| Tri-Annual Special Edition
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It's been quite a season for engagement, across campus and the community. This Impact newsletter offers a retrospective of the year in review. Through this piece, I hope you are able to witness how intentionally our program has worked hard to create opportunities to cultivate not only the knowledge in the classroom, but the skills and attitudes of the human heart and disposition that work in collaboration towards the Common Good. I couldn't be more proud of how hard and how earnestly our students, partners, staff and faculty have engaged to create so many avenues to bring our University's mission of service to justice to life. I am proud of us. And with hard work, especially labors of love and life, restoration is also required. Wishing everyone a restorative summer season and we look forward to being in communication again in the fall with what to look forward to in the year ahead.
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| Nancy Michael, PhD welcoming everyone to the 2024 (neuro)Science in Society Impact Summit
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2023-2024 Accomplishments |
- Increased the attendance of the Brain Awareness Fair by 50% over 2023.
- Developed a more robust Impact Summit event from the two hour luncheon to an 8 hour event featuring a keynote speaker, breakout sessions, a poster session and mixer. Attendance more than doubled from 39 in 2023 to just shy of 100 in 2024.
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Created a local Brain Bee Chapter with five local students from 8th-12th grade participating from Adams and St. Joseph High Schools which culminated in a Brain Bee Competition at DeBartolo Hall in May.
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The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) is the largest international organization of neuroscientists, whose chapters include local community members charged with making "contributions to advancing science education and advocating for public policies that support neuroscience research." The work of our Michiana Chapter contributes not only to the charge of the Society for Neuroscience but ALSO the Mission of the University of Notre Dame across its engagement strategies and programming.
The work of Individuals involved with the Michiana SfN Chapter support and execute the Brian Awareness Fair, the (neuro)Science in Society Impact summit, the Brain Bee Competition and Brain Ambassadors, in sum engaging with over 500 community members over the course of this academic year. Every interaction and event takes people, planning and resources.
Not a neuroscientist? No problem! Chapter membership invites all citizens to participate in learning and growth! Your dues will support pathways for sustainable partnership and community-university engagement, future summits, community events and resource development. So no matter if you are a campus or community member or even alumni, please join our Michiana chapter. Your dues will not only allow you *free* conference registration to next year's Impact Summit, but most importantly, will go to support the sustainability and growth of such incredible science engagement and communication partnerships.
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| Or scan the QR code to the right.
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The annual Brain Awareness Fair was held at Howard Park in South Bend this past April. Students and faculty welcomed close to 300 visitors from the Michiana community and demonstrated ways to keep their brains healthy and active.The event is a way to promote STEM disciplines with hands-on activities to foster public enthusiasm for neuroscience. WNDU was in attendance to share the event with their viewing audience (click on the gold button to the right to watch this segment).
In addition to our annual Brain Awareness Fair, Brain Ambassadors created a mini Brain Fair at the Near Northwest Neighborhood Arts Cafe event in October and participated in the St. Joseph County Public Library’s (SJCPL) Science Alive and BookCon events for the second year.
We were also able to partner with the SJCPL main branch and the New Carlisle-Olive Township Public Library to set up displays with books, handouts, puzzles, and games for their patrons for Brain Awareness Week.
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New Carlisle-Olive Township Public Library Brain Awareness Week Display
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Photos above are from the 2024 Brain Awareness Fair at Howard Park.
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(neuro)Science in Society Impact Summit |
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On April 12th, we held the second (neuro)Science in Society Impact Summit at both the Civil Rights Heritage Center and Center for Civic Innovation. We expanded the event from a two hour luncheon to a full day event featuring George Thompson, MD as a keynote speaker, breakout sessions from community partners and a poster session. Everyone left having learned something new and having a greater sense of community.
Thanks to Cassy White and Kimberly Green Reeves from Beacon Health System, Community Impact, for allowing us to share the two mentimeters (below) from their breakout session. They asked two questions of their audience and recorded responses, taking note that "connection" was a central answer to both questions.
If you didn't have a chance to attend, you can watch the plenary kick-off and keynote speech by clicking on the links to the above left.
