In The News
Assistant Professor Silvia Dominguez receives the Ford Foundation Fellowship
from Advance at Northeastern 7/29/09
Football’s Adams nominated for Good Works Team
from Huntington News Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Students Award Grants to Fight Violence
from the NU Voice 4/10/2009
Joesph Bordieri: Now I want to give back
from the NU Voice 4/10/2009
Northeastern University Programs Receive Grant to Educate Future Generation of Philanthropists
from the NU Voice 9/10/2008
World Class: A Summer in Benin
from the Boston Globe 9/7/2008
Northeastern University Global Dialogue Program to Expand to India
from the NU Voice 9/2/2008
Coop Corner: Maria Graceffa
by Jason Kornwitz from the NU Voice Issue 11/27/2007
NU Professor Receives NIH Award to Research Health Disparities Among Minority Families
from the NU Voice Issue 9/4/2007
Women's center an "important resource"
by Sarah Sophia Dean from the NU News Issue 10/1/07
Center to educate about violence
by Jessica Torrez-Riley and Jenna Jones from the NU News Issue date: 10/18/06
NU Receives $200K Department of Justice Grant to Launch Campus Center on Violence Against Women
from the NU Voice 9/27/06
Assistant Professor Silvia Dominguez receives the Ford Foundation fellowship.
The Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowship is a highly competitive program that Professor Domiguez is honored to have received. The goal of the fellowship is to increase diversity in academia.
With this fellowship, Professor Dominguez plans to finish her book which is under contract with New York University Press. The book provides a framework for understanding the social mobility of immigrants that she has developed after more than two years of ethnographic research about Latin-American immigrant women in public housing in South Boston and East Boston.
Football’s Adams nominated for Good Works Team
By Kirby Morrison Published: Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Zack Abrams, entering his fourth year with the Northeastern football team, has been nominated for the 17th annual Allstate American Football Coaches Association Good Works Team.
The Good Works Team honors football student-athletes across the country who make outstanding contributions to charitable organizations and community service.
Two Good Works Teams will be announced during the 2009 college football season; one of players competing in the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision and one consisting of players from teams competing in the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision, Division 2, Division 3, and the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics.
Since he arrived on campus from Sharon in 2005, the 6-foot, 1-inch senior long snapper has helped start an after-school strength and conditioning program for at-risk kids at the Brookline Devotion School. He also volunteered for the Temple Israel Brotherhood on Holocaust Remembrance Day and volunteered at the Northeastern Football Bone Marrow Drive. Abrams has participated in the Walk for Autism and has worked at the Franciscan Hospital for Children.
In addition to his work off the field, Abrams has excelled on the field and in the classroom. He was named to the Colonial Athletic Association Football Academic All-Conference Team and has become an instrumental part of the Huskies’ special teams.
Students awarded three grants to support non-profit programs to combat youth violence within Boston communities, including Roxbury, Mission Hill, the Fenway and the South End.
Northeastern Students4Giving, which gives students the opportunity to learn about non-profit management and philanthropy, made awards to the Haley House, Hyde Square Task Force, and Urban Edge. On April 15 from 9 to 11 a.m. in 444 Curry Student Center, Human Services, the Center of Community Service and Northeastern Students4Giving will host an award breakfast for the grant recipients. The Northeastern Students4Giving is made possible by Campus Compact in association with Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund.
Joesph Bordieri: "Now I want to give back"
Coaching wrestling at Boston Latin School, Joseph Bordieri admits, "is not your traditional community service. Usually you think of soup kitchens and all of that," said the 21-year-old middler. "But I use (wrestling) as a tool to mentor kids. ... It helps students build constructive, meaningful, successful lives."Quoting a former Olympic wrestler, he said: "It teaches you to get off your back when life knocks you down."
Growing up in Foxborough, Mass., Bordieri was the son and younger brother of wrestlers and ended as one of Massachusetts' top-ranked high-school competitors. But more than the athletics, he remembers the coaching. "I was mentored through the sport of wrestling," he said. "Now I want to give back."
