The Top Owl Social Justice Award is given to recognize contributions toward helping the university achieve its mission of creating and sustaining an inclusive community that appreciates, celebrates, and advances student and campus diversity.

This award, selected by the President’s Commission on Social Justice, are being awarded this academic year during the months of December, January, February, March, and April to recognize the contributions, leadership, and service of a worthy faculty, staff, part-time student, and full-time student.

For the month of March, the Top Owl Award winners are undergraduate student Madison Caruso; Michelle Mann, department secretary in the Department of Public Health; and Meredith Sinclair, assistant professor of English.

Madison Caruso is an Honors College student who is committed to pursuing social justice for those suffering from mental illness. Her honors thesis concerns advocacy for social justice by inviting the SCSU community to a talk on mental illness, then offering them the opportunity to make artwork in response to the talk. Those who complete the artwork will have a chance to share stories and come to a better understanding of how mental illness impacts us all, as well as how art has the potential to heal us all.

Caruso took advantage of SCSU’s Social Justice Grants program to provide the Southern community with these opportunities to both learn and create, and, her nominator wrote, “I applaud both her initiative and care.”

Her nominator continued, “Madison is going above and beyond what is required of an Honors Thesis to also better all of us at SCSU, especially those struggling with mental illness and/or those who know someone struggling with mental illness.”

As the department secretary in Public Health, Michelle Mann was described by her nominator, a student worker in the department, as “Office Mom!” and “the glue that keeps this department together.” Mann, her nominator wrote, is thoughtful and caring, baking cakes for birthdays, taking student staff on museum trips, and open to learning about others’ backgrounds and cultures. “I have never seen Mrs. Michelle be biased, judgmental or close minded to any topic, culture, or any challenge,” her nominator wrote. Her nominator particularly noted Mann’s care and concern for her department’s student workers, writing, “Mrs. Michelle is the kind of person who would encourage me to go to counseling services rather than clocking in. Mrs. Michelle is the kind of person who will take a walk with you just to listen about your concerns. Mrs. Michelle is the kind of person who will slip $10 in your backpack after you persisted to tell her not to just to help you out. Mrs. Michelle has opened her home, and her arms up for me, and I am ever so grateful. She has encouraged me to challenge myself, and believe in my abilities.”

Further, when it comes to social justice, Mann’s nominator wrote, “she is not complacent nor quiet in the eyes of oppression. Graduating from UCONN with a history degree, she found her stance against racial discrimination and promotes cultural awareness to her child and the rest of her staff. She is ready to march at any time, to open her mouth against things that aren’t right. She is open minded, and exposes herself to many cultures. She is the woman on all of the boards, has the huge dinners for her church, and orchestrates fellowship among different cultures and people.”

Meredith Sinclair has taken a leading role at SCSU in promoting anti-racist and culturally responsive pedagogy for future PK-12 teachers and for university educators. She is a co-director of the Urban Education Fellows, a student-driven organization for future teachers who are committed to teaching in urban schools and promoting activism through education. She is also a member of the SCSU Racial Justice Pedagogy Project and of the Faculty Senate Curricular Task Force for Social Justice and Human Diversity, as well as being a leader in AAUP Committee W. Her nominator wrote, “Dr. Sinclair integrates Social Justice in her teaching, research, and outreach, and many teacher candidates are grateful for her guidance, support, and struggle against inequities in education.”

The Top Owl Social Justice Award is given to recognize contributions toward helping the university achieve its mission of creating and sustaining an inclusive community that appreciates, celebrates, and advances student and campus diversity.

This award, selected by the President’s Commission on Social Justice, will be awarded this academic year during the months of December, January, February, March, and April to recognize the contributions, leadership, and service of a worthy faculty, staff, part-time student, and full-time student.

For the month of February, the Top Owl Award winners are undergraduate student Dayana Lituma-Solis and Victoria Zigmont, assistant professor of public health.

Dayana Lituma-Solis is an undergraduate student majoring in communications disorders and, according to her nominator, is a “living embodiment of the SCSU values of Social Justice and Access.” A student representative to the Undocumented Students Support Team, she is an integral member of the team and provides valuable ideas that have been recognized by the faculty and staff members of team. Last year she led a group of students to travel to the Capitol Building in Hartford to testify in front of the Higher Education Committee to equalize access to financial aid funds for all students regardless of immigration status. She assisted in a College Access Program for ESL (English as a Second Language) students at Wilbur Cross High School. She worked under CT Students 4 A Dream, an organization that fights for immigrant rights and the rights of undocumented students throughout the state of Connecticut. As part of her work with them she delivered “Undocupeer” training for student leaders (RA’s and OA’s) at Southern.

