For the last twelve years, Dr. Marvin Curtis, Dean of the Ernestine Raclin School of the Arts, has been a leader in community engagement and outreach. Working in collaboration with the South Bend Symphony, the South Bend Museum of Art, the Center for the Homeless, and the South Bend Community School Corporation (to name just a few), Dean Curtis has helped to promote the arts in our community and to provide students with impactful educational experiences.
One of his accomplishments was the creation of Aspire, the official publication of the Raclin School of the Arts. The magazine won the Bronze Award for In-House Publications, Periodicals section by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education in 2011. A work of art itself, the publication plays an important role in the School’s outreach to the community. According to Curtis, “One of the reasons why I started the magazine was because no one knew our story or that we existed. Now people know the arts are alive and well at IU South Bend.”
Curtis is also immensely proud of how the School of the Arts engages local children. This year marks the 58th season of Michele’s Little Heart Theatre, an annual event that invites local K-5th grade students to what is usually their first live theatre performance. More than 6,000 local elementary students saw this year’s production of Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse—4,100 of them for free.
The Teddy Bear Concert, created by Dean Curtis, is an annual event that has received tremendous support from the community. This year the balcony had to be opened to accommodate the audience for Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors. People who bring a teddy bear to the event gain free admission; those bears are then donated to local non-profit organizations in the community. This year, 375 teddy bears were donated to the Center for the Homeless and the YWCA.
The School of the Arts hosted its 12th Lift Every Voice concert on February 29. To celebrate Black History Month, Dean Curtis invites three to four nationally-recognized vocal artists to perform in a concert that also features the South Bend Symphonic Choir. Dean Curtis explains, “It’s something that I’m really proud of because it’s the only thing that really happens around Black History Month in this area.”
Last spring brought new recognition of student talent in the School of the Arts. The studio album, American Dreamers: Voices of Hope, Music of Freedom, by the John Daversa Big Band featured spoken word and instrumental contributions from students Salvador Perez and Juan-Carlos Alarcon. The album received Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album, Best Improvised Jazz Solo, and Best Arrangement in the Instrumental or A Cappella Categories at the Grammy’s.
According to Dean Curtis, “Although we weren’t involved in the making of that album, you can see the influence we’ve had on our students for them to be able to say ‘I want to do this project’ and then all of sudden, guess what, they went to the Grammy’s! We made a huge deal out of their nominations and wins because we are really proud of them.”
The Grammy’s is not the only national stage occupied by students in the School of the Arts. In 2009, during Obama’s first Christmas celebration as president, Curtis took four students to the White House to perform a 90-minute concert in the Grand Foyer. He also had the privilege to take and conduct the South Bend Symphonic Choir at Carnegie Hall in New York.
As Curtis prepares to step down as Dean on June 30th, he reflected on the importance of campus-community engagement: “As an institution supported by tax dollars, we have an obligation to be a resource to the community. We view it as a two-way street: We’re giving people the opportunity to see young artists do what they love and giving our students a chance to work with the community and show them the role that the arts play in their lives.”
The Veterans Book Club has been providing a safe and welcoming place for veterans from campus and the community since 2015. Three or four times a year, Librarian Rhonda Culbertson and Dean of Library Services Vicki Bloom host the book club on campus. The initial focus of the book club was to provide a safe and welcoming space for student veterans who were transitioning into college life after the military and give them the ability to bond with others over books. The first book they read was about how to improve veteran services on campus. Since then, they have read poetry, short stories, long-form journalism, graphic novels, and everything in between. Whatever the medium, each book has touched on a subject that most veterans, especially student veterans, can relate to. The club has also had several different facilitators over the years, some of whom were the authors of the books themselves. While reading a book on the Veteran Affairs Healthcare system, the club was able to Skype with the author who was a physician.
