Now in its third year, the OLLI Graduate Student Fellowship was established at the University of Southern Maine with a gift from the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI). The Fellowship provides scholarships of $3,000 for five selected USM graduate students whose research, scholarship or creative activity focus on social and environmental justice, adult education, or issues related to aging.
Meet the OLLI Fellows
For the 2023-2024 academic year, USM is proud to support five OLLI Fellows. Keep reading to learn about the fellows and their projects.
Graduate Program: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)
Nadine Bravo moved to Maine in 2011 as a full-time parent of three. After working many years in retail to sustain her children’s well-being, she embarked on the journey as a graduate student in two teacher education programs where wonderings for social change were ignited. As a multicultural, multilingual individual herself, she began exploring the impact of intergenerational trauma on literacy in a particularly marginalized community: Indigenous communities as monolinguals of English who have been denied their rights to access their native languages by forced language attrition.
She currently works as an elementary school world language teacher, who is certified in German, Spanish, and ESL, in a privileged white community. Parallel to her studies, she embarked on additional educational journeys to educate herself as a privileged white woman from a colonizer background. By attending the Upstander Academy, pursuing a certificate in Native American certificate online, and participating in professional development by Wabanaki REACH, she has made attempts to shift and increase her understanding of these challenges minority communities face in the local and national context. With the passing of the LD 291in 2001 and the continuous lack of adequate and integrative teaching of Wabanaki studies in the school system, her project within her elementary school context hopes to provide school libraries with books by local indigenous authors to increase the visibility of the Wabanaki students in our community and increase awareness of the fact that Native Americans are not part of the history of Maine but alive and well. She also hopes to create interactive approaches to bringing workshops to school to promote language learning while considering the low affective filter young learners exhibit.
Graduate Program: Adult & Higher Education
Since returning to college in 2016, I have been working on community outreach, engagement, and accessibility to resources surrounding compassion, community, and continued education. I was introduced to learning through service coursework as part of my undergraduate studies has been my approach to continuing the research along the way of my Master’s Program in Adult and Higher Education.
Since 2021, I have mentored with the Town of Sabattus select board, designing and implementing a Community Needs Assessment, and with the RSU4 District Administrative Team as we have established a Community Garden as a needs-based solution. The GRO: A Community Garden Project, is now an official Garden Club, as part of the Sabattus Recreation Program. The GRO is located on-site at Sabattus Primary School. Identified as a USDA People’s Garden, its design was created with a volunteer board to empower the tri-communities of RSU4 to participate in local food production, exposure to diversity, and building resilience among the families that our district serves and the community members of the Town of Sabattus. The GRO is a classroom for learning, a community space for gathering, and will benefit our environment. We are offering opportunities to teach about the benefits of sustainable, local agriculture and how gardening can catalyze change. My current research surrounds how a rural community garden can impact the community at large.
Working with a distinguished list of Community Partners, accessibility to quality resources and presenters’ knowledge is rich. The OLLI Fellows will help to support quality programs targeted toward more mature students. Given the ability to identify learning patterns and participation trends in (adult) students; I have planned a series of family literacy, art and exploration, outdoor education, and discussions surrounding compassion, community, and continued learning. Incorporating mindset growth into the methodology of performance sets the GRO on a path of sustainability. Working with the district’s Adult and Community Education Program to reach as many participants through this strategic engagement plan, leading to the implementation of the GRO, in Spring 2024. Garden Club Members and the Staff and Students of SPS are recognized as active participants, inviting the general public to participate and educate them about the Garden’s unique Membership. The GRO is aligned to yield results of engagement as well as a bountiful harvest.
Graduate Program: Leadership (PhD)
Andy is in his final year as a doctoral candidate in Leadership and Organizational Studies at the University of Southern Maine, with a dual concentration in Organizational Development and Leadership Education. His research focuses on using the framework of Complexity Leadership Theory to explore decentralized social movements and the experiences of those that participate in them. His dissertation explores Inner Development Goal (IDG) Hubs, which are part of a decentralized network intended to advance the human dimension of the United Nations Sustainability Goals.
Andy is currently the Director of the University of Southern Maine’s Career & Employment Hub. In this role, he oversees student career readiness education, employer relations, and service-learning and volunteering, helping to increase access for students to professional opportunities that will launch them into meaningful careers. Prior to USM, he helped establish a statewide energy efficiency program in Massachusetts. Through his operational efforts to scale the program, it was able to grow from an annual budget of less than $1 million to nearly $20 million in four years while exceeding energy savings goals each year. His international experience includes consulting for an organic food startup company in Haiti and working in community centers in Brazil and Ecuador.