Serving the community came early to Bordieri, who volunteered to help autistic kids through the Best Buddies program at his high school; he also works with a 12 year-old boy as a Big Brother. He came to Northeastern in the first class of Torch Scholars - a scholarship program for students who have overcome exceptional odds and demonstrate the potential to excel academically. "This is a great school," he said. "They offered me the best opportunity."
Early on, Bordieri got in touch with the Center of Community Service, where he worked a co-op job and learned about other service opportunities in the area. Boston Latin -a Boston public school for grades seven through 12 - is near campus, he said, so he emailed the coach and offered to work with the younger wrestlers.
"It's one of the greatest tools to teach young students ... respect for their masculinity," he said, noting that most wrestlers are male. "You don't beat up someone just for pride. You don't humiliate your opponents ... You re fulfilling the sport's mission of technique and discipline. You need to have courage ... wrestling is one of the hardest six-minute periods an individual athlete can face."
The human-services major said he wants to keep learning about nonprofit organizations as well as counseling, with an eye to working in a school system. "I actually want to go on to be a school guidance counselor," he said. "It fits well, because I could also be a wrestling coach."
Benin Program highlighted in Boston Globe
Read full article from the Boston Globe.
Northeastern University Programs Receive Grant to Educate Future Generation of Philanthropists
Experiential Learning through Courses and Activities Underscore Urban Engagement
Boston September 10, 2008 Northeastern University's Human Services Program, in collaboration with the university's Center of Community Services, were selected by Campus Compact and the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund to participate in the 2008-2009 academic year's Students4Giving program. As part of the program aimed at inspiring and educating future philanthropists, Northeastern will teach students about non-profit organizations and fundraising as part of a series of courses and activities that involve community outreach and partnerships with Boston-area nonprofit organizations.
Financed by Fidelity, the Students4Giving program provides each of the schools with a $15,000 Giving Account, a donor-advised fund, which will be managed by the students enrolled in the courses. Northeastern students will learn about and be involved in a variety of activities that teach them how to meet community needs by researching local issues, evaluating IRS-qualified 501(c)(3) public charities and assessing where a donation would make the most impact.
Read full article
Northeastern University Global Dialogue Program to Expand to India
University forms partnership with the Deshpande Foundation
Beginning in the spring semester of 2009, Northeastern University students in the International Affairs and Human Services programs will have the chance to participate in a ground-breaking global studies program in India.
For the first time, students involved in the Global Partnership for Activism and Cross-Cultural Training (Global PACT) and Dialogue of Civilizations programs will have the opportunity to study and work in India. The new Global PACT India Dialogue is the result of a new partnership between the university and the Deshpande Foundation, one of the leading philanthropic foundations in Massachusetts and India in the areas of innovation, entrepreneurship and international development.
Read full article
Coop Corner
"I've never considered myself a person of outstanding service. I just do my thing." -Maria Graceffa
Maria Graceffa, dual major with Human Services and Psychology Major 2008, fuels change. At Bay State Community Service's Granite House, a residential treatment facility in Quincy, Mass., for adolescent mental health patients, Graceffa devises program-specific treatment plans, counsels patients during emotional crises and runs a psychological education group for 14- to 18-year-olds on building healthy relationships, nutrition and medication education.
Graceffa, a human services and psychology double major at Northeastern, prides herself on improving the mental health of individuals not much younger than she. "I know there's a huge amount of people that are different for the better because of me," she said. "It's so gratifying when I can see a behavioral and emotional change in another human being and know I am partially responsible."
Working with young patients suffering from depression, borderline personality disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Graceffa's immense responsibility on co-op has taught her an important lesson.
I've learned that nothing is a disability," she said. "It's only a disability if you allow it to be; you can learn to work with absolutely anything." Besides her co-op at the Granite House, Graceffa works at the McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., as an alcohol and drug treatment program researcher. She leads interviews with adult bipolar patients to determine whether they have substance abuse disorder.
For her outstanding devotion and commitment to serving others throughout her co-op experiences, Graceffa received the Thomas E. McMahon Award from Northeastern. "I've never considered myself a person of outstanding service," she said. "I just do my thing."
