Momentum Winter 2014

COVER STORY

STUDENT PROFILE: Meagan Dunham ‘17

INSIDE :: In His Own Words: Change Agent

:: Seeds of Health

:: A Broad Reach

:: Boundless Opportunity

:: Launching Boundless

:: College News and Updates

MOMENTUMWINTER 2015

CELEBRATING PHILANTHROPY AT THE COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON

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IN HIS OWN WORDS:CHANGE AGENT

The Call Me MISTER (Mentors Instructing Students Toward Effective Role Models) Program was more than just a program for me - it was a chance to grow into an educator and a better person. Coming to the College, I was a wide-eyed teenager with the world at my fingertips and no idea which direction to go. Lucky for me, I attended a liberal arts school that gave me a chance to experience many different fields of study. After getting involved with the School of Education, Health, and Human Performance, I was immediately introduced to Rénard Harris and former state representative Floyd Breeland. They took me under their wings. During my three years in the Call Me MISTER Program there was a lot of time to self-evaluate and reflect on the question, Why teach? The honest answer is, to return the favor. I remember my many mentors from over the years, such as Thurmond Williams, Coach McCoy, Charles Ivory, Rico Hall, Rénard Harris and Stephen Popadich. These are just a few of the people who helped me become who I am today. Now, every day at Flowertown Elementary, I have 52 children who look to me for guidance, and I can’t help but think about and use the same advice and patience my mentors used with me. So far, this year has been an amazing experience and an opportunity to learn, but I can’t take credit for the “success.” The credit belongs to the people who surrounded me as a child and into adulthood. When I teach, my students see them, because I am a reflection of them. That is why Call Me MISTER is so special. We all come from different places, we all have our own reasons for teaching, but what we all have in common is being mentored by upstanding people. Now it’s our turn to give back and change the world, one student at a time. M To learn more about the Call Me MISTER Program and other dynamic initiatives of the School of Education, Health, and Human Performance, visit boundless.cofc.edu.

IMPACT PROFILE

Josh Hall ‘14, fifth-grade teacher at Flowertown Elementary in Summerville, S.C.

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A College of Charleston-based, multi-agency farm-to-school initiative funded by grants from the Boeing Company will go statewide, expanding from Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester counties to seven counties across South Carolina in 2015.

“Farm-to-school is a social movement that creates an atmosphere of optimism and excitement about eating for optimal health and wellness,” explains Olivia Thompson, farm-to-school

director within the Mayor Joseph P. Riley Institute for Livable Communities at the College of Charleston. “The initiative increases access to and availability of healthful, local foods while at the same time stimulating local economies.”

Jessica Jackson, global corporate citizenship manager at Boeing South Carolina, adds, “The farm-to-school initiative is important for a number of reasons. It promotes healthy eating and living

SEEDS OF HEALTH

DONOR PROFILE


habits with children at an early age, increases access to locally grown foods and, through comprehensive school-based gardening programs such as the Green Heart Project, it promotes science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) learning through the experiential process of starting and maintaining a school garden.”

The farm-to-school initiative has five main components, which include family engagement and workforce development for educators and students, school nutrition staff and for farmers and food system leaders. Beginning in 2015, Lowcountry Local First farm apprentices will be able to earn a certificate in sustainable

agriculture through the College of Charleston’s Job Bridge Certificate program.

Two farm kitchens – the first of their kind in South Carolina – will be operational in 2015: one in the Charleston area under the management of Sweetgrass Garden and one in Greenville under the management of Mill Village Farms.

College of Charleston students are also an integral

part of this farm-to-school initiative. Hundreds of students help in the schools, on the farms and with the research and evaluation. Internships (paid and for course-credit) along with post-graduate public health fellowships have been created for College of Charleston students and graduates to gain programmatic and research experience needed for entry into graduate school and the workforce.

“Acceptance to top graduate programs and schools has become incredibly competitive,” Thompson says. “To get into a Top 10 school of public health, for example, students need to have both field and research experiences, and, ideally, they should be a co-author on a scientific manuscript. Students can get such experiences as farm-to-school interns or as post-graduate fellows.” M Watch the Boeing farm-to-school video on the College’s YouTube channel at youtube.com/user/CollegeofCharleston.


A BROAD REACHIn the spring of 1989, when I was 17, two of my uncles took me to China. Engaging China and its thousands of years of history was awe

inspiring. Westerners were still a novelty in the late 1980s, and we had the opportunity to meet many people who were invariably kind to us. Every meal was a culinary adventure, a sensuous experience that lasted for hours. I did not need to go to China to discover how much I loved food (I already knew that), but I did learn that cooking was a statement of love for your fellow man and that a communal meal was an important social experience.

However, none of those things constitute my central memory of that trip so many years ago. On the day we came back from the Great Wall in April 1989, we had to pull to the side of the road and wait for a student demonstration to go by. They were commemorating the death of reformer Hu Yaobang. Within days this small demonstration had grown into a movement with thousands of students occupying Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing. Going to China and seeing those students revealed to me that I was part of an interconnected planet. Travel changed my view of the world. This is why study abroad is such an important part of an undergraduate education. At the College, we wish we could make it available to all of the undergraduates.