Andy earned a BA in Political Science from Wheaton College in Massachusetts, and an MBA in Social Entrepreneurship from Brandeis University. He also holds a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt.
Graduate Program: Nursing
Hafizur is a student in the Nursing: Family Practitioner master’s program. He states, “Nursing researchers can develop and validate assessment tools specific to geriatric populations that can help identify physical, cognitive, and psychosocial issues that commonly affect older adults. Many older adults live with chronic conditions like diabetes, hypertension, and arthritis. Research can explore innovative ways to manage these conditions, including medication management, lifestyle modifications, and self-care strategies. Nursing research can delve into interventions and approaches for providing high-quality care to individuals with dementia and cognitive impairments. This may include developing communication strategies, creating dementia-friendly environments, and promoting cognitive stimulation. Research also can focus on strategies to enable older adults to age in place safely and comfortably. This might involve technology-assisted living, home modifications, and community-based services that promote independent living.”
Graduate Program: Creative Writing
Dr. Jessica Reilly-Moman is a mother, political ecologist, equestrian and climate justice researcher pursuing her MFA in Creative Nonfiction in the Stonecoast program to build a new, empowering, and inclusive climate narrative. Jess uses her writing to illuminate the nexus of climate science, social justice, and the teachings of more-than-humans to draw connections across differences and provide the foundation for climate stories of tangible hope, boundary spanning relations, and equitable action.
Her social science research has focused on “climate care” in the Americas, from highlighting systemic governance, communication, and equity issues in coastal nature-based solutions to understanding place-based values, positionalities, and identities that shape the acceptance of ocean renewable energy. Frustrated by the limitations of Western science to help coastal people adapt to change and address historical contexts of injustice, she draws together her experience as a climate journalist in Mexico and Central America with her social research to elevate coastal climate voices.
Jess founded and leads Klima International, where she currently supports the Maine Climate Council to weave together and communicate the vast range of climate-related science and knowledges to policymakers and practitioners. She is an affiliated researcher at the UMaine Darling Marine Center and founding board member of Our Climate Common.
Meet Former OLLI Fellows
The 2022-2023 academic year saw outstanding work and compelling research produced by OLLI Fellows. Keep reading to learn more!
Abdi Awad, Adult and Higher Education (MS)
Abdi is an individual with a lived history in the justice system, who believes that education is the greasiest equalizer in society when it comes to social injustice. His research and practice focuses on creating pathways for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated students to pursue higher education and examining the barriers they face. What makes them successful? What is working and what is not working within the University of Maine system, and what can we learn from other states and globally about how to support this population? His dream is to inspire those from under-privileged communities and help them not only get their high school diploma but understand the significance of a college education and “avoid going through the pain and the struggle that I went through.”
Jennifer Chace, Public Policy with a Concentration in Educational Leadership and Policy (PhD)
Jennifer moved to Maine 1997 and spent the next many years as a community volunteer and full-time parent of three. Jennifer believes that education systems in a modern democracy must center social justice. In her doctoral research she hopes to “nurture recalibration, transformation, and restructuring for true public social benefit and justice.” Her project, Maine 2050, will engage stakeholders across all Maine counties to achieve four goals: better understand the consensus on the purpose of public education; identify emerging values and challenges for the future of education; develop an integrated cross-sector, time-lined short and long term plan for change; and foster a reinvigorated and engaged citizenry.
Linda Dolloff, Adult and Higher Education (MS)
Linda Dolloff is a Project Coordinator for Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition. She is the founder and executive director of Reentry Sisters, a reentry support organization specializing in a gender-responsive and trauma-informed approach for women, serving Maine and beyond. Linda serves on the Maine Prison Education Partnership board at UMA and the New England Commission for the Future of Higher Education in Prison through The Educational Justice Institute at MIT. She is part of an ACLS grant team for the Freedom & Captivity Curriculum Project. Based on the F&C initiative, the curricula will be uploaded onto technology used inside Maine prisons for college courses, discussion groups, and community classes facilitated by incarcerated people. Linda is a member of the Opportunity Scholars Network, helping formerly and currently incarcerated students achieve their educational goals. She is a program facilitator for book and film groups for the Maine Humanities Council. Linda is a DJ for Justice Radio, a talk show on WMPG about the carceral state.
Sahro Hassan, Counselor Education (MS)
In 2006, Sahro moved to the United States from a refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya. Sahro struggled to cope with her childhood trauma, but she was fortunate to have access to therapy while in college to process her childhood trauma. She learned the importance of mental health while in college, and became a case manager in order to help adolescents and youth struggling with mental illness. As a case manager, Sahro learned that stigmas about mental health within the Somali community can prevent many from feeling safe and receiving treatment. As part of her research, Sahro explores the possibility of providing resources to the Somali community that may assist in improving professional mental health support. “My aim is to create a safe environment where people can explore and examine their trauma. My research aims to alleviate mental health stigmas and break the silence about mental health by providing Somali communities with mental health resources, education, and support.”
