Campus Insider December 2022

The USF students are tutoring and mentoring students at Sarasota’s most economically disadvantaged middle school as part of the initiative, which is funded by a $500,000 gift from Henson and her husband Joe, noted Sarasota philanthropists. Beyond helping to improve the students’ reading skills, the USF students — of whom only some are considering careers as teachers — are embedding themselves into the children’s lives to provide them with positive role models and new opportunities for success.

The literacy project, led by Sarasota-Manatee education professors Cheryl Ellerbrock and Lindsay Persohn in partnership with Booker academic intervention specialists Holly Ard and Grace Schaeffer, is a passion for the Hensons, prolific funders of numerous community-based projects, including others addressing shortfalls in reading proficiency in local schools.

“The Hensons are an extraordinarily generous couple with genuine love and concern for the children they are reaching through the Booker Middle School Literacy Initiative, and all children in the community,” said Brett Kemker, the Sarasota-Manatee campus’s regional vice chancellor and vice provost for academic affairs and student success. “Their gift to USF has created a unique opportunity for our professors and Booker teachers to develop strategies that benefit not only those middle schoolers with whom our students are working, but with all children needing support to become better readers.”

Booker Principal LaShawn Frost called the USF students working at her school each Friday “brain surgeons.”

"Their goal is to not only accelerate learning for our scholars, but they are going to stimulate brain cells and help them to achieve academic goals,” Frost said. “I am totally confident that the work we are doing here will be a model for the country.”

The USF students are embracing that challenge.

Sejal Keshvara has already graduated from USF with a degree in psychology, but she is taking additional science classes in preparation for dental school.

“I genuinely love to read. It was a big part of my reason to do this,” Keshvara said. “I want to make a difference.”

Biology major Brayden Bernard, who has previously volunteered for other reading programs, hopes to learn lessons he can apply as he pursues studies and a career in pediatric medicine. As a former patient, Bernard said he appreciates the importance of a pediatrician having good bedside manner with a child.

“I know how important even the shortest interaction can be,” he said.

The Hensons are trying to address the link they see between low literacy rates among some children in Sarasota County and poverty. About half of the students enrolled in Sarasota County public schools come from households below the poverty line, according to the school district.

Booker is the only Title I middle school in the Sarasota County School District. About four out of five students receive a free or reduced-price lunch each day. Both a magnet and a community school, it draws students of varying reading abilities from across Sarasota County.

During the 2021-22 school year, 35 percent of the 280 Booker sixth-graders passed the Florida Standards Assessment on English language arts, compared to 60 percent of sixth-graders in the entire Sarasota school district. Booker’s score, the lowest among the district’s seven regular middle schools, was down from 37 percent the prior year.

Mary Kay Henson joined the USF students for their training sessions, during which Ellerbrock, Persohn, Ard and Schaeffer addressed the various facets of the program, which has been in development for about a year.

Each USF student has been assigned a classroom where they work alongside a teacher to tutor sixth graders in core subjects and provide eighth graders support in algebra. “It is critical to support student academic success at the sixth-grade level,” Ellerbrock said.

The USF cohort is also establishing mentoring relationships by working one-on-one with Booker students to help them grow into lifelong readers. But this is only a starting point.

“You’re not a teacher, they have teachers here,” Ellerbrock, the campus dean for the College of Education at Sarasota-Manatee, told the USF students. “You’re that ‘adult other,’ that cool college student who can help ignite the love of reading and learning within these amazing Booker Middle School students.”

“I envy you because I am too old to do it at this grade level,” Mary Kay Henson said. “I can do it with the little ones because I am the grandmother. You all are so cool because you go to college.”

Among the criteria used to match the USF students with the sixth graders were their academic interests and what they like to read.

During orientation sessions, students learned lessons about tutoring, mentoring, what “literacy” truly means and how to communicate with adolescents, especially those with challenging backgrounds. The presenters also walked through the situations the USF students might face when working with the middle schoolers, everything from the physical and psychological changes brought on by puberty to how to address the younger students’ increasing awareness of the world around them, including sometimes difficult questions of fairness and justice.

