inspiring culminating papers that focus on specific social justice themes encountered during their service-learning experiences throughout the semester. It is clear from these papers that service-learning provides a powerful context for students to examine their beliefs and assumptions about mental illness, integrate what they hear and see with their own experiences, expand their understanding of psychopathology in the context of real lives lived in the immediate community that surrounds Loyola University, and reflect on their calling to promote justice and respect for people from all backgrounds, particularly those who suffer injustice and discrimination.”
2012 - Thomas Ward, modern languages and literatures
Dr. Ward was designated the Harry W. Rodgers III, Distinguished Teacher of the Year in 2011, and has been teaching service-learning courses at Loyola for more than 20 years. His students have translated for doctors at GBMC; worked with the mayor’s Hispanic liaison at City Hall; worked on legal issues at Centro de la Comunidad; worked as tutors at Esperanza Center and EBLO; engaged in lobbying and activism at Casa de Maryland; and served as part of the Casa Baltimore/Limay sister-city project and Artesanos Don Bosco, an empowerment program for Andean people. In his application narrative, Dr. Ward writes: “I find that the service-learning students become charged up as they meet native Spanish speakers and they also become much more aware of justice issues then would be possible in a class that focused on novels, essays or poetry only.” “[There is great strength in the]… learning that goes on outside of class to texture, contexture, and deepen the meanings of the readings students do in class." “The knowledge that the students impart to their tutorees, to their translations, to their data base production, to their phone lobbying…becomes integrated into the world view of those people, those documents, those databases, or those phone contacts. Conversely knowledge that comes from the sites is integrated into the course through the …[students’] reflections which become an important text in the class. This integration of knowledge fosters an awareness of justice, diversity, and social responsibility as well as immersion in other cultures that itself deepens that awareness of justice, diversity, and social responsibility.”
2011 - Carolyn Barry, psychology
In her application narrative, Dr. Barry writes, "I fervently believe that my students gain a more profound understanding of the course content, especially human diversity, from the use of this pedagogy and in turn they grapple with larger social issues, which promotes their identity development, and in turn the ability to become 'leaders in a diverse, and changing world.' While I naively declared my willingness to utilize this pedagogy in my application to Loyola in the Spring of 2001, I never would have imagined that it would become the defining characteristic and main pedagogy of my courses here at Loyola. Moreover, this experience of teaching these courses has profoundly changed me as a person by promoting my own deeper understanding of, and personal commitment to, social justice."
2011 - Andrea Leary, writing
Dr. Leary begins her application narrative by saying, “The Arc of Maryland, my first service partner, has a motto: 'Changing Minds, Changing Lives.' When I reflect on my service-learning classes here at Loyola, I see that this has been my motto, too.” Her nominator says of her, "Andrea Leary is our department’s resident “expert” on service learning. She has the extraordinary capacity to motivate students towards their service goals as well as towards the goal of writing powerful, effective prose. Her students are some of the most exciting, mature, sophisticated students I’ve ever met. Of course, this is because she empowers them to take charge - -and they do. Dr. Leary forms highly effective bonds with community groups that are ongoing and continue to develop past the end of school. She is tireless, creative and inspiring and it is an honor to recommend her for this award."
2010 - Elizabeth Schmidt, history
Since she began at Loyola, Dr. Schmidt has practiced engaged teaching and scholarship with an emphasis on the intersection of theory and action. In 2005, she began incorporating service-learning pedagogy into her courses. Since then, all of her service-learning courses have exemplified best practices in reflection, reciprocity and partnership. Betsy describes her central teaching objective as “open[ing] students up to new ways of seeing the world, exposing them to different value systems and world views, sensitizing them to the humanity of 'the other and the validity of other cultures.'” In her efforts to accomplish this, Betsy initiated and developed her own service-learning partnership with Baltimore organizations that serve African Refugees. Over time, her relationship with Baltimore City Community College’s Refugee Youth Project (RYP) has deepened and expanded to also benefit other faculty members and their service- learning courses as well. Through RYP’s programs, 145 of Betsy’s students have served refugee youth and adults. Betsy’s service-learning students write weekly reflections throughout their semester connecting their experiences to the course’s academic content. They make formal presentations to their peers at the end of each semester, sharing their discovered knowledge with one another. Betsy’s work with her community partner, BCCC’s Refugee Youth Project has been exemplary and she has been honored with awards from the International Refugee Committee and BCCC’s Refugee Programs. She works closely with Kursten Pickup, RYP’s Coordinator arranging campus event space for trainings, assisting with grant applications, serving as liaison and facilitating the relationship between the Center for Community, Service, and Justice and RYP. They have even co-presented together at regional conferences.
2010 - Mickey Fenzel, pastoral counseling
For more than 20 years at Loyola, Dr. Mickey Fenzel has demonstrated excellence in many areas of engaged scholarship. As an engaged teacher, he has purposefully integrated service-learning pedagogy and research. He has created innovative, cross-disciplinary courses in service-learning in both undergraduate and graduate courses in psychology and education. He challenges his students to consider the impacts of poverty and urban environments on student development and learning and to consider alternative models for urban education. Over the years, his partnerships with local schools and educators have resulted in joint presentations for and with community partners. He has worked supporting local schools, such as Sisters Academy, where he currently serves on the Board of Directors. We are delighted that Sr. Delia Dowling from Sisters Academy could be here with us this afternoon for the presentation of this award.In addition, Mickey’s cross-disciplinary professional research examining education in urban environments has informed his teaching in significant ways. Not only has Mickey’s research examined urban education nationally and locally, he has also conducted research to explore service-learning pedagogy and how it contributes to an understanding of the larger issues involved in issues of education access. Mickey also played a role in the early development of service-learning at Loyola and has chosen to learn alongside students in immersion programs to Mexico, El Salvador and Jamaica.
2010 - Mickey Fenzel, pastoral counseling
Professor Leder’s commitment to excellence in engaged teaching and scholarship has taken many forms during his nearly seventeen years of contributions to students, colleagues, and to campus life. His commitment to connecting learning, service, and social justice has produced profound learning experiences and opportunities for students as well as for members of communities far beyond our campus and the neighborhoods which border it. In his “Bridge Project,” Professor Leder taught seminars in a maximum security prison, wrote a book from his taped conversations with inmates, and later took his students to the prison and used his book and experiences in future service-learning courses. This kind of teaching and learning inspires all of us at Loyola to challenge ourselves to be better human beings, to reach out through education to advocate for social justice and to improve the social condition for everyone, not just those who happen to study at Loyola College. In addition, Professor Leder has contributed more to the institutionalization of service-learning on our campus than any other faculty member in the history of the college. Our Service Leadership Program grew out of his own search for ways to make the educational experience at Loyola more academically relevant to the lives of our students and to the world they enter upon graduation. In addition, Professor Leder has served as a Service-Learning Faculty Associate in our Center for Values and Service, as a respected member on the Service-Learning Faculty Advisory Committee, then the Committee on Engaged Scholarship and as an informal consultant to our service-learning staff over the past decade.