Economics major and Bonner Scholar Miki Doan, ’14, has been engaged with the community ever since she arrived in Richmond. But her work has also taken her well beyond the city limits, with Thailand, Vietnam, Uganda, and the Dominican Republic serving as global classrooms to reflect on her social work interests.

As a sophomore, Doan attended a Givology Spiders meeting where she was introduced to the Circle of Peace School. Givology is an online community and marketplace that connects microfinance donors with smaller educational community initiatives around the world. The University’s chapter focuses on supporting the Ugandan school through finance and awareness.

April Israel, ’14, knows she wants to help make food production in the United States healthier and more sustainable. This past summer, she decided to start with the fundamentals—the environment. An interdisciplinary studies major, business minor, and Bonner Scholar, Israel reached out to the Maryland Coastal Bays Program for her summer service commitment and received an enthusiastic invitation to come to Ocean City, Md.

Israel explored everything from testing Submerged Aquatic Vegetation (SAV) to counting bird eggs and hatchlings on islands where people usually aren’t allowed to visit. She says that her internship was tailored to her interests, but it also provided a good mix of office and field work.

When Randi Mansell, ’13, left to study abroad at the Catholic University of Lille, France during the spring of her junior year, she immediately began looking for a way to continue her stay through the summer.

As a Bonner Scholar, Mansell had already spent two summers working in community engagement. After her first year at Richmond, she worked for a local homeless shelter in her New Hampshire hometown. The next year, with the help of a Deborah L. Marsh Civic Fellowship, she worked for the Richmond public schools. Continuing this trajectory seemed the perfect opportunity to extend her immersion in France.

Maps. They grace the walls of elementary school classrooms and line the halls of the Vatican. They can be found in art galleries and history museums. They can tell us about lands unknown. And, in reckless hands, can be used by their makers to wield power and control over those who reside within their lines.

That’s the lesson Dillon Massey, ’15, learned as a summer intern with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) at the U.S. embassy in Lima.

You are headed to Cambodia to volunteer with the Peace Corps. What will you be doing?

I’ll be a community health education volunteer, which entails living with a host family in a rural village somewhere in Cambodia and working in the local community health center. My other main responsibility will be biking to nearby communities to deliver presentations in Khmer, the local language, on healthy living while focusing primarily on maternal health and disease prevention.