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POP-UP UNIVERSITY PRESENTS: Susan Moore – Disjointed Travel Log: Making Art & Memories in Vallauris, France

Posted on by jisuclar

The Office of Community Engagement invites the public to join us in a casual evening of learning and fellowship as Photographer Susan Moore discusses her pictorial travel log: Disjointed Travel Log: Making Art & Memories in Vallauris, France, on Thursday, November 21, 2024, at 7:00 PM in IU South Bends’ LangLab (1302 High Street.) 

Speaker Susan Moore
Susan Moore – Pop-Up University: “Disjointed Travel Log: Making Art & Memories in Vallauris, France”

Moore developed her pictorial travel log during her visit to Vallauris, France. Developing the travel log through, the process of creating unique ceramic art that reflects her own feelings, memories, and experiences away from home in a new and strange land.  

Moore is a photographer and educator with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art from Columbia College in Chicago, a Master of Arts degree in Art Education from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, and a Master of Fine Arts in photography from Washington University in St. Louis. She found her way into photography with the gift of her first camera from her father. This gift was a tool for her to organize her thoughts and ideas, as well as a ticket to events and places she would not have been able to experience without. These early experiences fostered a love of art and education.

As an educator, Susan believes that students who study art at the undergraduate level find successful creative careers, that studio art is an integral component of a liberal arts degree program, and that art assists in creating a strong foundation for success. Moore’s background has solidified her dedication to academic success through high-impact and high-quality practices in teaching and learning.  

Her pictorial travel log photographs image is both a form of fiction and a reference to reality. While photographing her experience in Vallauris, France, Moore was inspired by the picturesque landscapes, the warm Mediterranean Sea, and the experience of travel in terms of the emotional displacement in finding herself as a foreigner far from home. Moore states, “as I moved through the world, breathing, walking, seeing, I found both familiar and strange feelings each day. I created order and found comfort through my camera and the act of photography, depicting the complexity of these moments.” During her workings she created images, to be portrayed during this Pop-Up University, onto ceramic forms that resemble waves. The forms are made by gently folding clay into abstract shapes. Moore focused on recapturing the moments, mediating, and creating art, like new memories forming in one’s mind. Moore’s creations are recognizable, strange, and at times “misleading” to viewers, as she says, her “camera mediates her every experience.”   

 

About Pop-Up University: Pop-Up University is a series of brief off-campus talks by IU South Bend faculty on topics of interest to the public. All events are FREE and open to the public. Pop-Up University encourages attendees to arrive early to purchase dinner, snacks, coffee, tea, cocktails, and mocktails from the LangLab cafe & bar. Depart after the event or stay late for informal discussion and networking.  

About LangLab: LangLab is a multi-use co-workspace facility that can be used to engage multiple demographic groups in artistic, musical, and intellectual experiences that represent the culture of our community. 

ENGAGE IU South Bend Intern Discovers the Power of Active Listening

Posted on by jisuclar

ENGAGE IU South Bend Intern Lauro Zuniga
Lauro Zuniga, a graduate student in the Master of Social Work program at IU South Bend participated in the Office of Community Engagement’s ENGAGE IU South Bend internship program. The ENGAGE program supports students completing high-value, unpaid, off-campus internships that provide an important service to our community while developing students’ employment skills and ability to continue to serve the community in meaningful ways in the future.
Lauro worked with Nora Bautista-O’Neil, a licensed social worker and clinic lead at Health Plus Indiana, during the spring 2024 semester. As a Social Work Intern, Lauro shadowed and facilitated a weekly substance use recovery group for persons living with HIV and shadowing client meetings with case managers. He also helped with client intakes and assisted with other tasks as assigned. According to Lauro, the internship developed and reinforced several important skills including his active listening skills. He also learned a lot about care related to persons living with HIV. For Lauro the most meaningful and impactful part of the experience was getting to build relationships with clients and being an active and supportive presence when clients needed someone to listen. According to Lauro, “Learning about HIV has helped me understand the importance of destigmatizing the diagnosis and providing resources to those who live with HIV.”

Dr. Carlos Lisoni at Pop-Up University

Posted on by amalpark

Nearly two dozen people joined us for the February 15, 2024, Pop-Up University public lecture at Langlab.   

