Salt Lake Community College student Alex Farmer was recently awarded the coveted Newman Civic Fellowship from Campus Compact for 2018-19.
The Newman Civic Fellowship is a one-year fellowship program for students of Campus Compact member institutions. Campus Compact is a national coalition of over 1,000 colleges and universities committed to the public purposes of higher education. They focus on building democracy through civic education and community development.
The fellowship is awarded to one student per college or university. Farmer was nominated by Dr. Deneece G. Huftalin, President of Salt Lake Community College.
“Alex epitomizes what it means to be a Civically Engaged Scholar in her personal and academic life,” Huftalin said in a statement. “At the college, she has worked on many sustainability initiatives, including bike repair stations, campus community gardens, composting [and] food waste efforts, and Earth Day programming.”
Newman Civic fellows are selected based on their activities within their community to enact long-term social change. They work to address issues of inequality and political polarization and establish the intent for long-term civic engagement.
Farmer has been involved in many organizations within SLCC, including the Thayne Center for Service and Learning, as well as Student Leaders in Civic Engagement, aka SLiCE. She has also taken a lead role in the opening of the Taylorsville Redwood Campus food pantry, which has developed a reputation for being a welcoming place for all.
Farmer is a geospatial technology major, who credits traveling with her choice to become civically involved.
“I became civically involved when I traveled to Nepal for the first time and witnessed a culture other than my own that had their own set of social challenges which were different than my own that I had never witnessed nor heard of,” Farmer said in a statement. “As I became more aware of the world through my travels, I began to discover my passions working with local communities and their environments.”
The fellowship, named for Campus Compact founder Frank Newman, provides training and resources to help students develop strategies and passions for social change. While the fellowship itself has no monetary assets attached to it, the program offers eligibility for fellows to receive scholarship opportunities through partner organizations, including the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute to participate in their Leadership and the American Presidency program, and the Newman’s Own Foundation Fellowship.
Visit the SLCC community page to get involved with social change at SLCC and discover how to help bring about solutions to social issues you are passionate about.