The organizers also sprinkled their presentations with anecdotes from their teaching careers to illustrate how the USF students might make a difference in their mentees’ lives.

“Your job is to have relationships with these kids,” Ard told the USF students.

The Hensons established and funded the Booker Middle School Literacy Initiative through the Joe and Mary Kay Henson Foundation, a Sarasota-based 12-year-old private fund dedicated to helping children of poverty through early education programs and partnerships with the county school district. The foundation established and funded the Gocio School Pre-K program, now in its fourth year and slated to roll out to additional county elementary schools. The foundation also established and funded the Alta Vista Eagle Academy, absorbed by the county and now known as the Summer Learning Academy.

The Hensons’ intense interest in improving literacy for children and supporting projects that foster change is a perfect match with USF’s expertise on the subject, said Clara Villanueva, director of development at USF’s Sarasota-Manatee campus and of the Latino Scholarship Program.

“They have put in countless hours working in-person at local schools with educators, staff and school children alike, to promote literacy,” Villanueva said. “They use their platform to effect, inspire and demand change. They have vowed not to stop until every child is reading at grade level, and I believe them.”

The Henson’s gift will support other programs at USF’s Sarasota-Manatee campus, including a clinical health project focused on improving health outcomes for Hispanic families in Sarasota and Manatee counties.

The literacy program kicked off Oct. 15 with a day-long orientation for the USF students, who are being paid $20 an hour for their work at Booker Middle. A week later, they attended an additional professional development day focused on reading strategies and mentoring. They then met their mentees.

The program will run through the end of the current school year and through the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years, as well.

“You have much to give back,” Joe Henson told the USF students. “One of the things you can take from this program is the lifetime satisfaction of knowing that you influenced the life trajectory of someone else. So, we’re pleased to be partners with you, to support you and we are committed to seeing that this is going to be successful. It will be successful because of you.” 

"We are happy to be the Brunch on the Bay title sponsor,” said Richard J. Skaggs, president of USF Federal Credit Union. “It’s the credit union’s mission to give back to the community it serves.” 

USF alumnae Dr. Mona Jain and her daughter Dr. Anila Jain, were the event’s co-chairs. 

“Today marks 28 years of scholarship generosity and success for Brunch on the Bay at the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee campus,” the Jains said. “Since 1994, the event has demonstrated what is possible when a community and a university unite in support of higher education for future generations.” 

Also attending the event were USF President emerita Judy Genshaft, USF Foundation Board Chairman Jose Valiente, foundation CEO Jay Stroman, numerous state and local officials and members of the USF Sarasota-Manatee Campus Board, including Chairman Rick Piccolo. 

Since its founding, Brunch on the Bay has supported more than $6 million in scholarships for more than 2,000 students. This year’s event will also support construction of a 75,000-square-foot, $62 million Nursing/STEM building, the first new major academic building on the campus since it opened in 2006. 

Sarasota-Manatee Regional Chancellor Karen A. Holbrook told Brunch attendees the building will double the size of the campus’s nursing program and increase new majors in health disciplines, and include new biology and chemistry labs. It will also allow the Sarasota-Manatee campus to address the local demand for more nurses, business professionals, scientists and engineers, and support career preparation for emerging fields like artificial intelligence and data analytics. 

“The USF Sarasota-Manatee campus has seen tremendous growth in our current facilities, and now we are capacity constrained in a growing marketplace that requires more graduates from the programs that are most relevant in today’s world,” Holbrook said. “Fortunately, we are on the verge of an incredible opportunity to increase capacity, bolster student success and contribute even more to our local talent pipelines.” 

The Nursing/STEM building and a separate housing/student center complex that will break ground early next year will transform what it means to be a student or a member of the faculty and staff at the Sarasota-Manatee campus, Holbrook said. 

“We will transition from a commuter campus to a residential environment, adding to the attractiveness of the region as an education destination and expanding opportunities to recruit students from across the region, state, nation and internationally. We will become a destination campus,” Holbrook said. 

USF President Rhea Law told the crowd that community support is vital for the Nursing/STEM project, which is currently in the early stages of planning. 