Dr. Carlos Lisoni discussed the rise of elected autocrats and responded to audience questions and comments.  

Many attendees stayed long after the formal event to network and continue the conversation over cocktails and mocktails at Langlab.  

We hope to see you at the next Pop-Up University event featuring film studies professor Dr. Elaine Roth. 

POP-UP UNIVERSITY PRESENTS “Indiana Transformation: Human Impacts on the Hoosier Landscape.”

Posted on by amalpark

Indiana University South Bend’s Office of Community Engagement and the South Bend Museum of Art will welcome Dr. Zachary Schrank to the Pop-Up University presenter’s stage on Thursday, April 18 at 5:00pm. This informal, free, public event will be held at The South Bend Museum of Art (120 Dr Martin Luther King Jr Dr. S., South Bend, Indiana).

The public is invited to join us as Dr. Schrank presents: “Indiana Transformation: Human Impacts on the Hoosier Landscape.”

5:00 P.M. –  RECEPTION and EXHIBIT VIEWING
6:00 P.M. –  ARTIST/FILMAKER TALK with Q&A
7:00 P.M. –  EXHIBIT VIEWING and NETWORKING

We are living amid a profound era of transformation on Earth driven by diverse human activities reshaping our planet. Our modern civilization depends upon unprecedented levels of energy, relentless resource extraction, land alteration, and the constant flow of goods for a global economy. These changes reflect the emerging Anthropocene epoch, marking humanity’s dominance over Earth. Yet, because these changes are global in scale it often feels like they are far away.

Coinciding with the unveiling of the photographic and videographic exhibition, “Liminal: Indiana in the Anthropocene” at the South Bend Museum of Art, this Pop-Up University Lecture aims to illuminate what it looks like to live in the Anthropocene within our immediate surroundings. Through an art-centric lens, merging surreal aerial imagery with an original musical score, the exhibit invites audiences to reimagine Indiana from a novel perspective. It prompts us to hover above, observing the state’s integration into planetary dynamics and experiencing transformations that elude easy understanding yet evoke a sense of familiarity.

Join us between 5:00 and 6:00 P.M. to view the exhibit and enjoy light refreshments. Stay for the artist/filmmaker talk at 6:00 P.M. Linger for Q&A, informal conversation, exhibit viewing, and networking from 7:00 – 8:00 P.M.

 Pop-Up University events are free and open to public. Attendees are invited to arrive early to purchase dinner, snacks, coffee, tea, cocktails, and mocktails. Depart at 7:15 or stay late for informal discussion and networking.

About the Speaker: Zach Schrank is a 9th generation Hoosier, sociology professor, and director of the Center for a Sustainable Future at Indiana University South Bend. He regularly teaches social theory, consumer society, and environmental sociology courses. In 2020, he co-directed the documentary Big Enough, Small Enough: South Bend in Transition. In 2023 he directed the film Liminal: Indiana in the Anthropocene, which won the Indiana Spotlight Award at the Heartland International Film Festival. Both films are available through Hoodox; a streaming platform that exclusively features nonfiction, Indiana-based films.

About Pop-Up University: Pop-Up University is a series of brief off-campus talks by IU South Bend faculty on topics of interest to the public. All events are FREE and open to the public.

POP-UP UNIVERSITY PRESENTS “Now You See Them: Women Screenwriters & Directors in Early Hollywood”

Posted on by amalpark

SOUTH BEND – Indiana University South Bend’s Office of Community Engagement and Langlab will welcome Dr. Elaine Roth to the Pop-Up University presenter’s stage on Thursday, March 21 at 6:00pm. This informal, free, public event will be held at Langlab (1302 High St. South Bend, Indiana).

The public is invited to join us as Dr. Roth presents: “Now You See Them:

Women Screenwriters & Directors in Early Hollywood.”

