Gustavus Adolphus College recently announced that Hayley Nemmers ’16, Abby Nistler ’16, Angelique Dwyer, and Jane Timmerman ‘75 are the College’s winners of the 2016 Minnesota Campus Compact (MNCC) Presidents’ Awards for Civic Engagement. The winners were recognized at an awards ceremony on April 7 at Macalester College.
These three awards provide an opportunity for member presidents and chancellors to give statewide recognition to effective leaders in the development of campus-community partnerships. The awards were established as an acknowledgment that outstanding collaborative work will not only inform and inspire tomorrow’s campus-community partnerships but will also play a critical role in garnering support for higher education’s civic engagement initiatives.
Hayley Nemmers and Abby Nistler are the recipients of this year’s Presidents’ Student Leadership Award, which recognizes an individual student or student organization that models a deep commitment to civic responsibility and leadership, evidenced by initiative, innovative and collaborative approaches to addressing public issues, effective community building, and integration of civic engagement into the college experience.
Together, they led the effort for Gustavus to be named the first Fair Trade College in Minnesota, a goal that was accomplished in December 2015. As the co-presidents of Fair Trade Gustavus, they worked to educate the campus on fair trade issues, collaborated with other student organizations, faculty, and administrators to build consensus on a fair trade policy, and hosted a series of events to raise awareness and support fair trade and sustainability initiatives.
Spanish professor Angelique Dwyer was recognized with the Presidents’ Civic Engagement Steward Award, which highlights a member of the faculty, administration, or staff who has significantly advanced their campus’s distinctive civic mission by forming strong partnerships, supporting others’ civic engagement, and working to institutionalize a culture and practice of engagement.
Dwyer has worked to foster intercultural relationships both in the Saint Peter area and internationally, spearheading initiatives that connect Gustavus students with local Latino families as well as leading the exchange program with the Saint Peter’s sister city of Petatlán, Mexico. She recently taught a January Interim Experience course titled “Building Community” that allowed Gustavus students to tutor English language learners and build relationships between the campus and the greater Saint Peter area. Dwyer is also the founder of Language Buddies, a campus organization that seeks to increase transcultural competence with a focus on college students and the local Latino community.
Jane Timmerman ’75, director of recreation and leisure services for the City of Saint Peter, is the recipient of this year’s Presidents’ Community Partner Award. This award recognizes a community-based organization that has enhanced the quality of life in the community in meaningful and measurable ways and has engaged in the development of sustained, reciprocal partnerships with the college or university, thus enriching educational as well as community outcomes.
Timmerman helped organize three mental health fairs for the Saint Peter community that involved students from Gustavus First-Term Seminar and Abnormal Psychology classes. She met with students, planned logistics, and was able to engage almost 600 visitors with the mental health fairs over the past three years. Timmerman is also a community partner in the Gustavus psychological sciences department’s “Engaged Departments” initiative. In that role, she serves on the department’s advisory board and is a liaison with various organizations in the Saint Peter community.
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