In anticipation of graduation in May, Graceffa has applied to a number of graduate school programs, for clinical psychology.
Northeastern University Professor Receives NIH Award to Research Health Disparities Among Minority Families
from the NU Voice Issue 09-04-2007
Northeastern University Assistant Professor of Sociology and Human Services, Silvia Dominguez, has received the Health Disparities Research Loan Repayment (RLP) Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In exchange for a two-year research commitment by Dominguez into health issues impacting Boston's immigrant community, the award will forgive a substantial amount of Dominguez's educational debt.
"This award provides me not only with financial relief, but also with professional support for my two ongoing research projects into health disparities affecting minority groups", said Dominguez. "As an ethnographer, I am particularly interested in the underlying dynamics leading to health disparities, including how violent conditions and mental health issues combined with certain economic backgrounds influence the lives of current, as well as future generations."
Dominguez's two primary research studies focus on understanding how domestic and neighborhood-based violence influence the mental health and economic self-sufficiency of low-income immigrant and minority families. One study, titled "Three City Study of MTO [Moving to Opportunity]," examines how relocation of minority families from very disadvantaged to less disadvantaged neighborhoods in Boston, Los Angeles and New York impacts their mental health and social circumstances. (MTO is a federal government program that helps African-American, European-American and Latin-American families relocate from very disadvantaged to less disadvantaged neighborhoods).
Dominguez's other project under this Health Disparities RLP Award, titled "Parental Violence Consequences across Generations Leading to Stagnation in Poverty and a Variable in Health Disparities" aims to examine the family patterns that result from domestic violence and have detrimental effects on family members of consequent generations. This study will rely on data gathered by the Welfare, Children and Families Three City Study project which includes the substantial history and dynamics of several families with children of 58 African-American and European-American women in Boston, San Antonio and Chicago.
Both studies have important implications for the development of social policies aimed at promoting social mobility among women and their families affected by violence. Thus, Dominguez is preparing a policy brief in conjunction with the Washington D.C.-based Urban Institute, scheduled to be released in September in time for the return of legislators. The brief will be followed by an article on the same topic.
For more information on Silvia Dominguez research, please contact Renata Nyul at 617-373-7424 or at r.nyul@neu.edu.
Center to educate about violence
Jessica Torrez-Riley and Jenna Jones
Issue date: 10/18/06 Section: News
The U.S. Department of Justice granted $200,000 to Northeastern's Human Services Program in the College of Arts and Science in order to open a new Campus Center on Violence Against Women.
The Center will serve as a hub of information, education and services to "further develop the university's existing sexual assault prevention program, while enlisting students in peer education and strengthening the university's collaboration with community organizations like the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center (BARCC) and the Victim Rights Law Center," according to a release.
"The receipt of this grant is representative of Northeastern's continued commitment to reduce incidences of violence against women, provide support to victims, and to ensure just prosecution of perpetrators," said Lori Gardinier, director of the Human Services Program, in the announcement.
While there is no specific location set for the center, the plan is to house it somewhere within the Human Services Department by next spring, said Natalia Stone, an administrative assistant in the program.
"The grant came about because we already had this course pretty well-established and we were getting a lot of notoriety on campus ... a lot of students were really interested in it," Stone said.
The grant will provide the center with a full-time coordinator and create an undergraduate Peer Educators Program, which will allow students to complete a sexual assault training course and perform 60 hours of community education and outreach a year.
Stone said the goal is to have students become sexual assault and rape crisis counselors themselves.
"They're going to be able to offer peer counseling, whether working for BARCC or just for friends. It's really going to strengthen the services on campus," she said.
She said students will receive four credits from the training course and will be able to receive additional credit for doing work in the field.
The grant will also allow for increased collaboration with the Northeastern Police Department and the Office of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution to expand response training to dating violence and sexual assault, as well as increase counseling and support services through a partnership with the BARCC.
"We're making a lot of connections," Stone said. "We're looking to strengthen the partnerships on campus and really streamline the services to the students."
