Volume V | February 2021
Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'"Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Message from the Associate Director
Hello Everyone!

Welcome to the Spring 2021 semester! I hope you all had a fun and safe winter break. We entered the semester with a lot of enthusiasm, and hope that things will get better in 2021. We are aware that there is still a lot of work ahead of us. In addition, this time of the year is very important for Community Outreach as we start to prepare for 2021-2022.  

I would like to recognize the work by our Community Outreach Staff and Student Leaders to start the semester with the Spring Student Leader Training and MLK Day of Service- both events had great participation and conversations.  

Be Safe!
Miguel A. Colón, Associate Director of Community Outreach
What we've been up to
Annual MLK Day of Service commemorates the legacy of the civil rights leader

Campus-Wide Initiatives held their annual MLK Day of Service this past January to commemorate the dedication Dr. Martin Luther King had to service and to making our world a more equitable place. The day started off with an opening by Ryan Baldassario, who works with the MBA program at UConn. In his opening, Baldassario talked about how to write letters to our state representatives to enact political change. The program then segued to the virtual service portion. Attendees were put into breakout rooms to work together analyzing children's books for the America Reads program. Groups went through picture books to find and define vocabulary that young children may find difficult and came up with discussion questions for each book. This virtual service made a significant impact on the amount of work the America Reads team would have had to do to build their online reading repository. After the virtual service, there were three panels attendees could choose to attend that focused on healthcare, education, and foreign policy. The panelists for the healthcare discussion were two UConn professors of anthropology, Sarah Willen and Cesar Abadia-Barrero, as well as Rashad Collins who is the Chief Operating Officer at Charter Oak Health Center. The education panel included the director of the Major Experience at UConn, Micah Heumann, and Mike Bland who is an organizer for Democrats for Education Reform.
The Dialogue Initiative highlights the connection between music and activism

This recent panel, held by the Dialogues Initiative, examined the impact music has on making positive social change and the power it has to motivate listeners to participate in social justice movements. All of the panelists touched on how music is the voice for marginalized people in this country and world. They also touched on the importance of understanding the censorship of Black voices in the music industry. Panelist and music professor from Queens University, Robin Attas, talked about the pedagogy of teaching music theory and how racism and sexism are embedded in the discipline. Politics professor Tom Rozinski of Touro College gave the audience an interactive presentation about how he uses music to teach political theory and used political theories and music to shine a light on the injustices that happened this year. Music professor Jacob Hertzog from Arkansas State gave insight on how he has seen music shine a light on injustices of the world. The panel concluded with a debrief where audience members were placed in breakout rooms to have small-group discussions.

Alumni Spotlight
Patrick Briody
Class of 2020

"CO has changed my outlook on life and when I map out my future, the experiences I was able to have in CO weigh heavily on the decisions I make."




Patrick first got involved in Community Outreach as a participant on the Alternative Break trip to Birmingham, Alabama, which focused on civil rights and urban poverty. The next year, Patrick led the Alternative Break trip to Oklahoma which focused on cultural preservation and rural poverty. During his senior year, he was one of the coordinators for the Alternative Breaks program.

Patrick is currently a first-year master's student at UConn in the Physiology and Neurobiology department. He also works in a research lab on campus focusing on stem cell development.

After his experiences in service and working alongside people from UConn and various other communities, his perspective on what success meant to him shifted. He was so inspired by his work in Community Outreach that he applied for a Peace Corps position in 2019. His work with the Peace Corps has been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic but he plans to depart with the Peace Corps in 2022 to work with communities in and around Kisumu, Kenya. Upon his return, he hopes to continue to work alongside the members of any community he finds himself in.

If you are a CO alumn who would like to be featured, email us at uconn.co.comm@gmail.com
Program Spotlights
Dialogues Initiative

The Dialogues program aims to help people come together to discuss pressing social issues in a respectful and inclusive manner. The program has adapted to the online setting by moving all of the Dialogue discussions to Zoom. They have been inviting speakers from UConn, outside universities, and local non-profits to give their opinions on topics including Racial Equity in Healthcare, Voting and Homelessness, and Environmental and Political Policy Impacts on Indigenous Peoples. For the upcoming semester, the program is planning panels and conversations exploring topics such as the juxtaposition of the AIDS and COVID-19 epidemics and eating disorders during a pandemic.
4-H Vernon Afterschool

This program aims to provide mentoring and STEM enrichment to K-5 students at three Vernon elementary schools. While the program usually conducts in-person STEM lessons, 4-H has started to give these same lessons virtually every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The program's goal this year is to provide relief to parents helping their children with at-home-school and further enrich children lacking academic engagement.
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