Grants awarded as part of OWU Connection

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From completing community mapping work in Costa Rica to comparing life expectancies in Italy and the United States, Ohio Wesleyan University students are receiving nearly $49,000 in new university-funded grants to support academic, research, and internship experiences.

Ohio Wesleyan awarded seven new Theory-to-Practice grants in December to enable 12 students and four faculty and staff mentors to complete OWU Connection experiences on campus; in Columbus, Ohio; and abroad in Costa Rica, Italy, Morocco and Northern Ireland.

Ohio Wesleyan will award three rounds of Theory-to-Practice Grant funding this academic year — one round during fall semester and two in the spring. Here are the latest grant recipients and their projects:

• Monty Almoro, of Radnor, earned funds to support a project titled “Performance and Storytelling in Spanish Classical Theatre.” Along with student Sarah Gielink of Twinsburg, Ohio, and Glenda Nieto-Cuebas, Ph.D., associate professor of modern foreign languages, Almoro will work to bring the Spanish theatre company Teatro Inverso to Ohio Wesleyan to lead students in workshops that will help them develop their own adaptation of a classical text. The theatre company also will give a performance open to OWU and to the community.

• Abby Bowman, of Delaware, earned funds to support a project titled “An Exploration of Selected Blue Zones Concepts in Community Food and Physical Activity Settings in Umbria, Italy, and Central Ohio.” Along with Christopher Fink, Ph.D., associate professor of health and human kinetics, and student Emily Sheridan of North Smithfield, Rhode Island, Bowman will travel to Italy for nearly two weeks in May. There, they will “utilize qualitative research methods, as well as health promotion and community theory to explore selected Blue Zones concepts, and how they appear in the lived experiences of individual actors in food and physical activity settings.” Blue Zones are regions of the world where it is claimed that people live much longer than average.

Previous grant recipient Allisa Schuller earned Theory-to-Practice Grants to support summer internships at Goodman Media International, a global public relations firm in New York City, and at Spark Foundry, an international media agency in Seattle. Schuller, an OWU graduate, has been hired full time by Spark Foundry.

“(At Spark) I got to work with Starbucks, REI, AAA, and many other prominent companies,” said Schuller, who majored in business administration and minored in both accounting and religion. “I gained the best experience of my life and gained forever friends. At the end of my time at Spark, I received a full time job offer, which I accepted, on the REI strategy team.

“OWU has supported me, funded me, and cheered me on when I really needed them most,” said Schuller of Mansfield, Ohio. “I know I wouldn’t be where I am today without those Theory-to-Practice Grants and the support I have received from this school.”

After students complete their OWU Connection experiences, they prepare reports and presentations based on their objectives and experiences.

The OWU Connection, the university’s signature program, is designed to help students think big (understand issues from multiple academic disciplines), go global (gain international perspective), and get real (translate classroom knowledge into real-world experience). The OWU Connection includes Theory-to-Practice Grants, Travel-Learning Courses, internships, and more. Learn more about The OWU Connection at www.owu.edu/owuconnection.

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