We have applied these insights to the International Scholars Program. A collaborative venture between the School of Languages, Cultures, and World Affairs and the Honors College, this program seeks to identify nationally competitive undergraduates and bring them to the College. All of the fellows are double majors (international studies and another discipline of their choosing). During their freshman year they share a living-learning community and take the Introduction to International Studies as a group. As sophomores, they enroll with me in Honors Western Civilization, a team-taught interdisciplinary course that focuses on “big ideas,” such as religion, democracy, technology, warfare, gender and race. The students receive invaluable professional mentoring from the LCWA advisory board. Each freshman cohort also receives a paid “MayAway.” The first group went to Cuba in May 2013, the second group to Paris. The third group will go to India in 2015, and the fourth is scheduled for Estonia.

Study abroad accomplishes great things. The job market in the 21st century will be increasingly globalized. Our students will be able to navigate these networks, find their calling and create fulfilling lifestyles for themselves and their families. At the College, we are working hard to make sure that our students have the tools they need to thrive as responsible, democratic citizens in an increasingly interconnected world. M

Read more about international scholar Eden Katz’s trip to Africa in the latest issue of College of Charleston Magazine or visit magazine.cofc.edu.

PROGRAM PROFILE

Bryan Ganaway, director of International Scholars Program


It was cold, dark and rainy, but Meagan Dunham’s heart was as warm as it could be at the public launch of the College’s BOUNDLESS comprehensive campaign in November. Speaking to the 400+ members of the College community gathered in the Cistern Yard that night, she felt a sense of hope and possibility – a sense of confidence she’d never had before.

“That was a groundbreaking moment for me. The impact I was making finally hit me,” says the sophomore, who spoke to the crowd about what scholarships have meant to her. “Looking out at all those people listening to what I had to say, I realized that what I said and did mattered. It was amazing. It really made me realize my potential – that I can go as far as I want to go and accomplish whatever I put my mind to.”

In high school back home in Marion, S.C., Dunham put her

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mind to going to college to study public health.“I always liked school, and I always wanted to go to college – I

just wanted to do something that was right for me,” she says. “I am the first person in my family to go to college, though, and I didn’t want to put the financial burden on my mom. I was so focused on the financial part of it – I just didn’t know if I could make it happen.”

But Dunham worked hard on her grades and her extracurricular activities (mostly community service), and – with the help of the Upward Bound Program – she applied for and was granted both a Pell Grant and a Legislative Incentive for Future Excellence (LIFE) Scholarship to go to the College of Charleston. As a first-generation student, she was also eligible to apply to the ROAR Scholars Program, which provides workshops and academic support to keep first-generation students on track for graduation.

Even with all the support, though, Dunham wasn’t sure she could hack it: She hadn’t factored in the cost of books and daily life, and she was going to have to take on multiple jobs in order to make it work.

“For the first two weeks on campus, I couldn’t focus on classes. I was so stressed out about finances, I couldn’t even focus enough

to read my syllabi,” says the public health major. “When you’re stressed out about your financial means, you can’t focus on anything else. You can’t target your focus. All I could think about was how I could juggle two work-study jobs, a job somewhere on King Street and classes; how I was going to miss out on the whole college experience; how I wasn’t going to be able to go home for breaks because I’d have to be working. It was a lot to think about.”

She didn’t have to think long, though. Two weeks into her college career, Dunham was accepted into the Coca-Cola First Generation Scholars Program, granting her an additional $20,000 scholarship over four years, and received the James E. Clyburn/Rudolph Canzater Foundation Scholarship ($1,000, with the College granting a 2-to-1 matching scholarship).

“Those two scholarships changed everything,” says Dunham. “One minute I was worrying about paying for books and trying to figure out how to fit in jobs, and the next all I had to worry about was my education. It was amazing. It took so much stress off of me. I was able to focus on what is important – my education and my classes.”

And that’s exactly what she did – and continues to do.(cont’d...)


“I don’t slack off,” she says. “I know how lucky I am to have these scholarships. And everyone in my family is so excited for me. They really want this for me. They’re all rooting for me, so that makes me push so much harder.”

“Meagan is a hard worker, shows a great deal of interest in the subject matter and is well regarded by her peers,” agrees Paul Gangarosa, Dunham’s mentor and an adjunct professor in the Department of Health and Human Performance. “She is a pleasure to have in class and consistently exceeds my expectations. I feel better knowing that she is the next generation of public health professionals.”

Indeed, Dunham’s future in public health is wide open, which, she says, is something that Gangarosa helped her realize.

“Dr. G. taught me basically that you can do whatever you want in this field – you just have to make it happen. And, with the resources and connections and tools he gives you to succeed, you can make it happen,” says Dunham, who has applied for an internship at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Ga., this summer and hopes to go to Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health upon graduating from the College. “He showed me that public health is a boundless field – you just need the education to back it up.”

