Meet our 2025 National Bonner Summer Interns! Michael Deem Jr. from Rider University brings his expertise in film and storytelling, while Spelman College's Olivia Gray focuses on advancing educational equity. Oberlin's Joseph (JP) Liddy contributes his experience in event coordination and community building, and Centre College's Kayla Rogers brings her passion for policy advocacy and civic engagement. Together, these talented student leaders will support the Bonner Foundation's mission while gaining valuable professional experience in the nonprofit sector.
Maranda C. Ward, Ed.D., MPH, Spelman College Bonner Scholar ‘02 Alum has been awarded Campus Compact’s Ernest A. Lynton Award for the Scholarship of Engagement. Dr. Ward is the assistant professor and director of the Equity Department of Clinical Research and Leadership at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences.
TCNJ’s Bonner Community Scholars Program launched 20 years ago, it started with just 12 Bonner Scholars — students who commit to 300 hours of community service annually in exchange for needs-based scholarships. Now, with close to 100 participants each year, the TCNJ program is one of the largest and most successful in a nationwide network of Bonner college programs.
In celebration of Elaine Wheeler's retirement, we honor her invaluable contribution to the Bonner Foundation. Her commitment and mentorship have been instrumental in our growth as a Foundation and the Network we have today. As she embarks on her retirement, we celebrate her legacy of dedication and look forward to the path she has paved for us.
With over three decades sharing campus examples, guides, and documents to download, the Bonner Foundation is excited to announce a recently updated Bonner Resources Wiki.
This summer, the five National Bonner Summer Interns at the Foundation — Anu Baskar (George Mason ‘24), Camila Guayasamin (The College of New Jersey ‘24), Dominique Dore (University of Houston ‘22), Mikaela Chin (High Point University ‘24) and Selah Ndouta (Capital University ‘22) — worked with the Foundation staff to refresh the look of the wiki’s homepage and, more importantly, update campus examples and other documents.
They devoted particularly attention to the Bonner Program Management and Community-Engaged Learning sections. In addition, Mikaela and Dominique also created a short video on how to navigate this wealth of knowledge.
Renee Sang ’21 may be a local, but her Rollins experience took her well beyond the boundaries of Central Florida in her quest to illuminate social justice issues through documentary filmmaking. . .
Her first year at Rollins, Sang joined the Bonner Leaders—a four-year, cohort-based community service scholarship program—and that single decision set her on a path that would form the basis of her work for the next four years.
Anna Watt, Reagan Bos and Maria Hall all will be teachers in the not-too-distant future, and part of their training other than education coursework at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University (CSB/SJU) includes real-world exposure to potential students.
This can mean shadowing teachers in the classroom and, eventually, student teaching. These three CSB undergrads, however, are going above and beyond what is required to engage with diverse children in St. Cloud as part of a grant-sponsored “Books with College Buddies” program.
Terri Rodriguez, in her ninth year as an education professor at Saint Ben’s and Saint John’s, started the program in the spring of 2021 with $3,000 in support via funding from the Corella and Bertram F. Bonner Foundation and the Optimist Club of St. Cloud.
Director of the Elizabethtown College Center for Community and Civic Engagement (CCCE) Javita Thompson is piloting a service leadership program for incoming first-year Etown students.
The Bonner Leader Program was started by the Corella and Bertram F. Bonner Foundation in 1990. The overarching goal is to improve relations between students and communities by bridging the gap between the basic needs of nutrition and educational opportunity.
The Bonner Leader program will become a multifaceted program that allows Etown students to gain leadership skills while performing service initiatives to improve relationships with community organizations. The program is one of many initiatives to help with the College’s strategic plan, specifically the theme of “inclusive excellence.”
Over the years, the Bonner Foundation has developed partnerships with over 20 graduate schools across the nation committed to supporting diverse, low-income, first-generation students. Bonner’s graduate school partners span a diverse array of academic disciplines and professional studies, from law to public health. Through mutually beneficial relationships between partner organizations and our network, we provide greater opportunity for social mobility to deserving students throughout the nation.
Bonner students and alumni receive financial assistance, such as application fee waivers and partial- or full-tuition scholarships to alleviate the economic barriers to pursuing a graduate degree. The majority of Bonner’s graduate school partners offer an application fee waiver and scholarships ranging from $5,000 to $40,000 annually. For more specifics on Bonner graduate school partnership benefits, please visit: http://www.bonner.org/graduate-school.
He grew up in a service-oriented family, undertook activities required to become an Eagle Scout, won Bonner and Holton scholarships at DePauw for service and coveted a life of helping others.
But Nathan Hand ’03 wasn’t convinced he could make a career in philanthropy, at least not one that would enable him to comfortably raise a family and have the earning potential that his peers pursuing more lucrative fields would enjoy.
He thought about becoming a patent attorney. Or going into biology. He spent time pursing education studies, then geology. He ultimately landed on a communication major and political science minor, and undertook enough internships, volunteer opportunities and extracurricular experiences to persuade himself that working in nonprofits would bring him joy and a comfortable life, if not necessarily riches.
“I just felt like there was an urgency there to get my career started, but also explore as many different causes as possible to find what I liked,” he said. “I needed to prove to myself that I could make a living doing this, the idea of volunteering and nonprofit service. It’s a big shift to go from a fun side hobby … to want to make a career out of this.”
