Two faculty members, one academic professional and two students will be honored with this year’s Campus Award for Excellence in Public Engagement. In addition, a team award will be presented to a campus program administered by a group of faculty members and students.
The awards program, now in its sixth year, was developed to recognize people who have applied their knowledge and expertise to issues of public concern in order to improve the well-being of Illinois residents. Recipients will be honored at a Sept. 21 reception.
Cheryl Barber
program coordinator
Continuing Education
As a program coordinator for the Office of Continuing Education since 1991, Cheryl Barber has a long record of accomplishment in creating engagement programs that attract underrepresented audiences and clients and give UI faculty members access to audiences that they might not otherwise encounter – ranging from local public school students and teachers to diverse older adults from local, state and national geographic areas.
Barber is known across campus for her intense and long-lasting impact on a range of audiences that reach well beyond the expectations of her job description. Her most notable recent programs include the leadership of the university’s national Elderhostel program at the Urbana campus, increasing both the number of programs offered as well as an expansion of programs into the downtown Chicago area. Barber’s Elderhostel programs have been featured on the Elderhostel Web site and on the cover of the national Elderhostel catalog.
She is responsible for establishing a Learning-in-Retirement education program for retired faculty members and other professionals living at Clark-Lindsey Village in Urbana in collaboration with the Provena-Covenant VIP Advantage Program, the Urbana Park District, the Hope for the Children Senior Group in Rantoul, the Inman Residence for Seniors, and the UI Alumni Association. Another significant program was the presentation of “Dialogues With Three Original Freedom Riders” in October 2003 and May 2004. More than 2,000 secondary school students, K-12 teachers, university students, faculty members and the general public heard presentations as part of the campus Brown v. Board of Education Commemoration during that year.
Another of her projects, Elder-Friendly Communities, continues to serve as a link between campus and community. This program provides ongoing opportunities for university personnel to work with community leaders to address concerns about the needs of the growing numbers of older adults in rural Illinois.
Carol Diener
visiting professor of psychology
During her career, Carol Diener has successfully established and maintained connections with several community agencies and institutions that focus on the needs of young people, including the Circle Academy, a special education school under the auspices of the Cunningham Children’s Home; the Vermilion County Teen Court; and the local Juvenile Detention Center. Through such relationships she has devised several programs that provide valuable training opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students while also serving these community agencies by providing student counseling, data collection and special education services that are critical to the operations of the agencies.
Diener’s combined interests in psychology and juvenile justice led her to become increasingly concerned with the need for community support for youth who were struggling to meet their probationary goals and to establish positive family, school and community relationships. In response to this important community concern she created the Juvenile Justice Outreach Program, a joint program that includes the UI Psychological Services Center, the Juvenile Detention Center and the County Probation Office. Youths referred to this voluntary program upon release from the detention center are assigned to a trained undergraduate who meets frequently with the youth and his/her family at home or at school to help the individual make more productive life choices. The program receives funding from the Champaign County Mental Health Board.
Her nomination letter praised Diener as “ … an inspiring and motivating person … (who) has greatly enhanced the relationship (among) both the psychology department and the university and the community. …She is an exceptional candidate for this award.”
Mark F. Testa
professor of social work
Mark F. Testa has had a careerlong commitment to the well-being of abused and neglected children. For more than 20 years, Testa has provided critical leadership on research, public policy and public education initiatives designed to improve the lives of the most vulnerable children – those involved in the foster-care system. His sustained contribution culminated over the past two years in his leadership of a national public education campaign about the needs of such children.
Testa is considered a trusted adviser by the Pew Charitable Trusts and was instrumental in persuading the Trusts to invest in a multi-year, multi-million dollar effort to encourage practical, evidence-based changes in federal financing and court oversight of child-welfare cases to improve the outcomes of foster-care children. The Trusts then asked him to direct the initiative and house it at the UI’s Children and Family Research Center.
Testa established the Young Researchers program in which youth who are wards of the state are hired to assist in designing and implementing surveys of their peers regarding experiences in care and services for youth in foster care in Illinois. Also, in partnership with the Institute for the Advancement of Social Work Research, Testa took the lead in developing a research strategy to address major problems in child-welfare practice in the public sector, with emphasis on data-driven systems to demonstrate accountability in agency performance. As a final example of his leadership in engagement, Testa recently marshalled a cross-state effort to agree to use common definitions for the outcomes of care related to placement stability, resulting in more accountability for the safety, permanence and well-being of children that are served.
Team Award
A Pet’s Place
College of Veterinary Medicine
A Pet’s Place is a “safe-haven” program for companion animals belonging to victims of domestic violence. It was founded about three years ago by the College of Veterinary Medicine, in partnership with the local domestic violence shelter, A Women’s Fund, in Urbana. A Pet’s Place addresses the unmet need for temporary shelter for the pets of battered women who are entering the shelter. It has provided a vital community service for women in crisis who are seeking to escape an abusive situation and find safety for themselves, their children and their pets.
National studies report that animal abuse occurs in 85 percent of households where there is domestic violence. One study found that 57 percent of women who seek assistance from shelters to escape abuse have had a pet killed by her abuser. Most domestic violence shelters do not accept pets because of health regulations, space limitations, additional costs and potential liabilities.
A Pet’s Place partners with two domestic violence shelters (A Women’s Fund in Urbana and BETHS Place in Tuscola) to provide free housing and medical care for the pets of women living at the shelter. In addition, student volunteers coordinate visits by the owner, arrange speakers for lunch-hour meetings with community volunteers, conduct fundraising to support the program, provide instruction to the pet owners about proper pet care and work to educate the public about the problem. For example, in April 2004, an all-day seminar was presented at the college for law-enforcement officers, domestic violence service providers and veterinarians about the connection between domestic violence and animal abuse.
Members of the College of Veterinary Medicine team:
Faculty members: Dianne Dunning, Steven Marks and Cheryl Weber. Marcella Ridgway also has joined the program’s leadership.
Students: Thomas Satkus and Jennifer Koranda, co-directors of the program, Katie Quigley and 2005 graduate Christina Comm.
Student Awards
Dipesh Navsaria
medical student, College of Medicine
Dipesh Navsaria developed and now administers a medical student service project known as the HeRMES Clinic: Helping Revitalize Medical Education through Service. The clinic is a collaboration between medical students at Urbana’s College of Medicine and two local free health-care clinics. Navsaria has guided the project to its current position as a vibrant university-community partnership with more than 30 active student members and multiple community partners.
Valeri Werpetinski
postdoctoral student in psychology
Valeri Werpetinski uses community arts, mentoring, school transition programs and project-based learning in predominately working-class and African-American neighborhoods to address social problems by capitalizing on the strengths of those communities. For example, she has used intergenerational arts programming to organize public housing residents at Lakeside Terrace to discuss community programs and to initiate neighborhood improvement projects such as recruiting crossing guards for an underserved elementary school.