In response to controversy surrounding the 2014 Academy Awards, in 2016 the Academy of Motion Pictures invited more women and people of color into its largest incoming class.  However, the coverage of Hollywood continues to project its unbalanced racial and gender dynamics backwards into history, with claims such as, “Hollywood historically has been a boys’ club.”  In fact, the numbers are much worse than they used to be!  White women and African Americans made major contributions to early cinema, in far greater percentages than the late twentieth-century or the twenty-first century.  While women directors were largely eliminated by the early 1920’s, white women screenwriters continued to participate in the industry into the 1940’s.  By the middle of the century, however, women screenwriters and directors were largely gone.  Meanwhile, in the twenty-first century, early women screenwriters and directors have been largely forgotten by everyone except film historians.  This presentation will help dispel the fantasy that white men have always dominated the U.S. film industry by asserting the significance of women’s participation in the early days of Hollywood.

Pop-Up University events are free and open to public. Attendees are invited to arrive early to purchase dinner, snacks, coffee, tea, cocktails, and mocktails from the LangLab cafe & bar. Depart at 7:15 or stay late for informal discussion and networking.

About the Speaker: Elaine Roth is Professor of Film Studies and Interim Chair of the English Department at Indiana University South Bend.  She recently held a Fulbright-García Robles Chair of U.S. Studies at Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, Mexico.  Co-editor of the collection Motherhood Misconceived:  Representing the Maternal in U.S. Films, she recently had a chapter on “The Power of Sentimental Cinema and Sentimental Politics:  Ava DuVernay’s Selma (2014),” included in the forthcoming collection Global Sentimentality.  She is currently working on a project on Patricia Highsmith’s novels and diaries.

About Pop-Up University: Pop-Up University is a series of brief off-campus talks by IU South Bend faculty on topics of interest to the public. All events are FREE and open to the public.

About Langlab: Langlab is a multi-use co-workspace facility that can be used to engage multiple demographic groups in artistic, musical, and intellectual experiences that represent the culture of our community.

POP- UP UNIVERSITY: “The Rise of Elected Autocrats and the Abdication of Responsible Politicians.”

Posted on by amalpark

The public is invited to join us as Dr. Lisoni presents: “The Rise of Elected Autocrats and the Abdication of Responsible Politicians.” Thursday, February 15th at 6:00 PM at Langlab (1302 High Street).

After an impressive quarter century in which democracies multiplied around the world, the last 20 years have brought about a decline in the number of democracies and support for democratic institutions. This phenomenon is known as “democratic backsliding” or “democratic erosion or regress” and is characterized by the election of autocratic leaders. Dr. Lisoni’s talk will explore the following questions: Why do democracies elect politicians who will eventually subvert or eliminate democracy itself? Can we immunize our democracies from extremism in politics? His talk will be followed by Q&A and an opportunity for discussion surrounding recent events, and public opinion, in Latin America and the United States.

Pop-Up University events are free and open to public. Attendees are invited to arrive early to purchase dinner, snacks, coffee, tea, cocktails, and mocktails from the LangLab cafe & bar. Depart at 7:15 or stay late for informal discussion and networking.

About the Speaker: Dr. Carlos Lisoni is a native of Argentina, where he studied political science at the University of Buenos Aires. He came to the United States in 2000 and has lived in South Bend since 2003; he has an MA from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a PhD from the University of Notre Dame. He has been a member of the IUSB political science department since 2012 where he teaches, among other things, Latin American Politics, Comparative Politics, and International Relations. He has published works on elections and political parties. With his wife and daughters, he regularly goes back to Argentina to visit his family, giving him a unique opportunity to gain first-hand experience of life in Latin America and in the United States.

About Pop-Up University: Pop-Up University is a series of brief off-campus talks by IU South Bend faculty on topics of interest to the public. All events are FREE and open to the public.

About Langlab: Langlab is a multi-use co-workspace facility that can be used to engage multiple demographic groups in artistic, musical, and intellectual experiences that represent the culture of our community.

Dean Phillips Knits a Pattern of Service

Posted on by Karrie M. Jean

When she was 16 years old, Dr. Brenda Phillips, Dean of the IU South Bend College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, was watching the resignation of President Richard Nixon on television when someone started pounding on her door. It was a 15-year-old neighbor who had run to her house to get help as her father was trying to kill her mother.

“I let her in the front door as my parents, thank God, came in the back door,” Phillips said. The sheriff came and helped the mother; and Phillips’ family never saw them again. “The intervention made a difference with this family and at 16 I realized pretty quickly how serious a problem domestic violence was as it was right next door.”

