Academics

"I am a faculty leader for our International Service Trip Program. In this eye-opening experience, I get to see firsthand how it changes students perceptions of the world and how it empowers them to be positive contributors to communities that need them most. One example is Bobby, a biology major who participated in the service trip to Guatemala. During the trip he met a boy who fell and injured his arm. Bobby scooped him up and ran with him to the clinic, about a mile away. Bobby describes feeling helpless because he couldnt do more to help him and it was in the midst of this helplessness that his motivation to become a doctor was solidified."

"Getting into the classroom early was the best decision because it allowed me to walk into student teaching confident and ready to jump in. I entered the classroom without hesitation because I had already been in the classroom numerous times and gave countless presentations that made me feel at home there."

"My most cherished memory comes from a student who showed great potential but was not a high achiever on the academic side of things. He is now a vice president at a Fortune 500 company. During school, he had a rough end-of-semester, and I chased after him to complete a project, giving him a second chance on a deadline he had missed. He told me that if I hadn't given him that one last chance, he never would have earned this amazing job. I love helping people find the best in themselves and live their best life."

"Half way through my clinicals I felt ready. I knew that I could do this. The professors in the theory classes really help you to understand what you're experiencing in the clinical aspects of it and they help you to analyze what you experience and what you might have missed and they really help you open up your mind and see the whole picture of a patient."

"Witnessing the process of students finding their passion. In the Social Policy course, students often start out wondering what they've gotten themselves into, because we talk about some really significant social problems and it can feel overwhelming. But over time, through lots of discussion and coursework and internship hours and critical thinking, you can see students start to get fired up about the issues that are important to them. They start to ask more questions, to research things on their own, and challenge some of the narratives that they've always heard. So that part, for me, is the most exciting."

"The interdisciplinary-focused program is a set of courses and experiences that allow students to critically examine a variety of community concerns and social problems (injustices across social systems, climate change, healthcare inequality, economic inequality) and how (as a society) we respond to them. Students are exposed to experiences (by way of high impact practices, internships, apprenticeships and community-based learning experiences) that help them become leaders, advocates, influencers and voices for social change within their local community, their home state, our nation and the larger global community."