MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR
Dear Friends of the Mandel Center,
The Mandel Center is proud of all of the people that interface with our graduate and professional development programs. They are primarily in the nonprofit sector and give so much not only to their graduate studies, but to the community as a whole through their dedication to a variety of social causes both locally and nationally. This issue of Nonprofit E-Notes highlights a number of ways our students, as well as our faculty and others affiliated with Center, have given of their special talents.
A very moving story comes from one of our recent graduates, Shanae Lewis. In her article "My Gift to My Father," she touchingly describes how being "daddy's little girl" meant so much to her throughout her life. When her father asked for a special gift that would help to prolong his life, she didn't hesitate at all. Her giving nature hit home to all of us at the Center.
The Center's Youth Philanthropy and Service program, which has been in existence for over 10 years now, provides a number of avenues for young people to give back to their community in thoughtful ways. This issue of E-Notes highlights three unique teens in their high school years that are already showing their passion toward giving to others. Their stories can be found in the article announcing the recipients of the YPS Award for Outstanding Community Service.
The faculty feature this issue is on Pranab Chaterjee, who was recently given the honor of being appointed as the Grace Longwell Coyle Professor of Social Work. Dr. Chaterjee has a long history of community service work while in Chicago working for community-based settlement programs, and earlier in his life in India where he started his mission-driven passion for community and social development. Read more about his road toward being honored with this chaired position.
There are also several other Mandel Center faculty highlighted who have received a number of honors over the past few months for publications they have written, as well as teaching awards and appointments to national organizations that they have received. More can be found in the Faculty Highlights section.
The Fellows from the Mandel Center's Treu-Mart Youth Development Fellowship Program is another group of gifted people who are working with at-risk youth while participating in a unique Fellowship that will give them the skills to enhance their success with the youth they serve. The third cohort of students in this program, 14 in total, is in the midst of the Fellowship Program. To date, 43 Fellows have been trained in this program, representing 34 (including the current group) agencies throughout the Cleveland area.
The Center's alumni are consistently doing exciting work around the country. This issue of E-Notes features Lucinda Lavelli, MNO '91, who recently accepted the position of Dean of the College of Fine Arts at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
In other alumni affairs news, the Board of the Center's Alumni Association recently announced the hiring of John Yankey, a faculty member and national strategic alliances expert, to work with them and the Center on developing a new strategic plan for the Association. Alumni of the Center will be receiving a brief survey in early August to help gain input about their experiences with the Association and ideas for its future direction. In addition, the Center is setting up a password protected portion of the website that alumni can access to keep up-to-date on the strategic planning process. This portion of the website, along with the survey mentioned above, will be available by early August (www.case.edu/mandelcenter/alumni). The planning process will officially start in September and end by the first of the year.
The Mandel Center is proud of its graduates from this past May and has some great memories to share in the article on the Graduation Celebration. We are also looking forward to our new class of students who come from different backgrounds in the nonprofit field. Our incoming Mandel full-tuition scholarship recipient just completed her master's in art history and desires to use her MNO as a museum curator. The Center's other full-tuition scholarship recipient, our first one for the new Arthur Naparstek Memorial Scholarship, is coming from Michigan where she worked for Habitat for Humanity. We also have our share of new students desiring to change careers from the profit-making world to nonprofit ventures. You will hear more about our incoming class in our next issue of Nonprofit E-Notes this fall.
Enjoy the rest of the summer!
Sincerely,
Susan Lajoie Eagan
Executive Director and Mandel Professor