This stark realization and a family history of community service has led Phillips to be actively engaged in our community. Today, she serves on the boards of the YWCA and the History Museum, is coordinating a fundraiser for Reins of Life, and is knitting projects through Busy Hands of Michiana.

Phillips started volunteering at the YWCA when she arrived in South Bend in 2018 to help with a silent auction and to meet members of the community. Working with the Y allowed her to continue the work she had done in other communities to support victims of domestic violence. Those efforts are meaningful to her because of what she learned when she was 16—it is right next door.

Phillips had set up programs at other universities to support women experiencing domestic violence noting “not a week went by that didn’t have someone coming into the (women’s studies program) office that had been assaulted in some way and looking for a place to land and get help.” She also said, “So, I’ve been doing this kind of work since I was 16, but certainly since I was in my 20s and I was more able to do so.”

Her interest in domestic violence also has roots in her studies in sociology—she has a Ph.D. and master’s degree in Sociology from the Ohio State University and a bachelor’s degree in Sociology and History from Bluffton University in Ohio.

Her passion for history (“If I’m going to pick up a book, it’s going to be history.”) led her to serve on the History Museum’s marketing and membership committee, which helped the museum offer more virtual programming during the pandemic. When the History Museum reached out to Phillips about getting a historical marker for the South Bend Blue Sox, she jumped at the opportunity to honor this women’s baseball team. Phillips said, “It’s really exciting to be a part of trying to memorialize what people have done here in this community.”

Phillips has been an advocate for community-engaged teaching in the College of Liberal Art and Sciences as well. In 2019, she provided grants to support 10 community-engaged projects including technology education in high schools, urban gardening, a girl’s camp at St. Margaret’s House and a study of Elkhart Vibrant Communities initiative. The projects helped students understand the value of engagement and contributed to the community in a variety of ways.

Even when Phillips isn’t looking for a service opportunity, such opportunities seem to find her! When she and the other deans accompanied Chancellor Susan Elrod on a visit to Reins of Life, an organization that provides therapeutic horseback riding for people with different abilities, a Reins staff member mentioned that they were planning a 5K road race fundraiser, but they hadn’t organized one before. “Next thing I know I’m committing to help organize the race,” Phillips said. She pulled in Hope Smith Davis, Dean of the School of Education, who is a runner. The pair hope to raise enough money to make road races a viable fundraising program for the organization moving forward. “I really think you can do a lot with these events if you just keep going,” Phillips said. “You can bring in enough money to do some programming or maybe to buy another horse or improve the stalls.”

The pandemic led Phillips to volunteer with Busy Hands, an organization that knits blankets and creates other items for children with autism, people in nursing homes, and veterans. Busy Hands provides products to more than 120 agencies in nine counties.

Phillips’ actual knitting, however, started in pursuit of a girl-scout badge in second grade. She liked earning badges, and with her mother and grandmother already working yarn craft, she was sure she could earn that badge. After earning the sashwear, she largely dropped those knitting projects until she was working toward tenure and picked it back up to relax. As the years went by, projects started (and possibly not finished) yielded a lot of un-knit yarn.

Then the pandemic hit.

“So, like everyone else during quarantine, I cleaned out my closets and I found all this yarn and then I remember this local organization called Busy Hands of Michiana,” Phillips said. “So, I had all this yarn and I thought, well, I might as well do something; I’m just sitting here.”

In January, Phillips asked Busy Hands what they needed, and they said hats, scarves, gloves, and afghans. She made a commitment to make one afghan a month between January and October and in June finished afghan #5 as well as fifteen hats, seven pairs of gloves and seven pairs of slippers.

Knitting during quarantine helped with the isolation and lack of community involvement.

“I just felt so distant from people,” she said. “This year I’m on like probably five to six Zoom meetings every single day, but it’s not the same as being there, having conversations with people, or walking into the shelter knowing you’re doing something there, and I was just feeling really frustrated and like I wasn’t really contributing to the service ethic that I believe in so strongly. I thought this was something I could do that’s been relaxing and reflective. I think a lot about the people that I’m making these things for.”

