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Six Projects Awarded Funding Through Jesuit Foundation Grants
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USF faculty and researchers are analyzing the economic, social, and environmental impacts of the conflict in Darfur, just one of several projects to receive a Jesuit Foundation Grant for work promoting Jesuit values around the world. |
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From a new course on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to research on the Darfur crisis to a collaboration between nursing and acting students, the most recent round of Jesuit Foundation Grants will fund a range of University of San Francisco projects that relate to Jesuit values.
The grant committee received nine applications and funded six, awarding $30,000, said Jim Wiser, provost and vice president for academic affairs.
“These projects represent notably creative initiatives in the three thematic areas of research, pedagogy, and community-in-conversation,” Wiser said. “They will reach different and diverse audiences and they explore a wide variety of issues and themes. What they have in common, however, is their powerful articulation of USF's Jesuit, Catholic character. Each in its own way fosters the integration of faith and the promotion of justice within the scholarly activity of the university.”
Grants are divided into different categories, including the creation of new curriculum, faculty research, and projects that encourage community dialogue.
In the category of projects funded to improve pedagogy, three projects were awarded grants, including one by Aaron Hahn Tapper, assistant professor of theology and religious studies and director of Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice, and Stephen Zunes, politics professor. Through their project, “Social Justice and Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” the two will create a course that views the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the academic lens of social justice rather than through such traditional lenses as politics, history, and religion.
“This course will empower students to understand the multiplicity of ways to end the incessant violence that plagues those living in Israel, Palestine, and beyond,” Hahn Tapper and Zunes wrote in the grant application.
Also awarded a pedagogy grant was Emma Fuentes, assistant professor in the School of Education. Through her project, “Education for Hope: Course Development in International and Multicultural Education,” Fuentes will develop and revise courses that strengthen the Latino studies courses within the school’s International and Multicultural Department. She will also develop a human rights education course.
“All three courses that I will be developing focus on marginalized populations and the power that is created when people organize, unite, and act for a more just world,” Fuentes wrote in her grant application. “It is when people are engaged and unified in this type of learning and doing that the brightest part of our humanity shines through.”
The third pedagogy grant was awarded to a collaborative project between the School of Nursing’s Susan Prion and Judith Lambton and the visual and performing arts department’s Ken Sonkin. The three will work together to develop a series of courses that teach both nursing and acting students to be “standardized” patients. They can then play a particular patient role during simulations designed to train nursing students.
“The presence of a live person can transmit fidelity and credibility to the training; health care students can respond to a dynamic interaction not always possible when employing other simulation methods,” they wrote in the grant application.
In academic research, two projects were granted funding. "The Economic Geography of Conflict in Darfur: Producing the Timelines of Displacement," is a joint project between Anne Bartlett, assistant professor of sociology and director of the Darfur Centre for Human Rights, Jennifer Alix-Garcia, assistant professor of economics, and David Saah, assistant professor of environmental sciences. The three are building a dataset on the timeline of conflict in Darfur as part of a larger project, which will analyze the connection between local economies, social well-being, and the environmental impact of the conflict.
Noah Borrero, assistant professor in the School of Education, also won research funding for his project, “Exploring the Assets of Samoan Youth and Support Systems to Help Them Succeed in School.” The research will explore the experiences, challenges, and strengths of Samoan immigrant high school students.
“While the number of Samoan immigrants continues to steadily increase, very little is known about this group and they have been relatively ignored in the educational and psychological literature,” Borrero wrote in his grant application. “In addition, Samoan youth in particular have the highest rates of school drop out of any ethnic minority group in the U.S. They have increased rates of health problems and reside in lower income neighborhoods, on average, than their Asian American counterparts.”
Under the “Community in Conversation” category, Richard Kamler was awarded a grant for his "Seeing Peace" project. The public art installation asked 10 artists to create images of what peace looks like on high-profile billboards in San Francisco.
The number of Jesuit Foundation Grants awarded each cycle varies, as does the number of applications, Wiser said. The total amount of funding awarded also varies, but it averages about $50,000 between the spring and fall funding rounds.
The deadline for the next round of funding is Nov. 3. For more information, visit www.usfca.edu/acadserve/academic_affairs/Grantinfo.html.
- Originally posted Aug. 19, 2008 - 
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