USM LAC Faculty Member Finalist for National Award Technical Education

Jun 29

USM LAC Faculty Member Finalist for National Award

Michelle Vazquez Jacobus, a faculty member at the University of Southern Maine’s Lewiston-Auburn College, has been selected as a finalist for the Ernest A. Lynton Award for the Scholarship of Engagement for Early Career Faculty.

Vazquez Jacobus is an Assistant Professor for the Social and Behavioral Sciences and Leadership and Organizational Studies programs at USM LAC where, through 2010, she was also the Coordinator of Community Service-Learning. She draws from a range of experiences as a lawyer and social worker and focuses her work on community engagement and capacity building, particularly through promoting diversity and building community among marginalized and disempowered communities. She founded USM LAC’s mentoring program, the Lewiston Youth Empowerment Program, which she has directed over seven semesters. In collaboration with Sandcastle Clinical and Educational Services, she has directed the interdisciplinary Building Castles Together program, which uses art and culture to build relationships and resiliency. Vazquez Jacobus is also a founding member of the Downtown Education Collaborative (DEC), the higher education community engagement collaborative through which a number of interdisciplinary community projects, such as the Local Food for Lewiston community food assessment, and the Promoting Academic Success after-school homework help program have been conducted

The annual Ernest A. Lynton Award for the Scholarship of Engagement for Early Career Faculty is a national award recognizing a faculty member who connects their teaching, research, and service to community engagement. Lynton framed faculty scholarly activity as inclusive, collaborative, and problem-oriented work in which academics share knowledge-generating tasks with the public and involve community partners as collaborators in public problem-solving. He believed that the core value of reciprocity involves true partnership, based on both sides bringing their own experience and expertise to the project.

“Michelle absolutely leads both from the heart and by example, and has encouraged and challenged me to be my own advocate and to speak for those who are not able”, says former student and award supporter Daphne Comeau. “As a community member, this example has served me well; I have felt empowered to speak on my own behalf, especially when I am a member of a marginalized population and when I am in the position to represent others.”

“As a lawyer and social worker teaching at the community-based campus of a public university, I am committed to community engaged teaching, learning and scholarship as the most effective and just way to create access to higher education which is attainable to the most marginalized, as well as to foster the development of engaged citizens who are life-long learners, and thereby to strengthen our community”, says Vazquez Jacobus.

“I believe that the interdisciplinary collaborations and mutual partnerships inherent to community engaged teaching and learning are critical to our sustainability and to the obligation of a public university. My sources of inspiration, and aspiration, are USM LAC’s students. As they struggle to balance the weights they bear, as they delight in the discovery of their intrinsic expertise, and as they recognize their import to the community, I find my own.”

The recipient of the Award will be announced in late July, and the Award will be presented at the 17th Annual Conference of the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities (CUMU), which will be held from October 9-11, 2011, at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

Professor Michelle Vazquez Jacobus is pictured here at the African Cultural Fair in Auburn’s Festival Plaza. Left to right is student Godfrey Banda, USM LAC Advisor Mary Sylvain-Leonas, USM Mulitcultural Student Affairs Coordinator Reza Jalali, Vazquez Jacobus, and student Nasma Abdi.

Technical Education