Alex Braithwaite

Note: Title was current at time of award and may have changed.

Cultivating compassionate and culturally-grounded public service: The Asylum Project

The Asylum Project addresses intersecting challenges faced on and off campus in our Borderlands region: barriers to student persistence in degree programs and declining levels of empathy in society at a time of growing need for compassionate public service.  The project combines culturally responsive pedagogy, critical service-learning, and compassion training with the goals of increasing students’ sense of belonging, self-efficacy, and persistence; bolstering their understanding of human suffering (empathy) and desire to alleviate it (compassion); and better preparing them to serve vulnerable immigrant and refugee communities with compassion.  As such, the project reflects UArizona’s land-grant mission and compassion “core value,” as well as our College of Social & Behavioral Sciences and School of Government & Public Policy priorities around justice and inclusion.