2023-2024 Mini Grant Recipients Awarded
Gwynedd Mercy University President Deanne H. D'Emilio, JD awarded the 2023-2024 mini grants from the President Excelence Fund to support various undergraduate academic projects.
This year’s recipients of this competitive process included:
INSIDE OUT PRISON EXCHANGE PROGRAM: A TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING EXPERIENCE
Applicant: Patrick McGrain, PhD
The Inside Out Prison Exchange Program, an educational experience with a distinctive pedagogical approach to learning, will allow 15 criminal justice students the opportunity to take a semester-long course with incarcerated individual, referred as “inside students” at the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia. This unique program allows individuals from all walks of life to come together and find solutions to problems that affect them in very personal ways. The learning experience promotes the critical concerns of the Sisters of Mercy, focusing on issues of social justice, particularly the rights of women; the dismantling of institutional racism; support for persons who have been displaced and are forced into an unfair system; and the promotion of peaceful discourse, discernment, and decision-making.
TAP IMMERSION AT LINDLEY ACADEMY CHARTER SCHOOL, PHILADELPHIA
Applicants: Marianne Boyd, MEd, Cheryl Malfi, EdD, and Mary Jo Pierantozzi, MS
The TAP Immersion at Lindley Academy Charter School will allow 8 education students to participate in an immersion partnership program in Philadelphia, where 99.6% of the students are economically disadvantaged, and where the subject proficiency of students tested at 29% in reading 8% in math. GMercyU students typically complete their TAP experience in local schools with early grades (preK-4), or in classes for special education (Prek-8) at school districts within a 7-mile radius of campus. This partnership supports the University’s mission of “seeking to combine education for professional competency with the Mercy tradition of service to society” in our region—recognizing need and diversity in the inner city of Philadelphia.
The President’s Science and Mathematics Research Stipend
Applicants: Stacey Lettini, PhD, Justin McClain, PhD, and Maria Winters, PhD
The President’s Science and Mathematics Research Stipend will foster a culture of original undergraduate research in science and mathematics. Two students majoring in biology, math or CIS will take part in a three month summer research project. Students will actively engage with a faculty member to develop a research question, design proper experimentation, collect and analyze date, and then present that data in a proper scientific format. Faculty-student research promotes critical thinking in undergraduates. This differs from what students typically encounter in an outside internship where they are primarily carrying out the experiments designed by a primary investigator.
PROMOTING GLOBAL HEALTH THROUGH SERVICE
Applicants: Sharla Willis, DrPH, CHES; Victory Osezua, PhD, PHP; Maria Warnick, PhD, CRNP
This project will foster a Global Health Service-Learning elective course for 15 students enrolled in the Public Health program in spring 2024, who will then travel to Mustard Seed Communities in Kingston, Jamaica in summer 2024 to work with Mary’s Child, Dare to Care, and Matthew 25:40 apostolates which provide services for adolescents who are either pregnant or new mothers or are HIV positive. This experiential learning opportunity will allow undergraduate public health students to develop health education programs and other activities for the residents and professional development training for staff, and MPH graduate students to create training or evaluation materials to use with the Mustard Seed Communities. The project encompasses all 5 E’s of the Griffin Edge and will foster an innovative and inclusive culture of excellence that allows GMercyU to further develop an existing partnership with the Mustard Seed Communities with a new focus on public health.
TRAUMA-INFORMED YOGA & MINDFULNESS MEDITATION SESSIONS
Applicant: Sara Holli Pew
The Trauma-Informed Yoga & Mindfulness Meditation project will support students with resources to help them stimulate cognitive processes pertaining to meditative awareness to achieve academic goals. The GMercyU NCHA-III survey found that 51% of GMercyU’s students report academics causing them high distress, more than any other category surveyed. In addition to the stress related to their academic obligations, students also deal with financial, interpersonal, and trauma-related stress. In the 2022-23 academic year, the Counseling Services Office began offering monthly yoga session with much success. The project will continue to provide Trauma-Informed Yoga along with additional mindfulness sessions to introduce students to vital coping skills and ways to address stress that will result in increased treatment outcomes, and will reach students who may not be ready for individual counseling sessions.
DIVERSITY SERIES
Applicants: SoYoung Kang, PhD, Tatiana Diaz, MA, Kim Cooney, EdD, Kelly Kiefer, MA, and Jeff Wallace, MDiv
The Diversity Series project will support building capacity to better serve students in the classroom, in co-curriculum or in the day-to-day interactions of our community. The Series will highlight 4 identities that are present in our community. Language & Culture, First-Generation, Disability, and Spirituality & Religion. The project will create intentional space for faculty and staff that will allow for the principles of inclusive excellence to guide a Diversity Series with events each semester focused on the four identities.