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.
The Bonner Foundation has selected five exceptional interns for the 2024 National Bonner Summer Internship program. These interns, from various universities and diverse academic backgrounds, will contribute to the Bonner network by developing resources, assisting in event planning, and working on strategic initiatives. The Bonner Foundation looks forward to the unique contributions these young leaders will make to the network.
Cyntia Roig, a Bonner Fellow at Brown University’s Swearer Center, selected as one of seven students to be part of the inaugural group of Campus Compact Student Design Fellows.
The Student Design Fellow program is a commitment to a two-year, student-led design process. Student Design Fellows will collaborate closely with Campus Compact staff, member campuses, and national partners to shape student civic leadership development. Through extensive research, the review of existing best practices, and interviews with students and experts nationwide, fellows will actively contribute to the design and facilitation of inquiry workshops. This approach aims to foster innovative thinking and produce a strategic plan for Campus Compact's student-facing initiatives.
From Miami, Cyntia Roig, a first year at Brown University, names her participation in the Swearer Center’s Bonner Fellows as her favorite civic engagement activity and hopes to utilize her Bonner experience and community to shape her involvement in the Student Design Fellowship.
Born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, John continues to cultivate what he has learned from the legacies and infrastructures left by justice and equity pioneers of the past and present into accessible, approachable, and active actions for positive and transformative restitution as change.
As a Bonner and McNair Scholar, John has worked within his community and the broader communities he serves by expanding community capacity concerning political action and civic engagement while focusing on identity, place, and policy.
On November 18 North Carolina Campus Engagement hosted the 2022 “Engagement Matters” Student Awards Ceremony. Nineteen outstanding students, from within the NCCE member network of colleges and universities, were recognized for their civic and community engagement leadership. The award recipients shared powerful insights about what they have gained or learned by being civically engaged. Friends, loved ones, and campus constituents participated in the Ceremony from throughout the country to celebrate these inspiring students.
Since 2006, the Community Impact Student Awards recognize an outstanding, full-time undergraduate or graduate student service leader from each member campus.
All award winners should clearly demonstrate:
Deep commitment to partnering with others to address community issues
Outstanding ability to lead and inspire fellow students to engage
Evidence of sustainable impact of their work
Two Bonner students were selected by their institution to receive at 2022 Community Impact Student Award (CISA).
Gloria Lwin ’24 has been named to the inaugural cohort of Voyager Scholarship recipients, a prestigious class of 100 college juniors nationwide who plan to pursue a career in public service.
The Voyager Scholarship is funded by former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama through the Obama Foundation and Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky. The scholarship aims to provide college students with financial support for college costs and exposure to new places and experiences, along with a network of mentors and leaders to support them.
Lwin, a Centre College Bonner Leader and native of Owensboro, Kentucky, said her experience with the Bonner Program aided her greatly in the application process.
“The Bonner Program played a huge role in my interest in social justice issues and community service, and because of that experience, I have become more passionate about healthcare disparities,” she said. “My classes at Centre have pushed me, and I’ll be able to use the skills I’ve learned here in this opportunity.”
Camila Guayasamin ’24 may have stayed close-to-home for her summer internship, but she still gained national perspectives along the way.
As one of five Bonner Scholars selected for the National Summer Intern program at the Corella & Bertram Bonner Foundation in Princeton, Guayasamin worked alongside fellow scholars from Virginia, Texas, North Carolina, and Ohio.
During the 10-week internship, these young leaders shared their Bonner Program experience by developing new resources and strategies for the national network of over 75 colleges and universities.
Q: What kind of work are you doing?
This summer, I spent eight weeks in Louisville, Kentucky working with New Roots: Fresh Stop Market, a nonprofit that focuses on food justice. This small organization reaches about 700 families, which equates to 2,200 community members. Their mission is to increase fresh food access and ensure that affordable fresh food is available year-round in all neighborhoods. The markets function similarly to a crop share. My responsibilities included office work in the morning and tending markets in the afternoon. In the office, I completed paperwork, edited spreadsheets, sent reminders for people to pick up their shares, published blog posts, handled phone calls and organized deliveries to bring shares of produce to those unable to access the markets themselves. In the afternoons, we went to the markets to organize, pack and distribute fresh produce to community members. The produce came from local organic farms, and there was a total of nine locations, where each market operated every other week. Families and individuals signed up and paid for this crop share on a sliding-scale system based on their income. Each bag has eight to 10 food items, which change weekly.