Since 1990, the Health and Wellness Center at IU South Bend has been serving students, faculty, staff and the community. Dr. Teresa Dobrzykowski (left), a Certified Nurse Practitioner, serves as the clinic’s Director of Care Provision, and teaches for the School of Nursing. Kari Frame (right) is the clinic’s Operations Director and is IU South Bend’s spokesperson for Healthy IU, the campaign for employee wellness. Community engagement is at the heart of the clinic. Teresa explained that “the original intent of this Health and Wellness center was to be a nurse-managed clinic providing care to the community, however community is defined.” And the clinic has done just that, with some help from community partners.
On December 9th, Maddie Chera’s Women in Developing Countries course (ANTH-E391/WGS-W302) hosted Party with a Purpose in conjunction with Malawi Matters and the Schurz Library. The event was co-sponsored by the Anthropology Club, Black Student Union, Feminist Student Union, International Student Organization, Student Government Association, and Sustainability Club.
Malawi Matters
Translate for Toddlers (T4t) is a series of programs that promote bilingual literacy in our community through book donations, bilingual readings, and translation workshops. Dr. Anne Magnan-Park, Associate Professor of English and French, initiated the program in 2016 by asking the community to donate books for IU South Bend students to translate. After the translations are complete, the books are then donated to refugee and immigrant populations in Michiana. Dr. Magnan-Park, with her colleague Heather Jones, Lecturer in French and Spanish, have implemented Translate for Toddlers in both the French Club and in their French language classes. The program was so successful that in 2018, Dr. Tammy Fong-Morgan, Associate Professor of Spanish, decided to join T4t and invited Spanish students to translate books as well. To date, IU South Bend students have translated at least 150 books into French and Spanish.
The community partners involved with the program include the Northern Indiana Hispanic Health Coalition, El Campito, La Casa de Amistad, the Saint Joseph County Public Libraries, and the French publisher Lirabelle, which specializes in socially-minded books. Dr. Magnan-Park explained that the partnership with Lirabelle has the added benefit of giving the students a chance to explore the publication process: “We are granted an opportunity to discuss how books come together through the pairing up of authors, illustrators, and translators. We reflect on how a book format can have consequences on its distribution and therefore how readers can access these books in one or more languages.”
Translate for Toddlers continues to evolve to meet the growing needs of our community. The goal has shifted from gifting books to individuals to working with institutions such as libraries, schools, and charitable organizations to focus on initiating members of the community to the skill of translation and engaging people in reading bilingually. Dr. Magnan Park said, “We’ve designed T4t so that students and community members can engage in multiple ways: some will simply listen to a story performed bilingually or help us transcribe a translation into a book, others will choose to actively practice a range of language skills, such as reading, analyzing, and translating.” For example, the IU South Bend team is currently partnering with the St. Joseph County Public Library in order to promote bilingual literacy in high schools and daycares. While many teachers value bilingualism/plurilingualism, they often lack the resources or language skills to promote bilingual literacy in their classrooms. Since some teachers may not feel confident reading books in a language other than English, Translate for Toddlers is in the process of providing audio recordings to educators. Translate for Toddlers’ newest project is a community-wide translation contest. The hope is that junior high schools, high schools, and IU South Bend students will all participate in translating two socially-minded children books.
Despite being in existence for just three years, Translate for Toddlers has made a significant impact on the community and IU South Bend students. According to Dr. Magnan-Park, “We know from research that possessing bilingual books at home – especially in homes where English is not the primary language – fosters academic success.” Translate for Toddlers is also “creating community around languages, books, bookmaking, [and] around the process of translation.” IU South Bend students gain professional skills that prepare them for graduate school and the job market as well. Some of the students who have participated in Translate for Toddlers have won prizes at the Undergraduate Research Conference for their translations.
