By Barbara Melendez
USF News
TAMPA, Fla. (Nov. 6, 2015) – The University of South Florida and two USF faculty members, Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman, Ph.D. and Bonnie Silvestri, J.D., have been singled out by Florida Campus Compact for special recognition. They were honored at the 2015 Annual Awards Gala held yesterday evening at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida.
USF was one of three finalists for Engaged Campus of the Year and emerged the winner from the statewide short list that included Tallahassee Community College and Eastern Florida State College. The award was accepted by USF’s Office of Community Engagement and Partnerships Director Harold Keller, Ph.D., who was joined onstage by OCEP staff, Silvestri, OCEP Director of Community Partnerships Jennifer Webb and Research Administrator Jo Averill-Snell along with Assistant Director of the Center for Leadership and Civic Engagement Mallory Trochessett and Hordge-Freeman.
USF is one of only 40 public research universities nationwide with very high research activity that is designated as community engaged by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Hordge-Freeman, an assistant professor with a joint appointment in the Sociology Department and the Institute for the Study of Latin American and the Caribbean (ISLAC), became the recipient of Florida Campus Compact’s inaugural Engaged Scholarship Faculty Special Award for Global Engagement. In fact her work inspired the award. She was originally nominated for the Engaged Faculty Award but her significant global engagement inspired the national committee to develop this special award.
