UMA student, professor, organization honored by Maine Campus Compact

AUGUSTA — The Maine Campus Compact, which each year recognizes outstanding work in public service and civic engagement by Maine faculty members, students, campus organizations, community and corporate partners, has named several University of Maine at Augusta recipients.
This year’s ceremony was held on April 25, at the Edmund S. Muskie Archives, Bates College.
UMA’s award-winners were:

Sharon McMahon Sawyer, assistant professor of justice studies received the Donald Harward Faculty Award for Service-Learning Excellence. The award recognizes outstanding Maine faculty who integrate community or public service into the curriculum and work to institutionalize service-learning. Recipients demonstrate a clear evidence of reflection, community benefit, reciprocity with community partners and a commitment to advocating for service-learning and/or community action on campus and beyond.
Some examples of Sawyer’s service-learning opportunities for students include an association with the Volunteer Lawyers Courthouse Assistance Project, where students work in Maine District courts with volunteer lawyers. She also created a UMA Legal Research Team that allows students to participate in international human rights issues in conjunction with the ABA’s International Human Rights Committee of Civil Rights and Social Justice Section.
UMA student Aaminah Aleem received the Heart and Soul Student Award, which recognizes undergraduate students who are actively involved in transforming their campuses and communities into environments of civic engagement. Six students are selected for the honor and winners have developed positive community and campus change; worked to institutionalize their community projects; demonstrated leadership; and implemented innovative approaches to social issues.
Among Aleem’s many activities are writing a grant and received funding that allowed her to work with local organizations to bring diverse groups in the UMA community together. For the first time at UMA, an interfaith gathering was organized to gain understanding about different faiths and to promote diversity and build new community friendships.
Student organization First Nations Student Circle received thePresident’s Campus Leadership Award, which recognizes a student organization or campus department at each MCC member institution for contributions to community service, service-learning and civic engagement efforts on their campus.
The mission of the First Nations Student Circle is to support each other, to create a welcoming space for Native students in UMA’s campus community, to provide mentoring for prospective and new students, and to educate each other and the larger campus community about Native traditions. The First Nations Student Circle has been active in community building and engagement since its inception, organizing campus-wide events for Welcome Back Week, Stress Down Week before finals, Fall Fest and Spring Fest.
Maine Campus Compact is a coalition of 18 campuses whose purpose is to catalyze a movement to reinvigorate the public purposes and civic mission of higher education.

PHOTO: Maine Campus Compact awards included many honorees from UMA this year. From left, Pam Proulx-Curry, Maine Campus Compact; Mary Louis Davitt, UMA professor of justice studies; Rebecca Wyke, UMA president; Alyra Donsivitch, New Ventures Maine; Kati Corlew, UMA assistant professor of psychology; Heather Bronish, UMA associate degree holder and assistant clerk of courts in Lewiston; Sharon McMahon-Sawyer, UMA assistant professor of justice studies; Aaminah Aleem, UMA student and Student Government Assembly vice president; Rose Pelletier, UMA director of student life and Fatimah Aleem, UMA student. (Submitted photo)