Many of the people who will get her afghans are veterans, like her 91-year-old father. “I’m very much aware of what these afghans would mean to the veterans,” she said. “My father is always wrapped up in blankets because he just can’t seem to get warm. I think a lot, like this is probably going to someone’s father, someone’s grandfather, and maybe their family is all the way across the country now.”

“To me, that’s something tangible that you can give: that someone else is thinking about you during the pandemic; I was thinking about you, period.”

Collaborating in the Time of COVID

Posted on by Karrie M. Jean

A nettlesome problem mixed with a pandemic and a little serendipity led to a new collaboration between the IU South Bend Honors Program and the South Bend Career Academy this year.

Michelle Kytta, an IU South Bend alumna and a teacher at the South Bend Career Academy had just agreed to take over the National Honor Society (NHS) at her school and found, amid the pandemic, that she would have to build the program nearly from scratch. As luck would have it, her student teacher that fall was in the IU South Bend Honors Program and that student connected Kytta with Honors Program Director Dr. Neovi Karakatsanis.

Honors Program students Kaitlyn Dow and Paige Closson organizing books for the Success Academy library book drive.

Now, the Honors Program is advising and supporting Kytta as she works to establish a vibrant NHS. In addition, Career Academy and Honors Program students collaborated on several efforts during the pandemic school year, including a visit by Career Academy students to campus, letter-writing campaigns to front-line workers during the pandemic, and a book drive for the Career Academy’s sister elementary school, the Success Academy.

“Part of our mission on campus is to reach out to the community, including young people in the community, help educate them, and provide them with a worldview that is broadened through their interaction with us,” Karakatsanis said. “So, I think this was a perfect opportunity to do that. To have this one-on-one connection with young people in the community for whom college is so achievable. We hope to continue this collaboration with the Academy, but also with other schools in the area as well.”

For Kytta, the guidance with Karakatsanis was helpful because she is particularly interested in helping her students at the charter school be more involved and build on the NHS values, called pillars. The four pillars are Everyday Scholarship, Everyday Service, Everyday Leadership, and Everyday Character.

“I’m just trying to build up the National Honor Society here and get the kids involved in the community because I’d like them to get a sense of community and start enforcing the four pillars of the National Honor Society,” said Kytta, who was an NHS member when she was in high school. “I feel like there’s a lack of connection with the youth of today and their community. I want them to want to help others and to always aspire to be better. It’s so often that you hear people complain about society. I feel like I need to be part of the solution instead of staying on the sidelines and I hope my students learn this.”

The pandemic, she said, made it difficult for her students to maintain connections to the community—both each other and to the broader community. NHS activities help build those ties.

A few examples of the letters that were sent to front-line workers.

That was true of the Honors Program students as well. The pandemic restrictions made it difficult to even meet on campus, much less participate in service activities in the area. To bridge the gap, Karakatsanis said, Honors Program student leaders decided to work together to send thank-you letters and cards to pandemic front-line workers, including health care workers and military. The students contacted organizations to gauge interest in receiving letters and coordinated the writing campaign and delivery of bundles of letters to those organizations. Karakatsanis said that other IU South Bend faculty had reported seeing the cards and letters posted at those organizations.

“The students loved it,” Karakatsanis said. “I think it was at a time when they were feeling like any little thing they could do to say thank you, or to encourage an essential worker really gave them a sense of well-being; that they were doing something important.”

A military member pictured with a thank-you letter that he received from a student.

Katherine Cassel, a senior majoring in nursing and an officer in the Honors Program, said thanking front-line workers was important to her because they had faced the brunt of the effects of COVID.

“Frontline workers were non-stop throughout the entire pandemic,” Cassel said. “They dealt with the most of it and they risked their lives and their livelihoods by trying to take care of everybody that had contracted the virus and so I wanted to do something to say thank you.”

Paige Closson, who just graduated with a degree in finance, helped facilitate the letter-writing campaign as a student coordinator. Closson noted that the letter-writing effort was particularly important because the pandemic made it difficult for students to find opportunities for community service that is required of students because few organizations were taking volunteers.

Past Honors Student Program Coordinator, Paige Closson.