Lituma-Solis has has served as panelist for several immigration related events for Social Justice Month, including sharing her experience as a first generation immigrant at last year’s TRUMP CARD discussion. She is the president of the Hermandad de Sigma Iota Incorporada chapter at Southern, and under that role led several voting registration drives last fall to increase voting engagement by all students, but particularly Latino students. Last fall she also volunteered to give a bilingual tour to a group of more than 50 high schoolers and parents from Bridgeport and New Haven.

As a communications disorders major, she is an active member and secretary of the Autism Awareness ad Advocacy Club. In her free time, she is a tutor for New Haven Reads and works as a research assistant for the SCSU R.E.A.D.S. lab.

Lituma-Solis’ nominator wrote, “I could go on and on about Dayana’s accomplishments and contributions to SCSU’s mission of social justice. But the truly remarkable quality about Dayana is her willingness to step out of her comfort zone to assist her peers and pave the way for students to achieve their higher education goals.

“Even though she is only 20 years old, she has developed a vast network of contacts at SCSU and the New Haven community. She has referred many students and parents to my office to make a personal connection to talk about coming to SCSU. Dayana does not get any financial benefit from helping these students apply to SCSU, yet she goes above and beyond to ensure that these prospective students, many of whom are the first in their family to attend college, are able to navigate the application process and make a personal connection with key people in the faculty and staff that look like them or speak the same language.”

Dr. Victoria Zigmont is committed to improving Southern’s students’ health and well-being through her work on campus and in the community. She recognizes the relationship between social justice and academic (and personal) success for Southern students. She has been involved in several initiatives that include her service on committees, leadership in projects and grant-funded research studies to reduce food insecurity among students on campus. Her efforts resulted in greater access to food and resources in a manner that protects and respects students’ privacy. She contributed to the relocation of the mobile food pantry, creation of satellite pantries housed across campus, and planning for a sustainable large pantry. She has been successful in building momentum, creating a sense of urgency, and engaging collaborators to remedy students’ food insecurity and related needs.

Dr. Zigmont also has demonstrated her commitment to student success through her involvement of graduate and undergraduate students in her research and practice in this area. She has led and engaged her students in campus-wide assessments and steps to address identified needs on campus and in the community.

Her nominator wrote that Dr. Zigmont “is committed to a mission of social justice, which is evident in all that she does. She is an exceptional role model who fully embraces her students and colleagues with dignity, respect, kindness, compassion and civility.”

Nominate a member of the Southern community for a Top Owl Social Justice Award.

The Top Owl Social Justice Award is given to recognize contributions toward helping the university achieve its mission of creating and sustaining an inclusive community that appreciates, celebrates, and advances student and campus diversity.

This award, selected by the President’s Commission on Social Justice, will be awarded this academic year during the months of December, January, February, and March to recognize the contributions, leadership, and service of a worthy faculty, staff, part-time student, and full-time student.

For the month of January, the Top Owl Award winners are graduate student Mykelle Coleman; Sedell Hairston-Hatton, secretary from the Student Involvement and Leadership Development Office; and Yi-chun Tricia Lin, director and professor of Women’s Studies.

Mykelle Coleman, a second-year graduate student in the School Psychology Program, has shown a passion for and commitment to social justice throughout her time at Southern. For the past two years, she has headed the Counseling and School Psychology Department’s Social Justice/Diversity Committee, a group that designs and coordinates learning experiences to meet these goals. In addition, last year Coleman worked on the On Our Own Turf Project, a Social Justice Committee grant-funded activity that looked at issues of microaggressions, discrimination, and injustice on the SCSU campus. She also developed and led the Clothesline Project, an art-based activity dealing with issues of sexual assault and violence, and a showing and discussion about the film For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf during last year’s Social Justice Month. This year she was a student leader for two major Social Justice Month activities, the Racial Justice Film Festival and the Sleep Out America event, to bring attention to the issue of child, youth, and college student homelessness. She has also helped to provided diversity training to Southern staff.

One of Coleman’s nominators wrote that she “embodies the ideals of social justice and utilizes the core values of SCSU to bring those ideals to her peers and fellow Owls. As a leader in the social justice committee, she has organized events at Southern that promote awareness of some challenging issues that we face today, both as Owls and members of our larger society.” Aside from the activities she is involved in on campus, a nominator wrote, “she exhibits a nurturing nature towards all, accepting and celebrating others constantly. She is a positive spirit who is always there for others. [She] is able to light up a room with her presence while also shining the spotlight on others around her. She has an incredible spirit that Southern is very lucky to have as a part of its community.”

