CEnTL in the Media

(August 2024). DePaul University hosted their 14th annual Health Equity & Social Justice Conference, in recognition of the need to build trust to assure the public’s health and address health disparities, and to celebrate the work of community partners and centering collective efforts to facilitate health and well-being across Chicago. CEnTL team members, Emily Etzkorn and Marjorie Kersten, presented a poster titled, "Collaborating with community-based organizations to advance health equity: Repurposing academic knowledge and resources to build community capacity and address structural violence through the Community-Engaged Teaching (CEnT) Initiative".

(February 2024). CEnTL team members, Emily Etzkorn and Marjorie Kersten, won top oral presentation at Northwestern University's National Collaborative for Education to Address the Social Determinants of Health (NCEAS) 2024 conference. Their presentation (see right) is titled, "Addressing Structural and Social Determinants of Health: Investing in the Next Generation of Public Health Professionals through Community-Engaged Teaching (CEnT)".

(October 2023). Dr. Alisa Velonis won the 2023 Delta Omega Award for Innovative Public Health Curriculum for her “Community-Engaged Program Evaluation” course.  

The annual Delta Omega Honor Society Innovative Curriculum Award celebrates the important role that public health education plays in the development and maintenance of a strong, active, and well-prepared public health profession. This unique award is granted to faculty whose courses are creative and bridge the gap between public health academia and practice.  

Dr. Velonis’ Community-Engaged Program Evaluation course was co-created and co-taught by her, Dr. Jeni Hebert-Beirne, and staff from the Chicago social services organization Lawrence Hall during Spring 2023 as part of the Community Course Alignment program. During the course, the two faculty instructors, 23 students, and five employees from Lawrence Hall worked together to craft an evaluation plan for a justice-involved youth-development and recidivism-prevention program created by one of the organization’s staff based on his lived experience growing up in South Shore, a neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side.