Campus 4
Thursday, November 3, 2016
The Auburn Plainsman
ORGANIZATIONS
CONTRIBUTED BY ANGIE COLVIN BURQUE
LEFT: BraveHearts Center for Place and Purpose members trick-or-treat at various campus locations. RIGHT: BCPP used decorative wagons to help collect food for the Beat ‘Bama Food Drive.
BraveHearts creates new program for young adults Claire Tully CAMPUS WRITER
The BraveHearts organization has been developing programs since 2010, and recently they’ve developed the BraveHearts Center for Place and Purpose to create programs beneficial to young adults with developmental disabilities who’ve aged out of traditional schooling. Danilea Werner, BraveHearts director and associate professor of social work, said there are currently two BraveHearts programs. “The first is Expressions of a BraveHeart, which is a fine arts program for teens who have developmental disabilities and that’s been going on since 2010 and we do that every semester,” Werner said. “Our new program, BraveHearts Center for Place and Purpose, is a health and wellness program for young adults who have moderate to severe life challenges that have aged out of traditional school programs.” An individual with developmental disabilities can no longer attend traditional school when he or she turns 21, and Werner said she’s seen teenagers in the Expressions of a BraveHeart program who had nowhere to turn when they aged out. “During the day their parents were trying to piece together things for them to do that would resemble a program that would keep them healthy and well and academically in-
volved and work on life skill development because there was nothing in the Auburn area,” Werner said. “Right now, we are it.” Werner said the BCPP has been a beneficial supplement to these young adults who could only rely on singular events put together for them before, such as the Special Olympics. “They have special Olympics bowling and tennis and basketball,” Werner said. “You can piece together those things, but there was nothing comprehensive that was a daily program for these young adults.” Werner said she and Angela Burque, associate clinical professor and social work field coordinator, came together to create the BraveHearts program in partnership with the First Presbyterian Church of Auburn. They now have 12 people working for the program Tuesdays through Fridays from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. “The idea is to keep these young adults engaged and keep them in the community and included in the University community,” Werner said. “They’re walking on Auburn’s campus. You will see them every day if you are looking.” Werner said part of these young adults’ routine with the Center is walking around campus, usually twice a day, and participating in different outdoor activities. While volunteers are an important part of the day-to-day functions of BraveHearts,
Werner said they also have a community sponsorship program. “Community sponsorships are when an organization will commit at least two people once a week for an hour minimum to volunteer,” Werner said. “The AU women’s soccer team sent a lot of people and they would come work with us on Wednesday mornings and play soccer and hangout with all of the young adults.” Alpha Psi Omega’s Delta chapter participated as an October sponsor as well, Werner said. “We’re constantly looking for sponsors because part of our goal goes with the Auburn University mission to increase diversity and inclusion and truly becoming an inclusive environment,” Werner said. Werner said BCPP promotes and helps develop life structure, self-esteem and community participation. “We do yoga every day and the walking,” Werner said. “We have a step-counter that we use to count steps. There’s academic lessons and those could be stretched out over a week.” BCPP is currently working on a lesson plan about the life cycle of a pumpkin including dissections and seed studies. “We try to make it theme-specific,” Werner said. BCPP has non-academic lessons as well in music, sports, fine arts and topics their volun-
INCLUSION
University hosts women’s leadership conference Kressie Kornis CAMPUS WRITER
The College of Veterinary Medicine hosted a women’s leadership conference for students, graduate students and faculty from Tuskegee, Auburn’s College of Veterinary Medicine and students enrolled in medical curriculums. The keynote speaker was Dr. Stacy Pritt, vice president of the American Veterinary Medical Association. Markike Visser, Auburn alumna and conference coordinator, said Dr. Pritt has been a great mentor to her. “She has a lot of experience with not only giving these talks about leadership, but then being able to understand what leadership encompasses,” Visser said. The process of planning the conference began after she spoke with people at the Women’s Veterinary Leadership Development Initiative,” Visser said. “Even though female veterinarians make up over 50 percent of the vet professional organization, there seemed to be a pipeline problem in that the leadership did not reflect the makeup of the group in general,” Visser said. Visser said this issue isn’t exclusive to women in the veterinary field.
