SERD is a student organization of AUNE’s Department of Clinical Psychology. An arm of the Multicultural Center for Research and Practice, SERD was founded to promote multiculturalism locally and disaster volunteer outreach internationally.
On January 17, 2011, SERD organized the Martin Luther King/Jonathan Daniels Day of Service for the second consecutive year. In addition to collaborating with the MLK/JD Committee of the City of Keene and RSVP Monadnock Volunteer Service, SERD connected to numerous community agencies to provide volunteer opportunities at ten sites for more than eighty Monadnock Region residents, many of whom engaged in community service for the first time.
SERD is also involved in Disaster Shakti, a volunteer team of doctoral clinical psychology students at AUNE who work with survivors of disasters such as the hurricane in Haiti and Hurricane Katrina. SERD also organizes fundraising events to support its disaster volunteer outreach.
Presidents’ Good Steward Award: Libby McCann
The Good Steward Award honors a faculty, administration or staff member who has contributed professional expertise to serve the wider community and who has significantly advanced public service on the campus.
Elizabeth (Libby) McCann, a core faculty member in AUNE’s Department of Environmental Studies and the director of the Environmental Education Program, is passionate about her work, her students and issues of community food security and sustainable agriculture. Service-learning plays a central role in the courses she teaches. She is actively engaged in the community and has created many opportunities for AUNE students to volunteer.
Dr. McCann contributes her professional expertise to the region through her involvement in the Keene Community Garden Connections. This community-based environmental education effort will establish five gardens throughout the Keene area, conservatively reaching 250 community members and involving eight community nonprofits and social service agencies and twenty-five Antioch students.
She also served on the City of Keene’s Master Planning Committee, where she guided discussions about local food security issues and their impact on the health of the community.
Presidents’ Community Partner Award: Working Families Win
The Presidents’ Community Partner Award is given to a nonprofit organization that has improved the quality of life in the community in meaningful and measurable ways and is engaged in sustained, reciprocal partnerships with a college or university.
Working Families Win-New Hampshire is a state-wide advocacy organization that collaborates with AUNE on social justice initiatives in the city, region and state. It has been a practicum site for AUNE students, an employer of AUNE graduates, an Advocacy Clinic client and an ongoing partner on social justice issues. It worked closely with AUNE to bring the distinguished speaker, Dr. Vincent Harding, to Keene in the fall of 2010.
Working Families Win conducts community organizing around the issues of guaranteed health care, living wages, green jobs, fair trade, affordable housing and sound energy policy. It works to change the economy in favor of working families, provides education about economic decisions made in Washington and the impacts within local communities, and engages individuals through neighbor-to-neighbor communication to hold elected officials accountable. The state director of Working Families Win is Jaime Contois, (ED’03), an AUNE alumna.
Find out more about the Presidents’ Campus Compact Awards.
The Campus Compact for New Hampshire is a consortium of college and university presidents and private-sector partners committed to the civic purposes of higher education. Its mission is to be a catalyst to integrate community service and civic responsibility through the academic and student life goals of its member institutions.