“I love seeing the students of the Program being able to actively participate because we struggled so hard to try to find things for them to do,” Closson said. “So, this was a really fun way that our students could still be involved if they came to pick up stationary and drop off letters when they actually got to come to campus, and we got to see them and check in with them and talk for a minute and empathize like ‘I know things are weird right now’.”

Karakatsanis also shared information about the project with Kytta, who worked with her students to do a similar letter-writing campaign.

Later in the school year, Career Academy students joined Honors Program students for an online YouTube party to watch the documentary Chasing Coral with Dr. Ann Grens, Associate Professor of Molecular & Developmental Biology, for an introduction and questions and answers. Karakatsanis said that during the pandemic, the YouTube party was a way to get students together even though they could not meet in person often.

“We had hoped that there could be more face-to-face interaction between our students and her students, and we’re hoping that this year there actually will be more of that,” she said. However, Kytta’s students were able to meet with Honors students when a small group visited in February. They had a tour of campus and met with a group of Honors students who talked to them about college life and resources on campus—and that college could be an option for them if they chose it. (They each left with an Honors Program t-shirt, water bottle, and cinch bag!)

Honors Program students and staff pictured with Success Academy staff while dropping off the books collected for their library.

Also in the spring, Kytta started a campaign with her students to build a library for their sister elementary school, the Success Academy, and IU South Bend Honors Program students joined in on the effort. Together, all the students raised about $900 through a GoFundMe campaign and gathered about 2,000 books for the library.

For Kytta and Karakatsanis, the collaboration was an opportunity to help build not just a strong NHS program for the Career Academy, but to bolster community when students at all levels were feeling a strong disconnect because of the pandemic. They hope that the collaboration is just the start of building more community ties, particularly through joint service.

For students Cassel and Closson, that service is what makes the soul of the Honors Program.

“The service portion of the Honors Program helps teach students to be selfless and helps teach students to be humble,” Cassel said. She described a period of being homeless as a younger person and said it was important for students to learn that they can help others without being judgmental, particularly those students who are used to having a strong safety net.

“Everybody in the Honors Program is studying, studying, studying, working hard, working hard, working hard, that they might forget to take time to look at the world around them,” she said. “And many Honors students are going to be in leadership positions (in the future), so it helps with learning humility so that if you’re leading a team you would be able to keep in mind that they also have families and they also have other responsibilities to ensure it’s a workable position for everybody.”

Closson said she views the service component of the Honors Program as “the center of the Honors Program and the ideals of what the Program wants to achieve because service not only provides for others, but also is very reflective for yourself. You can have a lot of appreciation for the work that you do and have a sense of pride for serving others.”

Getting involved in the community is a benefit in itself, she said, increasing a sense of personal fulfillment. It also helps build connections that could help you personally or professionally in the future.

“We have tons of students who do far more than the 10 hours required every semester because they truly learn to enjoy it,” Closson said. “They see the value and then see how it affects them and makes them more appreciative for everything they have.”

Celebrating South Bend Blue Sox and Their Home Field—A Place to Learn, Live, and Play

Posted on by Karrie M. Jean

75 years to the day that the South Bend Blue Sox played their first game at Playland Park, the University together with the South Bend History Museum installed a historical marker on campus to commemorate the team. Today, it is the site of IU South Bend’s residences, River Crossing. 

The Blue Sox were one of the first four teams of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) and played on the field for nine years until the League dissolved. The team was one of 14 in the League formed by Philip Wrigley, owner of the Chicago Cubs franchise, to help ensure baseball thrived while many men were drafted to fight World War II. The Blue Sox won two League titles in 1951 and 1952. The History Museum is home to the League’s documents, photographs and artifacts. The League was highlighted in the film “A League of Their Own”. 

Brian Harding, Executive Director of The History Museum, said that he was proud to preserve the history of the League and tell their stories. 

“Imagine a young woman—perhaps barely 20—traveling from her hometown to Wrigley Field to be part of a national call for try-outs for the then-new All-American Girls Professional Baseball League,” Harding said. “Imagine a group of talented athletes being given the opportunity to prove themselves at places like Playland Park where fans gathered to watch them play the sport they loved: baseball. And imagine women who made history by playing on professional sports teams for the first time ever. These are the women, the athletes, the pioneers, we celebrate today by placing a plaque in their honor on this site in the city of South Bend, whose name they proudly sported on their uniforms.”  

