Carlos Abril, Department of Music Education, Frost School of Music
Carlos Abril worked with CCE to redesign his course, General Music Methods: Engaging Children Through Music. Abril saw the Engaged Faculty Fellows program as an opportunity to address the inequities in music and for his students to share their talent with the community. Abril incorporated community engagement into his course by requiring students to spend between 10-15 hours in an elementary general music classroom or in a community outreach program through Frost MusicReach and develop a curriculum unit or community engagement program for the children. Students in his course were given the opportunity to apply their knowledge theories, principle and concepts related to child development within various education and community settings.
Christine Arce, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, College of Arts and Sciences
Christine Arce worked with the Engaged Faculty Fellows program to reshape her course, “Buscando visa para un sueño: Images of ‘(I)legal’ Immigration”. She came into the program with hopes humanizing the discourse on immigration and also showing her students how they can be agents of change. The service-learning component of the redesigned course required students to spend a total of 10-15 hours volunteering at Catholic Legal Services of Miami in order to gain first-hand insight into the complex and problematic reality of Latin American immigrants to the United States. Students had the chance to reflect on their experiences and connect them to course content.
Billie Lynn, Department of Art and Art History, College of Arts and Sciences
Billie Lynn came to the program hoping to become a greater resource for the community. Lynn worked with CCE to create her course, Socially-Engaged Art. In this course, students explored contemporary art practices and the role of the visual arts in creating social change. As part of the service-learning experience, the class partnered with the Opa-Locka Community Development Corporation and students in their after-school program to design and create a collaborative, hands-on community-based art project.
Michelle Seelig, Department of Cinema and Interactive Media, School of Communication
Michelle Seelig became an Engaged Faculty Fellow because she saw a need to provide more engagement opportunities for college students. As a professor in the School of Communication, Seelig sought to find ways to move beyond raising awareness of issues to taking action. As a result, she created her course, CMP 544: Media Activism which allows students to examine the role media plays in shaping social issues and provides them with an understanding of the fundamentals necessary to build a campaign around an issue. As part of the service-learning experience, students were paired with a community partner to better communicate their message and sustain activism using social media.