The Ernestine M. Raclin School of the Arts partnered with Discovery Middle School to give back this holiday season. IU South Bend and Discovery Middle school first connected earlier in the semester during the Piano Series. The Piano Series is a four concert event that is taking place over two semesters at IU South Bend. The concert series will return with its third performance at the end of January, and conclude in March. Each artist that comes to perform must also host a master class, and perform an outreach concert of 50 minutes in length. The first concert in the series that took place in September brought Christopher O’Riley to the IU South Bend campus. He performed at Discovery Middle school
This led to a relationship between IU South Bend and Discovery Middle, and brought the piano lab students to campus this past December. For three days, the sixth, seventh, and eighth graders performed holiday duets for an hour in the campus grill during finals week. Students, faculty and staff were invited to enjoy their music during lunch. Many of the student’s families also attended the
On Thursday, December 12th students from the Departments of Sociology & Anthropology and Women & Gender Studies presented on the “Quality of Place in Elkhart County,” at the IUSB Elkhart Center.
Students reported that a majority of residents rate the community positively on most measures of aesthetics, social offerings, and openness. For example, more than three quarters of residents surveyed believe the county is a great place for families with children and people entering the workforce without a college degree. A vast majority also rate the parks and playgrounds and the availability of community events and coffee shops and diners, favorably. Residents however, were less positive about environment for gays and lesbians and the availability of affordable housing. Further, despite the generally positive assessment on most measures, minority residents perceive the county at least slightly less favorably on issues such as the availability of jobs (especially for those w/o college), quality of the police, and whether Elkhart County is a good place for minorities and families with kids.
Database Management Systems (BUS S307), taught by Dr. Mohammad Merhi, is a comprehensive introduction to database management systems, with an emphasis on database design methodologies, database query languages, and database implementation. Students in this community-engaged course form groups to design and create a database system for a local business. The project gives students an opportunity to apply what they are learning in a real-world setting and to reflect on their service experience. At the end of the semester, students present their solutions to the class and the company’s owner.
The owner of the company was clearly impressed by the students’ work. He commended one of the groups for asking him such good questions and for really listening to his answers; he reported feeling like the students really understood his database problems. When asked if he plans to implement any of the students’ designs, he did not hesitate to say “absolutely!” He thought the designs would save him time, help him to create more efficient processes, and offer better customer service (because he could spend more time with his customers and less time on creating quotes), and increase his business (because he could get quotes to customers quicker). He also reported that talking with students was incredibly helpful for him because it encouraged him to reflect on his business decisions, something he does not tend to take time to do.
Notre Dame’s LEEF, St. Patrick’s Park
Potawatomi Zoo
Kennedy Academy’s Planetarium
Eighty people came out to LangLab on November 21 to participate in the last Pop-Up University lecture of the fall semester. Krista Bailey, Director of the Center for a Sustainable Future, helped us to understand the connection between climate change, conflict, poverty, and food waste. All four of these topics are on the list of the Top 10 Issues in the World, with climate change at number one. Bailey provided several graphs to demonstrate the rise in carbon dioxide, which had never hit above 300 parts per million until after WWII, and the rise in temperature, which has been steadily increasing since the 1970s. These changes have had serious consequences in places that people never imagined. In 2006 and 2007, the countries of Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, and the southern parts of Turkey were known as the countries that made up the Fertile Crescent. This area has since experienced the worst of droughts, ruining farmland and water systems. This, in addition to the political and social unrest, has created great conflict. In 2011, Syria saw the worst of this with half a million dead, 4.8 million refugees, and 7 million people displaced. Poverty has a special relationship with climate change. On a global scale, except for sub-Saharan Africa, extreme poverty has been decreasing. However, we have also experienced a global increase in carbon dioxide and temperatures, leading some experts to speculate that as humans do better for ourselves, the planet suffers. The last challenge Bailey discussed was food waste. According to recent research, one third of the world’s food is wasted each year; 40% of this waste comes from the United States, which is roughly $1500 per household per year. Bailey pointed out that what we have on the Earth is all we have, and although we may throw things out, they don’t just vanish. The things we throw out go places where they then produce methane, which is 21 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.