One member of the team, Betsy “Sockum” Jochum, was part of the event celebrating the installation of the historical marker. Jochum played for the Blue Sox from 1943 to 1948 as an outfielder, first basewoman, and pitcher. Later, she taught physical education at Muessel Elementary School in South Bend. She turned 100 this February. 

In addition to Jochum’s attendance, a major highlight of the program was IU South Bend student Brittney Hale singing the AAGPBL Victory song, said Dr. Brenda Phillips, Dean of IU South Bend’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Phillips coordinated the event and the effort to install the historical marker with the History Museum.

It was the largest gathering on campus since the pandemic (aside from Commencement), bringing together about 100 members of the community, The History Museum, City Government, the University, the AAGPL and neighborhood associations. Participants included IU South Bend Chancellor Susan Elrod, Executive Vice President for University Academic Affairs at Indiana University John Applegate, President of the AAGPBL Players Association Rick Chapman, South Bend Mayor James Mueller, and Dr. Jay VanderVeen, professor of Anthropology, who has researched and explored the area since he arrived in 2006.

VanderVeen said participating in the event was a way to highlight the stories of the land and the people who lived here. The Blue Sox played at Playland Park, which was a major festival grounds with a roller coaster, pool, roller rink, dance hall, casino, racetrack, and a “Tunnel of Love”. Playland had been known as Spring Brook Park previous to 1925, when a local naming contest gave it its new name (and a gold bar for the winner). Today, the concrete grandstands from Playland, where the Blue Sox played, still remain. 

Before a farm and a park, VanderVeen said, the land was a meeting and sharing place among indigenous people and later, early white settlers. Today, in addition to student housing, faculty members use the land to explore with their students and learn about archaeology, sustainability, and more, he said. 

“Even now, as a site for housing and field laboratories, the land near the river plays a part in why we are here: to learn, to live, and to play,” VanderVeen said. “It’s all about the river and how it attracts people. They were here because of the river and the river allowed them to exchange ideas. And that’s exactly why our campus is still here because of the river and because it fosters the exchange of ideas.” 

The river also helped ensure that commercial development after Playland Park closed in 1961 didn’t happen—because the river can flood the area, he said. IU South Bend dedicated the new River Crossing housing in 2008.  

How the river brings people together was exemplified by the May 26 event, VanderVeen said, bringing together government, education, community, and nonprofit groups to celebrate history.

Inspiring Indiana Kids to Soar in Education

Posted on by Karrie M. Jean

IU South Bend’s Indiana University Student Success Corps (IUSSC) program (formerly known as the statewide program Indiana Kids) was recently selected to receive The Women of IU South Bend grant. For Dr. Virginia Heidemann, Director of the Academic Centers for Excellence (ACE) and IUSSC Coordinator, the grant was a lifeline after state funding cuts and the pandemic threatened to derail a successful five-year program.

IUSSC enables IU South Bend student tutors to work with community partners to assist area high school and middle school students with schoolwork including Math, Science, English, Social Studies, History, French and Spanish. Since 2015, the program has worked with partners including other IU campuses, the South Bend Community School Corporation, 21st Century Learning Centers, Baugo Schools, Transformation Ministries, the South Bend Cubs, Penn-Harris Schools, Mishawaka Schools, and the South Bend LGBTQ Center. The program is a community outreach aspect to IU South Bend’s ACE program.

“It is a logical extension of what ACE does because we provide tutors who are already college students, so it’s a great way to show kids what they could achieve; it’s a great way to encourage them,” Heidemann said. “They become role models and mentors just by virtue of being there to help.”

The mission of ACE is to provide middle, high school, and college students the opportunity to develop the skills necessary for academic success within safe and inclusive learning environments, Heidemann said. ACE collaborates with community organizations, staff, students and faculty to provide tutoring and mentoring services designed to assist students in mastering content, developing study skills and strategies, and building confidence and self-determination.