And, thanks to a few scholarships and the support of the College, Dunham is certainly getting the education to back up her goals.

“Since I’ve been here, making connections from class to class, I’ve realized that those connections really do make a whole education. That’s what is meant by a liberal arts education,” she says. “That’s what makes you a global student. And I think that’s important in life – you have to think roundly.” M To learn more about creating boundless opportunities for students through scholarships at the College, visit boundless.cofc.edu.

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On November 1, more than 400 students,

faculty, staff, alumni, parents and friends

came together in Cistern Yard to launch

BOUNDLESS: The Campaign for the

College of Charleston. This $125 million

comprehensive fundraising effort will support

scholarships, faculty, distinctive academic

and campus-life programs, facilities and our

annual giving funds. Visit boundless.cofc.edu

and explore how you can join us!

Interested in hosting a viewing party? Visit BOUNDLESS.COFC.EDU/EVENTS or contact Carin Jorgensen at 843.953.5859 or [email protected].

LAUNCHING BOUNDLESS

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CALENDAR

The College of Charleston Alumni Association hosted its annual awards gala at Charleston Place Hotel to honor six distinguished award recipients on November 20, including dermatologist Sam Stafford III ’68, Alumni Award of Honor; business owner Mariana Ramsay Hay ’82, Distinguished Alumna Award; singer Cary Ann Hearst ’01, Alumna of the Year Award; New York Yankee Brett Gardner ’05, Young Alumnus Award; businessman Paul W. Steadman ’83, Howard F. Rudd Jr. Business Person of the Year Award; and physician Robert T. Ball Jr. ’66, Pre-Medical Society’s Outstanding Service Award in Medicine. To watch video bios of the recipients, visit the College’s YouTube channel. To nominate a 2015 recipient, visit alumni.cofc.edu.

ALUMNI AWARDS GALA CELEBRATES SIX DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI

HAPPENINGS

JAN

17Cougar Trail: Boston Pre-game reception and men’s basketball game Where: Northeastern University, Mass. Cougar Trail: Maryland Pre-game reception and men’s basketball game Where: Towson University, Md. Cougar Trail: New York Pre-game reception and men’s basketball game Where: Hofstra University, N.Y. Celebrating the partnership between the College and the S.C. Historical Society Where: Marlene and Nathan Addlestone Library Parent Advisory Committee and Accepted Student Weekend Where: Locations across campus A Charleston Affair and Alumni Weekend Where: Cistern Yard

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Since its founding in 2009, the Schottland Scholars Program in the School of Business has come to embody the best attributes of the College of Charleston: high-achieving students and alumni, dedicated and accomplished professors and selfless community mentors. A new gift from one of the program’s most ardent supporters will help ensure these qualities endure long into the future.

Bill Finn, a Schottland Scholars mentor and a member of the School of Business Board of Governors, recently announced a gift of $50,000 to the Schottland Programs Endowment. Finn made his gift as a result of a call to action by Peter and Susan Schottland, the founders of the Schottland Scholars Program, who committed $1 million to establish the Schottland Programs Endowment in April 2014 and challenged alumni and friends to contribute to the endowment. Finn’s gift will permanently name one of the 10 Schottland Scholars in honor of Carrie Messal, founding director of the Schottland Scholars Program.

SCHOTTLAND SCHOLARS GIFT ENSURES FUTURE

S.C. HISTORICAL SOCIETY ARTIFACTS COMING TO ADDLESTONE LIBRARY

In early 2015, the College of Charleston will house the South Carolina Historical Society’s remarkable collections of books, manuscripts and archives. With the addition of the Society’s materials to the College’s already extensive holdings, the Addlestone Library will rank with the top research centers for Southern studies in the nation.

“This unique partnership formed when the historical society recognized the opportunity to move the vast majority of its collection from the historic Fireproof Building to a 21st century research facility,” says John White, dean of libraries. “When we open the doors in January, this will be a major research library in Southern history, South Carolina history and Atlantic world history.”

A public event is planned for February 27.

Check out more College of Charleston news and updates at today.cofc.edu.

NEWS & UPDATES

Donor Linda Ketner (far right) and her Ketner scholars with President McConnell. Ketner Scholars dedicate at least 34 hours per semester to activism and are interested in

women’s and gender studies as well as social justice, public service and civil leadership. Read a profile of Georgia

Maynard, 2014 Ketner scholar, in the latest issue of College of Charleston magazine or visit magazine.cofc.edu.

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BOUNDLESS.COFC.EDU#boundlesscofc

At the College, we produce

independent thinkers like Brian

Rutenberg ’87: individuals who

defy convention, who possess

vision, who chase their dreams

with uncompromising drive.

Be a part of BOUNDLESS: The

Campaign for the College of

Charleston and help us prepare

the next generation of students

to think differently and color

outside the lines.

Momentum Winter 2014

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Transcript of Momentum Winter 2014