Lisa Luken, Leadership Studies (PhD)
Lisa Luken is pursuing a Ph.D. in Leadership and Organizational Studies. Her current research projects focus on the role of women leaders in rural economic development, the socio-economic challenges, and resilience of coastal communities in Maine and Greenland, women leaders in the blue economy, and sustainable development in Maine, the North Atlantic, and the Arctic.
After a career in finance that focused largely on developing economic capital, Lisa returned to academia to explore the social sciences, studying the lived experiences of individuals in rural and coastal communities to address critical environmental and social justice issues. Lisa highlights the need to “explore four critical areas of capital that must be considered in conversations about climate change, communities, and the blue economy – social, human, ecological, and economic capital. To make progress in saving our people and the planet, these areas cannot be looked at separately. Instead, stories must be gathered, and the issues must be addressed holistically.”
Abdi Awad, Adult and Higher Education (MS)
Abdi is an individual with a lived history in the justice system, who believes that education is the greasiest equalizer in society when it comes to social injustice. His research and practice focuses on creating pathways for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated students to pursue higher education and examining the barriers they face. What makes them successful? What is working and what is not working within the University of Maine system, and what can we learn from other states and globally about how to support this population? His dream is to inspire those from under-privileged communities and help them not only get their high school diploma but understand the significance of a college education and “avoid going through the pain and the struggle that I went through.”
Natalie Bornstein, Social Work (MSW)
Natalie’s research focuses on the intersection of transgender and neurodivergent identities that shows the importance of non-pathologizing approaches to mental and physical healthcare addressing the unique needs, insights, and experiences of structural discrimination faced by individuals at this intersection. Her research utilizes phenomenology to explore perspectives and experiences of transgender and neurodivergent individuals and believes that developing systems of competent and affirming mental healthcare for transgender and neurodivergent people is an issue of social justice. She hopes this research may be useful both to practitioners serving this community as well as empowering for participants.
Kaitlyn Burch, Policy, Planning, and Management (MPPM)
Kaitlyn’s focus in the MPPM program is the Community Planning and Sustainable Development track. She is conducting a research project to create an environmental equity atlas by mapping environmental and demographic vulnerabilities to climate change in Portland and South Portland to show how social and climate vulnerabilities interact in these cities. These maps will visually reveal local environmental justice issues as areas of climate risk overlap with demographic vulnerabilities. Before pursuing her graduate degree, Kaitlyn worked at Greater Portland Landmarks, and has experience doing place-based research.
Jennifer Chace, Public Policy with a Concentration in Educational Leadership and Policy (PhD)
Jennifer moved to Maine 1997 and spent the next many years as a community volunteer and full-time parent of three. Jennifer believes that education systems in a modern democracy must center social justice. In her doctoral research she hopes to “nurture recalibration, transformation, and restructuring for true public social benefit and justice.” Her project, Maine 2050, will engage stakeholders across all Maine counties to achieve four goals: better understand the consensus on the purpose of public education; identify emerging values and challenges for the future of education; develop an integrated cross-sector, time-lined short and long term plan for change; and foster a reinvigorated and engaged citizenry.
Maggie Cummings, Policy, Planning, and Management (MPPM)
Maggie’s research focuses on localizing the local grain supply by studying the history of grain in the Northeast and current policies around local production. Grain is particularly important for human and environmental health in Maine. It is estimated that Mainers consume only 10% of food grown locally — the other 90% is grown away and sent here. Transportation on large trucks traveling long distances contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Moreover, having so much of our food supply coming from away makes Mainer’s vulnerable to food supply changes. Maggie will be engaging a variety of stakeholders to break down those barriers and propose relevant policies that benefit our grain growers and citizens.
Ashlyn Tomer, Leadership Studies (MA)
Ashlyn’s research focuses on the population of the Wabanaki Confederation and how they apply authentic leadership in their tribal community. Before Europeans arrived, there was a large network of tribal nations that sustained and perpetuated their own forms of dynamic and complex leadership, encompassing a way of life that related to the culture, spirituality, and language of the tribe — and each person in the community had a role in supporting their nation and sustaining tribal beliefs and lifeways. Through her research, she will explore whether there is a correlation between authentic leadership and the Wabanaki nations and how that may contribute to the cultivation of positive relationships within the community.