Oh no. When we are made aware of significant struggles that local youth endure, the Stetson community steps in and provides them with tools for self-empowerment and success. When we discover that there is a significant problem involving tens of thousands of homeless kids and families in Central Florida, Stetson students, alumni and staff are right there to help by offering mentorships that foster personal health and intellectual development. And when we commit to help a few of the millions of starving children across the world who go to bed hungry each night, Stetson University, together with 500 incoming freshmen, who have yet to experience the full volume of Stetson’s beating heart, pack 26,000 nutritious meal boxes in just a few hours for children in Honduras and Central Florida.

It has been embedded in our mission and core values for decades. Social responsibility through engaging with communities close to, and far from, Stetson, is what we take pride in. We are a group-leader constantly working to improve the lives of other citizens whose backgrounds are as diverse as the lands in which they dwell and the stars under which they live. The Center for Community Engagement (CCE) is the hub for it all.

During this past academic year, the CCE, with its dedicated group of student-volunteers, has hosted national conferences and has been the recipient of some outstanding awards. From March 29 to April 1, approximately 600 college students, faculty and staff members from around the United States came to Stetson to attend the 28th annual IMPACT Conference, a national conference that focuses on service, civic engagement and advocacy. Participants, including 150 Stetson students, attended workshops on a wide variety of social and environmental issues and ideologies. Local, national and global topics of discussion concentrated on hunger and homelessness, climate change, economic and professional development and health.

“Stetson has had representatives at the IMPACT Conference for at least six years,” said Stetson’s Associate Director of Community Engagement Savannah Jane Griffin. “Our participation in the conference has strengthened our commitment to the community, to the natural environment, to diversity and to social justice. Stetson University always welcomes others who share our values and goals to make an impact on the world.”

The founder of CATALYST Global Youth Initiatives Inc., Felicia Benzo, a medical practitioner and author of Raising Kings: The Seed Principle, was an IMPACT Conference presenter. She led an interactive session on what it takes to develop community-based mentoring programs for elementary school children. “It takes commitment, compassion and unconditional love in a community to make a difference in our youths’ lives,” said Benzo. “Stetson University and its neighbors are such a community – they provide mentors to children to bring them hope and inspire them to greatness.”

Other IMPACT Conference workshops included a panel of speakers focusing on immigration and farm workers’ rights; a modern-day slavery panel discussion featuring students, faculty and human services organizations; a political discussion on how to elect the change you want; a nonprofit opportunities fair; a trip to Lake Woodruff and DeLeon Springs; and a presentation from master teacher Dr. Adolph Brown, one of America’s leading authorities on educational excellence and leadership development.

Just as her team performed numerous selfless hours planning and preparing this past year, Savannah-Jane Griffin coordinated and oversaw the success of more than a dozen major community-service events in 2011-12. One such program, spawned from a similar event that took place at the end of the fall semester, occurred on Hatter Saturday, April 28, 2012. Prior to the DeLand campus event, approximately 75 students, faculty and staff came together at Stetson’s Center at Celebration and partnered with the nonprofit organization Feeding Children Everywhere on Dec. 7, 2011. More than 5,000 balanced meals were packed for hungry children in Guatemala during the holiday season. “The enthusiastic support of the students and their families to help so many starving children was undeniable,” said EMBA Program Coordinator Wendy Lowe.

Research enriches engagement
Several courses at Stetson offer students an opportunity to explore issues of social justice. One fantastic example is the course Social Justice and the Bottom Line with Associate Professor of Decision and Information Sciences Dr. John Tichenor. “This past semester, we learned about corporate social responsibility (CSR),” said Alex Sanchez ’12. “Businesses play an integral role in the community and should be responsible for more than profit maximization. Through our class discussions, we recognized our own responsibility as stakeholders and consumers to hold firms accountable for their actions.”

Under the guidance of Professor Tichenor, Sanchez and 14 of his classmates created the Stetson Social Justice Index (SSJI) to measure and rate a corporation’s performance in the areas of: environmental sustainability, community engagement, employee relations, public relations and the supply chain. Once developed further, the SSJI will be used to rate firms based on student research of public records and information provided directly by the firms. The vision for this initiative is to bring a new era of responsibility  through widespread awareness, acceptance and adoption of CSR practices, thereby creating a fairer, more profitable, business environment. “After only one semester of development and hard work, we recognize that there is some refinement needed. We have taken on a challenging, but important, initiative,” Sanchez said. “However, it’s exciting to know that the groundwork has been laid for the next junior seminar (JSEM) class and that the index can become an informative tool for Stetson University, the DeLand community and possibly beyond.”

“Even though the International Organization for Standardization has created the ISO 26000 standard to provide guidance,” said Tichenor, “the business world continues to struggle to develop ways to measure corporate social responsibility. While accounting firms develop ways to conduct social audits, Stetson students are critically examining the relationships between business practices that promote social justice and businesses’ bottom lines. They are working in a cutting-edge field.”

“The development of the Stetson Social Justice Index is a natural outgrowth of our students’ interest in assuring that organizations have a positive impact on their communities,” said President Wendy B. Libby. “I am so impressed with the depth of their research that links business benefits with societal good. Stetson nurtures and celebrates this kind of significance.”

Stetson’s commitment to service learning is evident through the academic courses, the many community-based student organizations and in being the only Bonner school in Florida. It’s clear that Stetson’s Center for Community Engagement serves as a vehicle to meet the interests and essential needs of many individuals and organizations. The Stetson community is grateful to its many philanthropists who support this core value. The pride of being a Hatter has never been so great as it is today.

By Lisa Habermehl

Note: This story was featured in the latest SU Magazine.