Miller Named Lilly Teaching Fellow, Service Learning Fellow Imagine a public elementary school class where kids learn about the environment, sustainability and nutrition by growing foods in their own garden at school and then using the foods they grow in their meals, helping them to build a different kind of relationship with food, nutrition and the environment. Assistant Professor Shari Miller will be working on designing a service-learning course at UGA that could make this idea a reality. With the help of two university-wide, interdisciplinary fellowships for teaching and service-learning that she recently earned, Miller will have the opportunity to explore her idea and develop a framework for implementing a course at the School of Social Work. “For me personally, the physical environment and environmental issues are a primary concern and a passion as well as the health and functioning of our kids,” Miller said. “As a School of Social Work, we have a responsibility and also an opportunity to connect with the community in a way that can be and should be empowering. This is a way for us to capture the passion and the skill set and strengths of our students so that our students can participate and contribute to the community in a way that also models, for the elementary school students, a way of thinking about the world—a way of being in the world.” Beginning in the fall, Miller will be one of ten Lilly Teaching Fellows for 2010-2012 and one of eight Service Learning Fellows for 2010-2011. “I’m hoping to be able to link the two up so that I can make the best use of all the opportunities both fellowships offer. I’m hoping to integrate them in some way or another, but with a different emphasis for the teaching fellowship than the servicelearning fellowship, “ she said. The 2-year Lilly Teaching Fellows program, administered by UGA’s Center for Teaching and Learning, provides the opportunity for young professors to develop as teachers and researchers and helps individuals strike a balance between the two roles. Lilly fellows attend a two-day retreat in the fall semester and continue meeting twice a month throughout the 30
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year. Fellows work with a mentor and receive a stipend to assist in implementing new ideas or developing his or her career. The Service Learning Fellowship is a year-long program designed to promote service-learning in the participant’s teaching, research and public service at UGA. Supported by the Office of Service-Learning, the fellowship includes the guidance of a mentor and a stipend to support the recipient’s servicelearning project. Fellows also participate in a one-day retreat and monthly meetings. “I’m really excited about these opportunities,” Miller said. “I’m looking forward to focusing my ideas and working collaboratively to make this happen. There’s a really active local foods effort in Athens and the University, so it seems like there’s going to be either existing projects that we might be able to join and add to, or at least many opportunities to develop relationships with folks in the community who are doing these types of things, to bring this project to fruition. My hope is that the first cohort of students who participate in this class will be involved in actually getting the project off the ground.”
Social Work Alumna Presents at 22nd National Symposium on Doctoral Research in Social Work Sandra Yudilevich Espinoza, Social Work Ph.D. ’09, presented at the 22nd National Symposium on Doctoral Research in Social Work at The Ohio State University’s College of Social Work May 1. Chosen through a blind review process, Yudilevich Espinoza was one of 14 recent Ph.D. recipients from around the country to present her dissertation at the symposium. Yudilevich Espinoza’s doctoral research on HIV/ AIDS, funded by both a Graduate Dean’s Award and a grant from the School of Social Work’s Ph.D. program, culminated in the work “Living with HIV/AIDS: Exploring Latino Women’s Narratives.” Yudilevich Espinoza is now an assistant professor at Salem State College in Massachusetts.