“We’re ready to ask you to be part of a bold and exciting journey — and we look forward to all we can accomplish together in leading the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus to even greater heights,” Law said. 

Law said Brunch on the Bay “mirrors the strength of community partnerships at the Sarasota-Manatee campus. The connection your campus community enjoys with the surrounding community is your superpower.” 

“That strong bond allows you to recruit talented students and support them along the way,” Law said. “It means students have continually benefited from internships, mentor relationships and other career opportunities with area businesses.” 

Some of the students who have benefited from the generosity of previous attendees were featured in a video that played during Sunday’s event. 

Alison Frate, a pre-marketing student, shared her story of being a child of a single mother and helping pay the household’s bills, while being a college student. 

“I really don’t think I would be able to go if it wasn’t for the amazing donors and scholarships I’ve been provided,” Frate said. “There’s something to be said about those who give back to others.” 

Accelerated nursing students Kyle Alvarez Armbruster and Kathryn Williams said they were excited about the expanded facilities the Nursing/STEM building would provide. 

“There is a need for nurses everywhere,” Alvarez Armbruster said. “Being able to have a new state-of-the-art facility … is quintessential to Sarasota and the Sarasota-Manatee campus.”

Williams said “the STEM building would be impactful in bringing students to the campus, giving them the top-of-the-line education, that USF provides.” 

Since receiving her diagnosis, Garcia-Jerez has identified a number of useful time management strategies, including calendar blocking and the pomodoro method, which breaks tasks into intervals separated by short breaks. She hopes to go on medication in the near future. 

“It was kind of a shock even though I suspected it,” Garcia-Jerez said of her diagnosis. “I didn’t want to just assume that I had it. So, I didn’t feel valid. I felt like, well, I don’t think I have ADHD because I can still go to school and get good grades and it’s not like I’m using any substances to cope. I thought, well, if there’s an issue with me, they would have caught it in school, you know?” 

It took her about three weeks to come to terms with the news. 

“I went my whole life not knowing that I have a completely different brain. Why did no one notice?” she wondered. 

Since taking classes in cognitive, developmental and abnormal psychology at USF, Garcia-Jerez is now well-aware of the difficulties many girls and women face before receiving diagnoses for neurodevelopmental conditions like ADHD. 

“Girls are just sort of conditioned socially to pay attention and to be nice and not act up,” she said. “I think a lot of women could be in the same position that I am and not even know it.” 

The experience has taught Garcia-Jerez to be kind to herself and those around her. It has also inspired her to pursue a career in the growing mental health field, where she hopes to work with others — children, teens and young adults with disabilities — who struggle with their mental health in academic settings.  

“A lot of the issues I’ve faced academically could have been solved if maybe I had that support from the beginning,” she said. “I am very much interested in working with people with disabilities and people who struggle with their mental health because of my own experiences.” 

This wasn’t always the case.  

After working as a hostess and waitress at a local restaurant, Garcia-Jerez became certified as a Registered Behavior Technician and began working with children with autism at Invo and Elemy. 

She credits her sister, who has Down’s syndrome, for inspiring her to work with children with disabilities. 

“It felt important to me to represent my sister in that way and to care for other kids the way I care for her,” said Garcia-Jerez, who found the work simultaneously “rewarding” and “taxing.” 

Garcia-Jerez left her job to study abroad in Florence, Italy, this summer. When she returned, she landed a job with USF World, where she helps recruit and advise students and promote USF’s education abroad programs. 

With graduation approaching, her vision for the future is clear: continue working at USF World, tend to her own mental health needs and apply to graduate programs. 

She has her sights set on USF's Clinical Rehabilitation and Mental Health Counseling program. 

“I’ve had difficulties finding counselors who look like me and represent me and understand my experiences — especially as an immigrant,” she said. “I hope to be one of those therapists who young people can talk to about the issues they may not be able to talk about at home.” 

Boundless Bulls is a collection of stories about what truly makes USF great — the people. It is a focus on our community footprint, our impact and the trajectory of where we can go together. To nominate a member of the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus community for Boundless Bulls, please fill out the submission form.