Paul Remmler ’23 spent the summer as an intern at the Putnam County Museum conducting community-based research and at the Putnam County Library assisting with training and program development.
Remmler, from Shelbyville, Indiana, began working at the museum as a DePauw Stone Scholar, a program for first-year students that focuses on civic leadership. He continued his work through the Bonner Scholar Program, a community service-based scholarship program.
During Remmler’s sophomore year, he helped the museum staff research and design a small exhibit on nitroglycerin and its role in rail transport. “As part of the research, I also looked at crime in the county in relation to nitroglycerin transport, the rail systems, the role it played as well as if there were any accidents related to its transport,” he said.
“The information was so interesting, and I loved putting it together. There’s a very passionate community in the area for railroad history.
“My work with the DePauw Gaming Club led to me exploring the beneficial social contributions that gaming can provide, inspiring my work with the Putnam County Library, while my love for the people of the community and museum staff inspires me to continue working with them.”
Remmler founded the nonprofit Putnam County Gaming Initiative, through which he hopes to learn how to effectively manage community programming efforts that positively affect a community. His goal? To gain valuable entrepreneurial skills so he can open and operate his own businesses one day.
Remmler credits his success at DePauw to the faculty members he has worked closely with. “Professor Hiroko Chiba has been incredibly understanding, flexible and supportive of me exploring areas of interest while still providing a gentle hand to ensure I stay on track,” he said. “Professor Harry Brown has relentlessly supported my interests, particularly in the area of game design, and helped me find ways to explore those interests in an academic context.”
Remmler said his post-graduation plans are open to opportunity but may include continuing his work in Greencastle, particularly with the gaming initiative and DePauw.
Brandon Collins ’23, a neuroscience and global health double major, chose DePauw because of the small class sizes, tight-knit community and opportunity to be a Bonner scholar and environmental fellow.
Collins, from Clarksville, Tennessee, began volunteering at the Putnam County Health Department in fall 2021, assisting in the COVID-19 vaccine clinic as part of his community service requirement for the Bonner Scholar Program.
His interest developed into a passion, he said.
And since then, he has become increasingly involved with the health department.“The experience has been nothing short of highly rewarding and insightful,” he said. “The people I work with have become more and more like family and they are always incredibly supportive of my professional and academic goals.”
In February he was asked to work on a landfill well testing project. “I compiled data that had been collected over nine years and was able to present the results to the Putnam County Board of Health in May,” he said. “There I made a point of emphasizing that there were certain heavy metal concentrations that were above minimum detection levels that would have been unsafe for drinking and bathing.” Since the presentation, he has been able to get approval for furthering the investigation into how that might be affecting residences nearby.
Collins said many faculty and staff members have guided him in significant ways. “Professor (Sharon) Crary (chemistry and biochemistry) was the reason I ended up majoring in global health after taking her intro course. She and professor Susanne Biehle (psychology and neuroscience) advised me on graduate school opportunities and guided me in one of the environmental health projects I’ve undertaken at the Putnam County Health Department.”
Following graduation, Collins plans to obtain a master of public health degree with the goal of earning a Ph.D. in public health.
Luis Cordero ‘22 with two other Davidson College students Ellie Lipp ‘22 and Chichi Odd ‘22 are among the 54th Class of Thomas J. Watson Fellows. Their research will examine how countries around the world treat the challenges of aging and elder care, perceptions of disability and the mental health of athletes.
Growing up in Watertown, South Dakota, Sydney Walker always had a keen interest in education – largely because her parents are both teachers. She came to the College of Saint Benedict, where her mom, Tricia (Koob) Walker, was a 1993 graduate, and started out on the same career path. But going to CSB and Saint John’s University quickly broadened Sydney’s worldview.
“I’ve always had a passion for learning – I think my parents have instilled that in me since I was little,” said Walker, who is finishing her junior year as a political science major. “I knew I could create an inclusive classroom myself, but it is hard for a single-classroom teacher to have a broader impact on the education system. Over time, I realized my influence could be broader from a public policy level.”
Very soon she will have opportunity to develop that influence as the latest on a short list of Saint Ben’s Truman Scholars, and having accepted a summer internship with the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.
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.
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.