Sedell Hairston-Hatton, who is also known as Dell, was described by her nominator as “such a beautiful person inside and out, and she is extremely helpful! She is very reliable and always willing to go out of her way to make sure those around her get the assistance that they need. She does a lot of behind the scenes work to make sure everything runs smoothly.”

Her nominator added that Hairston-Hatton is “a remarkable person who has a heart of gold, and it is evident that she takes her job not only seriously but has a passion for what she does. I think these are very important qualities to have as a staff member at the University, and she is a wonderful candidate for the Top Owl Award.”

As the director of the Women’s Studies Program, Yi-chun Tricia Lin has been organizing the 64 Days of Nonviolence program at Southern for many years. As part of that program, every spring semester she puts together a wide array of events to promote social justice on campus. Her nominator wrote that Lin “does this work tirelessly and on a shoestring budget” and pointed out that the 64 Days of Nonviolence program predates Social Justice Month by more than a decade. One of the most impressive feature of the 64 Days of Nonviolence, wrote Lin’s nominator, “is the wide array of topics covered, from Indigenous, women’s, and LGBTQ rights, to Black Lives Matter, to increasing social justice for girls and boys. She really is a model advocate for the teaching and learning of social justice on campus.”

Congratulations to January’s Top Owl Award winners!

To nominate someone for a Top Owl award, visit the university’s Social Justice website.

The Top Owl Social Justice Award is given to recognize contributions toward helping the university achieve its mission of creating and sustaining an inclusive community that appreciates, celebrates, and advances student and campus diversity.

This award, selected by the President’s Commission on Social Justice, will be awarded this year during the months of December, January, February, and March to recognize the contributions, leadership, and service of a worthy faculty, staff, part-time student, and full-time student.

For the month of December, the Top Owl Award winners are student David Bakies and Melanie Savelli, assistant professor of Communication.

David Bakies is a senior geography major and the president of the Geography Club. For the 2018-19 academic year, he is leading the food recovery program for the Sustainability Office, and spent the 2017-18 academic year interning on this project as well. Bakies oversees the daily collection of excess food from Conn Hall operations and the delivery of this food to St. Ann’s soup kitchen, a neighbor to the Southern campus.

Bakies ensures that the food recovery program has all shifts filled with volunteers, an important opportunity for SCSU students to participate and engage in an activity that actively supports food justice for all. The food recovery project puts large quantities of food on plates for neighbors who otherwise go hungry. Under Bakies’ leadership, Southern has donated more than 30,000 lbs. of fresh food, which translates to 25,000 meals.

Bakies is a non-traditional student at Southern and a decorated U.S. Army veteran. His nominator described him as “unfailingly kind and respectful to everyone, all the time,” adding that he devotes time above and beyond what is required on the projects he is involved with, simply because he is generous with his time and values helping people.

Dedicated to environmental restoration, Bakies has also involved himself with projects at the Werth Center for Coastal and Marine Studies. His nominator wrote that “he is happiest when working on projects where he can actively make a difference.” This coming spring, he will be using side scanning radar on a boat to detect and remove abandoned lobster pots, of which there are thousands, from the bottom of Long Island Sound. These abandoned traps needlessly kill marine wildlife and pose a risk to many animals, and to fisheries’ well-being.

Melanie Savelli teaches COM 150, World of Communication. Her nominator wrote that one requirement in the course is to watch weekly TED Talks that provide perspectives students don’t typically seek out. Recently Savelli had her class listen to a podcast called “Conversations with people who hate me,” in which the host had a conversation with someone who sent him a hateful message. The nominator, a student, explained that “at first, I was turned off by the immediate message and tone of the ‘someone’ who sent the message, but listening to the whole podcast I was able to hear and witness a change. Not only did the host and guest have a constructive exchange but the guest realized why and admitted to feeling guilty for sending the message. Dr. Savelli is requiring students to listen to a podcast that is an example of how to break the barriers that prevent both opposing parties from having a constructive conversation.”

The course has also included assignments such as watching a TED Talk about a woman who left the Westboro Baptist Church and now works to show people how to have more productive dialogs and how to manage the emotions and stress that comes with talking about controversial topics.

The nominator emphasized how these assignments have given students more tools to engage in difficult conversations with those who may not agree with them. Other students in the class have also expressed that the videos have made an impact on them.

Congratulations to December’s Top Owl Award winners!

To nominate someone for a Top Owl award, visit the university’s Social Justice website.