Conferred by the Florida Department of Education, Ricks’ award recognizes exemplary school administrators for their contributions to their schools and communities — including spearheading initiatives to increase student performance, promoting safe learning environments and establishing partnerships with parents and community members. 

Before stepping into her current role, Ricks taught first and fourth grade at elementary schools across the Manatee County school district and in her hometown in Lowndes County, Ga. It was when Ricks transferred to Gene Witt Elementary in Manatee County that her principal encouraged her to go into leadership and she enrolled in the M.Ed. program on the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus. 

“I’d never really considered that for myself,” said Ricks, who soon began taking on leadership roles for the first time in her career. 

Upon graduating from USF, Ricks spent three years serving as the assistant principal at Gilbert W. McNeal Elementary School — where she became inspired to push for new school attendance boundary lines — before moving into her current role at Myakka.  

“In my first year here at Myakka, we had about 240 students, and there were probably six or seven empty classrooms,” Ricks said. "I knew the Falkner Farm migrant students were originally zoned out here. And I also knew that McNeal was overwhelmed with students and that bussing was an issue because of the distance.”  

When James Golden, then a member of the Manatee County School Board, asked how he could help, Ricks suggested they look into rezoning.  

District leaders voted unanimously to approve the proposed new school attendance boundary lines right around the same time the COVID-19 pandemic pushed many students and educators out of the classroom and into e-learning environments.  

“With COVID, it was a true challenge out here because we’re so rural,” Ricks said. “Many of my families don’t have internet access. It’s really considered a luxury out here."  

The school partnered with local businesses and churches to provide internet access to the community, all while welcoming 100 new students from the Falkner Farm migrant camp into the school.   

“Everything happened at once. There was the language barrier, the internet barrier and the technology access issues,” Ricks said. “We basically had, like, six first days of school in the fall of 2020.” 

Throughout all of it, Ricks worked as an advocate for the school, its students and the larger community.  

“As soon as they said we were going to go e-learning, I had to jump in and fight for the hotspots and for internet access,” said Ricks.   

The next year, she advocated for a school-based bus program to address local transportation issues and instituted an elementary agriculture program — an important step in turning Myakka into a Community Partnership School like Daughtry Elementary, which adopted the innovative Community Partnership Schools model this year.  

When asked whether she’d like to see Myakka partner with USF, Ricks said she would love to.  

“As a Community Partnership School, we would have access to healthcare and education for the families, like GED lessons, English lessons and mental health,” said Ricks. “I just really try to speak for the community and get them what they need.”    

Then, on Sept. 28, Hurricane Ian made landfall on the west coast of Florida, battering Myakka City and the surrounding areas for hours and causing widespread flooding.  

“We ended up doing a community support drive with the Myakka Community Center,” said Ricks, who oversaw the transformation of the elementary school into a shelter during the storm while her husband, a lineman with Florida Power and Light, worked to restore electricity across the county.  

As Ricks prepares her application for the Florida Department of Education’s statewide Principal of the Year award and reviews the assignments she completed as a student in the M.Ed. program on the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus, she is surprised to see so much overlap between her graduate school aspirations and her life today.  

“One of the recurring themes in all the portfolio activities I had to do was that I wanted to be a servant-leader and that I wanted to focus on the school climate and culture and to focus on the whole child,” Ricks said. “I didn’t see myself as a leader at that time, but looking at where I am now, it’s all trickled into what my vision is as a leader at Myakka and working toward giving the kids all they need to be successful, not just academically, but give them that positive climate, the love and support they need, and collaborate with the community and the families.”  

That vision is what inspired Ricks, this October, to adopt a therapy dog named Ruby, who, once fully trained, will provide grief and anxiety support to students at Myakka. 

“Right now, her main goal is to get used to being around kids and adults,” Ricks said.  

Like the principal at McNeal Elementary School, who encouraged Ricks to pursue a leadership position and enroll in graduate school at USF, Ricks also seeks to identify potential leaders among the faculty at Myakka.  