Besides partnering with the law center and the division of public safety the center also plans to work with the Department of Residence Life to increase awareness of violence against women in residence halls, she said.
"We hope that the campus center will really just streamline services on campus. That everybody at Northeastern and in the community will be more aware of violence against women in general. That they'll know what the services out there are," Stone said.
Currently the university offers programs including the Mentors in Violence Prevention Program and a Domestic Violence Awareness and Prevention Seminar. University Health and Counseling Services also employs a full-time sexual assault counselor who is available to all students.
Jim Stellar, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, said in a statement he was pleased with the grant.
"Violence against women is a persistent problem in our society and in the world," Stellar said. "As a university connected with the real world through its experiential education programs, we have an obligation and an opportunity to address this issue and thereby serve individuals locally and globally."
NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY RECEIVES $200K DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE GRANT TO LAUNCH CAMPUS CENTER ON VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
(9-27-06) BOSTON, Mass. Northeastern University's Human Services Program in the College of Arts & Sciences has received a $200,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to open a Campus Center on Violence Against Women. The new center will further develop the University's existing sexual assault prevention program, while enlisting students in peer education, and strengthening the University's collaboration with community organizations like the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center and the Victim Rights Law Center.
Northeastern University already has a well-established reputation for addressing violence against women. Existing programs include the Mentors in Violence Prevention Program (MVP) and a Domestic Violence Awareness and Prevention Seminar. A full-time sexual assault counselor is also available for students through the University Health and Counseling Services, and an undergraduate Course, Sexual Assault Training: Techniques in Counseling and field work, is offered through Northeastern�s Human Services Program.
Northeastern�s Campus Center on Violence Against Women will provide greater coordination of these programs while establishing a number of new initiatives. The $200,000 U.S. Department of Justice grant will provide for:
� Hiring of a full-time coordinator for the Campus Center on Violence Against Women, a soon to be established hub of information, education and services at Northeastern
� Significant growth in education and outreach on sexual assault prevention for students, faculty and staff including sessions for athletes, incoming freshman, and transfer students
� Creation of an undergraduate Peer Educators Program: In alignment with Northeastern�s service-learning emphasis, undergraduates will complete a sexual assault training course and perform sixty hours of community education and outreach annually
� Expanding training in responding to sexual assault and dating violence for the NU Police Department and Northeastern�s Office of Student Conflict and Conflict Resolution
� Expanding counseling and support services for victims of sexual assault through a partnership with the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center
�The receipt of this grant is representative of Northeastern's continued commitment to reduce incidences of violence against women, provide support to victims, and to ensure just prosecution of perpetrators, said Lori Gardinier, director of Northeastern University's Human Services Program.
�In addition, the creation of a Campus Center on Violence Against Women will further serve to formalize our already well-established relationships with community groups like the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center and the Victim Rights Law Center,� added Gardinier.
A working group will convene shortly to conduct a job search for a full-time coordinator. The Center is expected to be fully operational by spring 2007.
About Northeastern's Human Services Program
The Human Services Program is an interdisciplinary major that includes courses in human services, psychology, sociology, political science and other related fields. The mission of the human services program is to provide students with the theoretical and skill based background necessary to practice in macro, mezzo, and micro arenas such as political advocacy, community development and direct service work such as counseling. Students can pursue positions in both public and private agencies, including social services, advocacy organizations, mental health settings, programs for youth, rape crisis and domestic violence centers, drug treatment institutions, and criminal justice settings.
About Northeastern
Northeastern University, located in the heart of Boston, Massachusetts, is a world leader in practice-oriented education and recognized for its expert faculty and first-rate academic and research facilities. Northeastern integrates challenging liberal arts and professional studies with the nation's largest cooperative education program. Through co-op, Northeastern undergraduates alternate semesters of full-time study with semesters of paid work in fields relevant to their professional interests and major, giving them nearly two years of professional experience upon graduation. The majority of Northeastern graduates receive a job offer from a co-op employer. For more information, please visit http://www.northeastern.edu.
