Caitlin Cornett, IUK

New for 2021, Indiana Campus Compact is honoring undergraduate students at our partner institutions who are new to community engagement and have shown, by action and leadership, their passion and ability to be a positive force in their communities. The Indiana Campus Compact Student Community Action Leaders recognition is designed to help emerging student leaders—who have made a commitment to community engagement through collaborative action in the community while addressing their scholarly pursuits—build a lifetime of leadership in community engagement and action.

In her nomination letter, Dr. Christina L. Romero-Ivanova said, “Caitlin was a student in my Spring W200 Using Computers in Education course and participated in teaching digital storytelling to clients at a local domestic violence shelter. Caitlin was able to connect with clients by sharing her own digital story she created in our class and by listening to others’ stories. In her letter of support, Pastor Amy Cortez said, “I had the unique opportunity to be at work with Caitlin shortly after her time at the women’s shelter. Though she experienced deep pain and sadness in her time there, her heart was filled with compassion and empathy for the women and their life stories. Many people would leave that type of experience and feel judgmental or simply sorry for the person they met.  Caitlin left differently. She left the women’s shelter with a desire to learn more people’s stories and to listen harder to the hard things people had been through.  She talked about how these precious days volunteering not only impacted how she looked at her future career in education but also her worldview.”