MADISON OGLETREE / PHOTO EDITOR
Veterinary and medical students collaborating at the conference.
“Unfortunately, Auburn is behind in female leadership compared to other schools,” Visser said. “If you go to the Women’s Leadership Center on Auburn’s campus, through their website, they actually have graphics that show compared to Michigan and other schools where we are compared to them, and we are very far behind.” The conference also focused the importance of mentors and networking. “I wished something like this was offered while I was a vet student,” Viss-
er said. “This workshop wanted to recognize the challenges and starting to develop these skills to be able to fill the needs.” Visser said reading about the gap between male and female veterinarians inspired her to create the conference. “Coming straight out of vet school you already have this gap,” Visser said. “The gap just continues to grow even though when we come out of med school, we come out with the same amount of debt, but it’s going to take us twice as long to pay everything back.”
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teers can help with, Werner said. “We do a combination of health, academic and the structure so that we create a community within our community and we include everyone,” Werner said. “We also foster friendships and relationships.” Werner said while volunteering benefits students, especially those in social work, it also helps the young adults in BCPP develop skills and friendships. “To get them out of isolation and get them away from home is rewarding,” Werner said. “Their parents have to work, so they were watching five movies a day and had no interaction. Now we see them out and making friendships, and their families have such relief to have a place where their young adult can go. That’s rewarding.” BCPP’s greatest challenge is “always funding,” Werner said. “We are constantly writing grants and taking grants, so that’s the most challenging because we feel like we’re doing something so important and we want to keep our doors open long-term,” Werner said. Werner said the Auburn community has been very inviting, and students from every major have shown interest. “We as a university have such a heart for service,” Werner said. “It is in our creed where we talk about the importance of human touch. That is what we do.”
SENATE » From 3
curious what students think about it, so that’s a university assessment, not an SGA assessment. Someone said it’s us overreaching. It’s not us.” Fields said SGA would be appearing at outreach programs on Tuesday, Nov. 1. “Tomorrow night from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., we’ll be doing an outreach and O-day event at three of the ‘neighborhoods’ on campus,” Fields said. “Terrell, the Village and the Quad.” College of Business Senator Frank McEwen gave a report on the College of Business’s recent outreach efforts and poten-
ital changes. “Last week, like we said, we went out to the College of Business and talked to our constituents, taking the iPads, getting some feedback on the athletics,” McEwen said. “We’re currently working on something that my ticket ran on, which is a freshman leadership type of program within the business school to help students get more from the business school earlier.” McEwan said the temporary name for the school is “Lowder-ship.” “That’s in the works right now and we’re really excited to see that hopefully get working in the Spring,” McEwan said.
SUSTAINABILITY
University featured as ‘Green College’ in ‘The Princeton Review’ Claire Tully CAMPUS EDITOR
The University was recognized for its dedication to campus-wide sustainability in “The Princeton Review’s 2016 Guide to 361 Green Colleges,” making it the only University in Alabama to receive such recognition. Mike Kensler, office of sustainability director, said the recognition “validates and affirms” the University’s belief that sustainability is important to both the present and future. “We are very gratified to be included again this year,” Kensler said. “It inspires us to keep moving forward.” Kensler said there are several factors contributing to the University’s success in creating a sustainable campus. “The list is long and a lot of different campus units are involved,” Kensler said. “Auburn’s sustainability initiatives started in 2004 and over the past eight years or so the momentum has accelerated with the opening of the Sustainability Office and creation of Academic Sustainability Pro-
grams.” The Sustainability Office is developing new ideas and projects, Kensler said, and a peer to peer program is an upcoming one. “The Sustainability Office is developing a peer to peer program so students and employees can partner with us to further infuse sustainability practices around campus,” Kensler said. “We are looking at ways to further enhance our green building and stormwater management practices. Expect to see more happening with campus dining. New diversity and inclusion initiatives are under way.” There are always opportunities for progress, Kensler said. “We can feel gratified, but not satisfied,” Kensler said. “There is so much more to do. As the Sustainability Policy states, ‘Auburn University considers sustainability a core value and strives for excellence in sustainability through continuous assessment and improvement.’ We should all be proud and do our part to keep the momentum going.”