“USF, hands down, is my first pick for anyone who’s interested,” Ricks said. “They gave me the groundwork I needed to be a successful leader.”  

Boundless Bulls is a collection of stories about what truly makes USF great — the people. It is a focus on our community footprint, our impact and the trajectory of where we can go together. To nominate a member of the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus community for Boundless Bulls, please fill out the submission form.

Vos earned a B.A. in exceptional student education and a M.A. in educational leadership from USF. She has been with the school district since 2010 and became assistant principal during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. 

Unlike Ricks and Vos, Covert is not a USF alum but an adjunct faculty member on the Sarasota-Manatee campus. He most recently taught Administrative Analysis and Change, a course in the M.Ed. in educational leadership program. He was appointed principal of Pine View School in 2013. 

Their awards, conferred by the Florida Department of Education, recognize exemplary school administrators for their contributions to their schools and communities — including spearheading initiatives to increase student performance, promoting safe learning environments and establishing partnerships with parents and community members. 

The USF Sarasota-Manatee campus offers a range of undergraduate and graduate degrees and certificate programs in elementary education and educational leadership and policy studies, all of which encourage action research and reflective practice to develop and prepare compassionate, ethical, public intellectuals to become transformative teacher leaders committed to social justice. 

Ricks and Covert will be considered for the Florida Department of Education's principal of the year award. 

“Darren joins our senior leadership team with an impressive history of working on DEI initiatives related to women, racial minorities, the LGBTQ+ community and those needing help with accessibility issues,” said Sarasota-Manatee campus Regional Chancellor Karen A. Holbrook. “He has a demonstrated a deep understanding of how our diversity makes USF a positive place to study and work.” 

Saying he was “super excited about the opportunity,” Gambrell said one of his first tasks would be to revive the Chancellor Advisory on Diversity and Inclusion Council to include representation from each department and entity on the Sarasota-Manatee campus. The council, Gambrell said, will develop relevant programs and trainings and advise on needed policies, practices and procedures. 

"My top goal is to build on the climate here at USF Sarasota-Manatee campus, where each student, staff, faculty and community member feels valued, appreciated, respected and welcomed on campus,” Gambrell said. 

When he was named interim director, Gambrell — who has over a decade of experience addressing issues of diversity, equity and inclusion — organized a series of listening tours with students, faculty and staff to learn about challenges, ideas and more related to DEI and how he could support DEI efforts on the campus and at USF.     

Gambrell was recently recognized for his work on issues of diversity, equity and inclusion. In April, he received an Inclusive Excellence Award for making outstanding contributions to the university in the areas of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. 

“Darren’s award recognized his role as a positive force at USF,” Holbrook said. “He is often the first person to greet visitors when they arrive at the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus, and he is known for making them feel welcome and respected. Darren shares and promotes opportunities for everyone on campus to participate in DEI programs, activities and events. 

“I know we all look forward to working with Darren in making our campus a more welcoming place for all,” Holbrook said. 

Participating students received a new identity — complete with an occupation, a salary and a hypothetical spouse who may or may not contribute to the household’s annual income. Some were given dependents. Others were told they had dropped out of high school before earning a diploma. The students, then, visited 14 stations — including a USF-branded education booth — and made spending decisions, all while trying to stay within their monthly budget.   

“It’s really eye opening for the students,” said Welch. “There are so many ah-ha moments.”   

Welch volunteered alongside Suzanne Gregalot, assistant director for the office of admissions, and Jay Riley, senior director of corporate partnerships and external affairs, at the education booth, where students had the opportunity to add advanced degrees to their resumes and increase their earning potential.   

“This was an engaging opportunity for USF to connect with local students and demonstrate how pursuing educational opportunities is the key to unlocking their future success,” Gregalot said. “The students really are in the driver’s seat. It was fun to encourage them, help them when they got stuck or just offer helpful tips and advice.”  

Next year, the Sarasota-Manatee campus will formally apply to the Carnegie Foundation to seek the Community Engagement Classification, a prestigious designation that requires an intensive process of self-study and recognizes institutional commitment to community and civic engagement. Ongoing partnerships like this contribute and strengthen the campus’s application portfolio. 

