The Office of Community-Based Learning (CBL) announces the first cohort of its pilot CBL Student Fellows Program. CBL is an academic experience which involves students working with community partners—individuals, groups, and organizations—in ways that meet community-defined needs. The purpose of the Student Fellowship Program is to support and foster the professional and personal growth of students who are pursuing a CBL project with a faculty mentor. Projects range from research-oriented projects aimed at initiating community change to direct-engagement projects in collaboration with community partners, aimed at improving or expanding the services that they provide. The fellowship program will run throughout the spring 2025 semester.
“The CBL Student Fellows program is an exciting new way for students to engage in the community through the lens of their academic discipline, to address community-identified needs and to be creative about how to connect these needs to social change. The first cohort’s projects cover a span of topics and community partners and the model allows for them to learn from each other and to connect their efforts to the Jesuit and Catholic mission of the University,” said Julie Schumacher Cohen, assistant vice president for community engagement and government affairs and chair of the CBL board.
The Spring 2025 CBL Student Fellows are listed below, including a description of their intended project.
Gabrielle Bingener '25
Gabrielle Bingener ‘25, from Barto, is a neuroscience major with minors in philosophy and biochemistry and a concentration in health humanities. She is a member of the University Honors program and the MAGIS Honors Program in STEM. Inspired by what the University has taught her about the importance of health humanities in providing compassionate healthcare, her project will focus on continuing the Health Humanities Community Series, in collaboration with the Wright Center for Community Health. This series will provide workshops to engage community members in health humanities educational workshops. While they will be open to all community members, the workshops will be aimed mostly at students in healthcare and pre-health disciplines within local colleges, as well as current medical providers. Her faculty mentor is Dr. Paul Sampson, an assistant professor in the history department.
Doujuan Jourden '25
Doujuan Jourden '25, a business analytics major with a minor in finance from the Bronx, New York, will partner with Northeast Pennsylvania Pan-African Coalition (NEPA PAC) and NuWave Studios, specifically focusing on improving their after-school program through direct involvement. His project will work on engaging with youth, with a particular emphasis on arranging community service activities, all with the aim of empowering the students served within the program. His faculty mentor is Dr. Will Cohen, a professor in the Theology/Religious Studies department.
Sarah Lyons '26
Sarah Lyons '26, a nursing major from Moosic, will engage in student leadership within the nursing department’s Period Poverty Project. She will collaborate with the Catherine McAuley Center as the main community partner, and hopes to expand the reach of the existing project both on campus and within the wider Scranton community. Expansions that she intends on leading include an increase in period product donation drives, youth educational workshops, the creation of educational resources, and civic engagement, all with the aim of decreasing period poverty within the community and increasing health literacy. Her faculty mentor is Dr. Kelly Filchner, an assistant professor in the nursing department.
Faith Montagnino '26
Faith Montagnino '26, from Morganville, New Jersey, is an English major with minors in philosophy and writing. She is a member of the University Honors Program, the Special Jesuit Liberal Arts Honors Program and the Faculty Student Research Program. She plans to research and review best practices to improve reading and writing instruction in order to address literacy gaps within Scranton area public schools. She intends to present her research to local public school administrators, so that it could improve student outcomes. Her faculty mentor is Dr. Madeline Ganges, an assistant professor in the English department.
Theresa Pham '25
Theresa Pham ‘25, from Philadelphia, is a biology and philosophy double major with a minor in biochemistry. She is a member of the Special Jesuit Liberal Arts Honors Program and the MAGIS Honors Program in STEM. She will partner with the United Neighborhood Center (UNC) and their English as a Second Language (ESL) program to pursue oral history research about their client’s experiences with medical providers. She aims to understand the barriers that local English-learning immigrant communities face in accessing and utilizing healthcare services and gather potential solutions to these barriers. This research would help UNC both understand and address the needs of their ESL clients. Her faculty mentor is Dr. Jinqing Lu, an assistant professor in the Education department.
The Office of Community-Based Learning is excited to see how these programs develop, and to see the impact that they will have on the Scranton community. For more information on CBL at the University visit www.scranton.edu/cbl.
