Telephone:
216-397-4698

Testimonials from JCU Faculty

"Cultivating--a simple word that calls forth images of wonderfully, ripe, red tomatoes, crisp green lettuce--but in the context of an experience between college students and community members it becomes much more.  It is a cultivation of friendship, of exchange, of the future.  A learning opportunity for all and an opening for possibilities of understanding not just how a vegetable is to become ready for consumption but how the act of planting together can lead to a better glimpse of each other, our differences, our weaknessnes, our strengths and most importantly, our commonalities.  It is not just plants growing in Cultivating Community."
Dr. Mariana Ortega, Associate Professor of Philosophy

"The opportunity to serve as a lecturer and participant in the Cultivating Community Course has enabled me to use my professional and educational experience in leadership development and to connect it with the work of the leaders in the Hough neighborhood. Our challenge in this course is to
reconceptualize and redefine who we see as community leaders. Through this class, students and instructors alike learn the invaluable lesson that leaders are often active in communities where we stereotypically do not think to find them. The Hough community leaders we worked with clearly
possess a deep desire to serve others and to improve the quality of life in their communities. One's race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status or neighborhood does NOT preclude nor does it inhibit one's ability to be true leaders in every sense of the word. I look forward to learning, teaching, working and being in community with my students, fellow lecturers and Hough community members this upcoming spring!" Mary Ann Hanicak, Assistant to the Vice-President of Student Affairs