Roman Rojas ‘21 says he found a second home on the Hill. As the Mars Hill University’s first DACA student, he faced some unique challenges, but persevered and fulfilled his dream of earning a college degree, graduating in May with a business administration major and a certificate in community engagement. Through his experiences as a Bonner Scholar, an Alpha Chi member, and a DKT brother, he found numerous opportunities to move mountains through Mars Hill University.
The Newman Civic Fellowship recognizes and supports community-committed students who are changemakers and public problem-solvers at Campus Compact member institutions. Fellows are nominated by their president or chancellor on the basis of their potential for public leadership.
Through the fellowship, Campus Compact provides students with training and resources that nurture their assets and passions and help them develop strategies for social change. The yearlong program, named for Campus Compact founder Frank Newman, includes virtual learning opportunities and networking as part of a national network of engaged student leaders and an optional in-person convening.
Campus Compact views the Newman Civic Fellowship as a core component of our strategy to build a national network of engaged student leaders who can support one another in building transformational partnerships between campuses and communities.
Below we have included the personal statement from each of the nine Bonners who are part of the 2022-23 cohort of Newman Civic Fellows.
Today, Pelaez, a Davidson Bonner Scholar, works at the Charlotte Community Health Clinic, bringing healthcare, testing and more to low income and underinsured populations in Charlotte, as she prepares to apply to physician assistant programs.
Bonner Scholar Ben James ’22 had plans to play soccer for a college in his home state of Pennsylvania when he realized he needed to make a bigger change.
“There was a lot of transformation going on, but by the time I made all of these decisions, it was the spring of my senior year, and the recruiting is all but closed by that time,” he says. “During a tournament in February of 2018, the assistant coach from Guilford contacted me and said they were still looking to fill the recruiting class, so I applied.”
Ben didn’t have a chance to visit Guilford before making the decision, but the opportunity to play soccer, as well as the financial aid that went along with being a Bonner Scholar, made it an easy choice.
Davidson College Bonner alumnus, Xzavier Killings’ 16 and other researchers have found spikes in firearm injuries sustained by and inflicted by children during the pandemic, a time when gun sales to first-time owners also were rising. Increased rates of firearm ownership, school closures, and a suspected decrease in supervision during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic place young children at increased risk of firearm injuries. They measured trends in firearm injuries in children and inflicted by children discharging a firearm during the pandemic and correlated these changes with a rise in firearm acquisition.
The Carnegie Community Engagement Classification central office announces that the first time and re-classification applications for the 2024 Carnegie Elective Classification for Community Engagement are now available on GivePulse. Interested campuses must initiate an application by October 31, 2022. The deadline to submit an application is May 1, 2023. Click on the GivePulse logo to access the application portal.
Kaytlin Brown, CAUL Intern, shares her thoughts about the Urban League:
I am a junior at the College of Charleston pursuing a Bachelor's of Science in Public Health and double minoring in Communication and Political Science, on the Pre-Law track. My interests lie within the intersections of interface communication and advocacy.
My goal is to utilize my experience in such a field to evoke change for minorities in the realms of public policy, public health, and business operations.
It sounds like the makings for a Hollywood action movie:
Good Guy wonders where all the missing bits of nuclear material have gone. He joins a think tank in Europe to learn how to stop the bad guys from getting their hands on it. He brings back everything he’s learned to the U.S. and saves the day!
But this isn’t a Hollywood movie. It’s reality for Stetson University Bonner alumnus Jack Kelly ’11.
Mars Hill University alum, Marshay Huskins '01, was honored as Madison County principal of the year. Ms. Huskins plays a crucial role in the success of our district. She is always a strong voice on our district leadership team. One of the most powerful components that Ms. Huskins exhibits is her knowledge and research around teaching to trauma and poverty.
In August 2021, Bonner Foundation Community Engagement Director, Liz Brandt, completed a master's thesis research project through the School of Education at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA. The project examined the critical practices that support Community Engagement Professionals (CEPs) in actualizing the fulfillment of higher education’s civic mission.
OXFORD, Miss. – The University of Mississippi has its first-ever cohort of Bonner Program students who have started their four-year campaigns to transform their campus and community through service projects.
The university’s Bonner Program, housed at the new UM Center for Community Engagement, is part of a diverse, multistate network of colleges and universities with their own Bonner programs. The program is part of the Corella and Bertram F. Bonner Foundation, which works to “transform students, communities and campuses through service.”
In 2021, Paul Schadewald, Senior Program Director for Community-Based Learning and Scholarship at Macalester College and a Field Leader with the Bonner Foundation and Network, was awarded the NCPH Book Award, along with colleagues Rebecca Wingo and Jason Heppler, for the new book Digital Community Engagement: Partnering Communities with the Academy. The NCPH Book Award recognizes outstanding scholarship that addresses the theory and/or practice of public history or that includes the products of public history work. Digital Community Engagement: Partnering Communities with the Academy was recognized as the best book about or growing out of public history published in 2019 or 2020. Schadewald works within the Macalester College Civic Engagement Center, a center that was established more than thirty years ago and is home to a Bonner Leader Program.
