Rhea Drozdenko

Rhea Drozdenko '18 is the Coordinator of Community Participation.

Wesleyan University: Dancey Engages Students in Elections Research, E2020 Initiative

Associate Professor of Government Logan Dancey foresees many important opportunities for students to get involved and make a difference with upcoming local elections this fall—and the Engage 2020 (E2020 initiative) will be a prime vehicle for that work. Dancey recently gave a presentation via Zoom video webinar to Wesleyan faculty and staff about his research on American electoral politics…

Western Carolina University: WCU nursing students pivot to doing phone-checks on local seniors

Western Carolina University nursing students have a long-standing tradition of helping area seniors. With coronavirus, they can’t do that in person. But, they’ve found another way to stay in touch. With coronavirus putting restrictions on face-to face-contact, Western Carolina nurses in a primary care residency and Fellows program are helping low-income seniors, especially, by phone.…

Weber State University: COVID-19 guidelines spur Ogden reps to rethink how to prod census participation

As of early March, efforts to encourage participation in the U.S. Census Bureau‘s 2020 headcount seemed to be moving ahead smoothly. Janet Jarnagin, a community school coordinator at Ogden’s James Madison Elementary for United Way of Northern Utah, said she and others had started encouraging participation among parents at the school. An ice cream social, among other activities, was…

Volunteer with New Haven Help with COVID

From Devin Osborne MALS ’14:  Please consider signing up to be a volunteer on NewHavenHelpWithCovid.com. As a direct response to the sharply increased need for volunteers during COVID and ongoing economic crisis, current Yale Forestry student and former Wesleyan GLSP alum Devin Osborne (MA 2014) and colleagues launched NewHavenHelpWithCovid.com, a partnership platform that matches volunteers…

Innovation Fund Report: Middletown Urban Farming Symposium

Wesleyan students from a range of majors and interests – all with shared interests in utilizing resources in innovative ways to positively impact the greater Middletown community – applied to the Student Innovation Fund.  The fund provided up to $750 for projects that prioritized: Collaboration between student groups, faculty/staff, and/or community partners. Investigation of the impact of our…

Innovation Fund Report: Retrain to Regain

Wesleyan students from a range of majors and interests – all with shared interests in utilizing resources in innovative ways to positively impact the greater Middletown community – applied to the Student Innovation Fund.  The fund provided up to $750 for projects that prioritized: Collaboration between student groups, faculty/staff, and/or community partners. Investigation of the impact of our…

Relief packages for those in need during Ramadan

From Hira Jafri BA’13 MA’14: As a result of crowdsourced efforts, youth members from our mosque have launched an initiative to help support the community during this time. We will distribute packages to provide temporary assistance to those in need, in-light of the COVID-19 pandemic and incoming month of Ramadan. The goal is to support at least…

Middletown Mutual Aid Spreadsheet – Share your offerings and needs

Members of the North End Action Team and Wesleyan students came together to create a Middletown Mutual Aid resource. Read below for more information, or contact NEAT (neat@neatmiddletown.org); Bryan Chong (bchong@wesleyan.edu); Maya Gomberg (mgomberg@wesleyan.edu), and Nick Teeling (nickteeling3@gmail.com) for any questions. NEAT is grateful to be sharing this mutual aid spreadsheet for the members of…

Fall 2020 Courses in Civic Engagement, Social Change, and the Study of Public Life

Looking for interdisciplinary classes that think outside the box? Want to go beyond theory and understand how academic concepts apply in real-world settings? Take a class with the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life! or Service-Learning!  You can see all CSPL courses here, and you can check out all Service Learning courses for Fall 2020…

Center for Prison Education hiring tutors for 2020-2021

The Center for Prison Education is now accepting applications for tutors for the 2020-2021 academic year! Tutors travel with CPE staff to Cheshire or York Correctional Institution for one three-hour study hall session each week for an entire semester, working individually with students on coursework in a wide range of disciplines. During this time, tutors…