The original Indiana Kids program had been started about five years ago with funding through SERVE Indiana state grants and had served children throughout the state through IU Bloomington and the regional campuses. IU South Bend had provided more than 40 percent of student tutoring among all the campuses. But the funding was cut in October of last year.

“We have definitely been pulling our weight with the program,” Heidemann said. “We had built such a strong foundation of including training and establishing policies and procedures that we didn’t want to let it go.”

While IU South Bend and IU Purdue University Indianapolis programs have been applying for future funding for IUSSC, the program was running out of funds even while middle and high school students in the area were attending tutoring virtually during the pandemic with a partnership with South Bend’s Transformation Ministries and Baugo Schools.

For Karen West, Director of Academic Empowerment at Transformation Ministries, the partnership with IU South Bend’s Indiana Kids program was critical to its Iron Sharpens Iron (ISI) flagship program of the non-profit, faith-based leadership/mentorship organization that serves more than 70 middle and high school students in the city’s near northwest neighborhoods.

“We strongly believe that ISI students are the future leaders of our community,” West said. “ISI not only recognizes a student’s potential but commits to investing and connecting students to needed resources and opportunity. Because of this belief, in 2019 ISI expanded its academic support services. During this expansion, partnerships were developed within the community to promote academic excellence. One of those vital partnerships was with Virginia Heidemann and the Indiana Kids Grant.”

ISI’s benchmark for student success is a GPA of 2.5 or higher, so they needed quality tutors to help, West said.

“The Indiana Kids Grant along with other community volunteers helped make this goal attainable for our deserving students,” she said. “Each tutor within the Indiana Kids Grant program has provided quality tutoring services in every subject and has built great relationships with the students they work with. Our students look forward to working with them and have made great academic strides with the one-on-one tutoring attention they receive.”

In a survey at the end of 2020, more than 90 percent of students reported increases in their skills, including in Math, Social Studies, English, and Science.

Heidemann notes that the program doesn’t just help the middle and high school students, it helps the tutors themselves. The IU South Bend student tutors get comprehensive training—such as in effective communications, diversity and inclusion, and student confidentiality. Tutors are trained to help seek out where students might be stumbling and how to encourage them toward success. The experience for the ACE tutors also enhances their résumés, enables them to make contacts with teachers and administrators in area schools and community organizers, and develops their leadership skills.

“Anything that helps students come into their own, anything that helps students learn and gain an appreciation for learning and enjoy it, that’s my calling in life,” Heidemann said. “To me, tutoring in the community is a logical extension of what ACE provides to college students. It’s a great way to encourage and help student tutors, in part by getting that same gratification of helping someone and then the light bulb goes on.”

One of the six tutors this spring, Catherine Vaerewyck, has been with the program for several years. She said she enjoys working with the kids: “I love seeing students understand material that they were struggling with and gain confidence as they see how much their hard work pays off…I keep coming back because I really enjoy working with the students. Plus, I have the opportunity to talk about subjects that I am passionate about as well as learn new topics when the students have work in material that I might not have a lot of experience with.”

Caitlin Schulz, another tutor, likes that tutoring gives students yet another chance to be successful. “Without this opportunity, they might turn in a halfway completed assignment or give up entirely,” she said. “Sometimes I’m able to explain a topic from a different perspective, and it’s rewarding to see a student have a much better grasp of the homework material by the end of a tutoring session. Kids need this kind of support and mentorship in their lives.”

One of the students who had participated in tutoring reported: “I used to think I couldn’t do it, but ever since she became my tutor, I have had faith in myself.”

That faith in themselves is one of the major benefits of the program, Heidemann said. “We help strengthen academic, life skills, and college readiness of middle and high school students in our region.”

In addition, the program helps boost the visibility of IU South Bend in the region and demonstrates its commitment to the community.

Heidemann cited one tutor’s comment about the joy of seeing a sixth grader see herself doing similar work as the tutor’s master’s-level homework as a “job that is a gift.”

“The idea that having a conversation with somebody and maybe getting to the point where you’re helping them with a skill and knowing how to be successful—it changes you inside,” Heidemann said. “You know that, to me, is the gift that we are able to provide—to enable that kind of employment and that kind of service.”

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