In the spring, the Sarasota-Manatee campus will again partner with the Manatee Chamber of Commerce to host Project TEACH, a program that brings local business professionals into fourth-grade classrooms to help students explore different career opportunities — and the steps required to achieve them. 

“This is an important step forward highlighting digital and virtualization technologies for tourism,” Hansen said. “We saw great examples in Serbia of hologram exhibits and virtual reality stations at tourism sites and we hope to create more of that here in Florida with our USF resources.”

In a few weeks, Hansen will join the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management as an associate professor of instruction and will coordinate further programming and collaborations with the University of Novi Sad.

Lazic and another Serbian professor, Miroslav Vujicic, said they were impressed by how welcoming their USF hosts were, and by the size and diversity of what they had seen during their visit.

“Everything is huge,” Lazic said.

Carmer and the Serbian professors see many potential long-term benefits of a relationship between their two schools. For example, there could be future student exchanges, and Vujicic said they anticipate returning to Serbia with ideas to help the hospitality industry in his country, which currently is visited by a relatively small number of American tourists.

“This is just the first step,” Vujicic said. 

“Carlos Moreira spent more than 15 years on active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps, plus three years as a reservist before enrolling in college at the University of South Florida (USF). Since retiring, Carlos has worked as a veteran services administrator at USF’s Military and Veteran’s Success Center. He is also currently serving his second term as the volunteer president of the Sarasota County Veterans Commission.” 

"I'm not used to getting this for me. I'm used to doing this for other people. So, it's definitely different," Moreira told television stations covering the big reveal. 

Co-sponsored by USF’S Sarasota-Manatee campus, the conference will feature presentations and discussion by acclaimed CAC scientists, academic experts, business leaders and government officials.

"Conference attendees will learn about the threat we face and the pathways to action in an engaging inclusive day designed to move our area forward with adaptation and mitigation strategies to protect the Florida way of life,” said Bob Bunting, CEO of the CAC.

The conference will include a light breakfast before the morning session, “The Triple Threat of Water in a Warming Climate.” The three threats are directly related to rising global temperatures and rising sea levels; bigger storm surges on top of rising sea levels; and a rising number of extreme precipitation and flooding events.

A catered lunch will be followed by the afternoon session, “The Emergence of the Climate Economy.” It will feature speakers and panelists who will provide an understanding of how climate action can drive sound economic and growth objectives for the Suncoast. Discussion will include how academia can stimulate the climate economy through entrepreneurship and innovation; how governments can stimulate the climate economy; how the private sector can stimulate the climate economy; and the role philanthropy plays in stimulating the climate economy.

Conference title sponsors are the Charles and Margery Barancik Foundation and Tommy’s Express Carwash. Other co-sponsors include Sarasota Magazine, Gulf Coast Community Foundation, Climate First Bank, Best Weather Inc., Cumberland Advisors and Triangle Ranch.

Tax deductible memberships to the CAC can be purchased online and guarantee free tickets and preferred seating at the conference, as well as other CAC events. To ensure you will have tickets, become a member of the CAC.

Other tickets are on sale on a first come, first served basis.

The Climate Adaptation Center, Inc. (CAC), founded in 2019, is an independent, non-profit 501(c)(3) organization headquartered in Sarasota. Its mission is to bridge the gap between the latest scientific research and the public’s understanding of the changing climate and how it impacts where the public lives.

To purchase tickets and for other information, visit the CAC website. 

“We are excited to work with our amazing partners in SDMC, including Ms. Debra Estes, director of ESOL, Migrant and Dual Language Programs in SDMC,” said Sara Smith, principal investigator for the project and assistant professor of ESOL/Language Education. “We hope to develop a scalable program that can be replicated in other districts through the state of Florida and the country.” 

Osborn is a professor in the College of Education on the Sarasota-Manatee campus and an authority in applied linguistics and critical pedagogy. Walker-Egea, is an assistant research professor in the Department of Child and Family Studies within the College of Behavioral and Community Sciences at USF.