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Photos from the (neuro)Science in Society Impact Summit
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Notre Dame Brain Ambassadors Constantijn Cole, Anne Gentine and Annie Lee
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The Brain Bee at Notre Dame was established in the 2023-24 academic year with the goal of promoting neuroscience education and engagement in the local community. With a unique activity-based curriculum, the Michiana Brain Bee aims to spark excitement around the joy of learning. Students are then able to display what they have learned in a local neuroscience - themed trivia competition held at the end of the academic year. All 8th to 12th-grade students are encouraged to join. In every workshop, we explored different wonders of the brain through the use of activities. The activity is often the highlight of the workshop as it helps the students see what’s going on in their own mind and is in general a fun game! The final Brain Bee Competition was held in May at DeBartolo Hall. This year’s winner was Maria from John Adams High School. There were five participants and they all gave a presentation on the neuroscience of sleep before competing.
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CLASSROOM MEETS COMMUNITY |
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This course is in support of broader community engagement efforts for the major where community organizations can request visits from student "Brain Ambassadors" to bring hands-on neuroscience learning to the community! Course time offers student development, neuroscience content, activity design and logistic support for the Brain Ambassadors community engagement platform.
We had 11 Brain Ambassadors for the 2023-2024 school year, up from 6 the previous school year. These ambassadors participated in five key events including a mini brain fair, a new Brain Bee competition, the annual Brain Awareness Fair, and the St. Joseph County Public Library's BookCon and Science Alive events.
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Julia Savino & Nick Jones at the Impact Summit highlighting the Brain Ambassador program.
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What happens in our brains when we listen to and make music? This course surveys the perceptual and cognitive processes involved in music perception and performance, incorporating research from various disciplines within psychology. Professor Vanessa Chan discusses various concepts underlying the processing and comprehension of musical content, such as pitch and rhythm perception, musical memory and musical rules, emotion in music, expertise in musicianship, and the use of music and music therapy as rehabilitative tools.
This semester, Music in the Brain partnered with Center for Hospice Care (CHC) to create informational materials on how staff, volunteers, and caregivers of those in hospice care - both inpatient and home care - can incorporate music in their care team, and how music can benefit social, cognitive, emotional, and physical wellbeing. Students were introduced to the work of CHC by a visit from Kristiana Donahue, brainstormed initial topics and ideas for research, and then visited Milton Adult Day Services to meet with some of the older adults who are part of CHC's umbrella of care. We invited Kristiana and some of her colleagues back to class for the last day, where each student group presented their final product. These research-informed products included brochures, infographics, playlist suggestions and instructions, recommendations for music making sessions, and even modified Zumba Gold! We look forward to continuing this partnership into future materials, such as videos and workshops, centered around music's ability to tap into memories, regulate emotions, induce movement, and foster social relationships.
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Environmental Exposures and the Nervous Systems |
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Taught by Professor Rachel Branco, this course is an upper-level elective describing how environmental exposures can affect human health and disease, particularly as it relates to the nervous system.
This past Fall, students partnered with local organizations, particularly in lead education and lead patient advocacy. Students were able to review concerns of lead exposure at a national level but more specifically locally in Indiana. They reviewed data, what advocacy had already been initiated and then outlined actionable steps to help with lead awareness and testing.
Click on the gold links below to read about the research two teams did on lead exposure.The blue link on the right is the ND Lead Innovation Team website.
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Developmental Neuroscience |
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Taught by Professor Nancy Michael, this course is an upper-level elective that places nervous system development and experience dependent plasticity in real-life context through community partnerships. This year's class supported 35 undergraduate students in partnership with 13 different community organizations, including the South Bend Bike Garage, Family Justice Center, Mental Health Awareness of Michiana, La Casa de Amistad, the St. Joseph County Public Library system, Center for the Homeless, the Fiat Program on Faith and Mental Health, English as a New Language Preschool at the Robinson Community Learning Center, Beacon Community Impact, the South Bend Police Athletic League, Connect 2 be the Change, the E. Blair Warner Clinic, and the Crisis Unit at the St. Joseph County Sheriff's Department. The bookmarker (below) is an example of just one of the sustainable contributions our community-centered collaborations were able to contribute to our broader community. The St. Joseph County Library now offers these bookmarks at the downtown branch. This project is just one example of how collaborations like this can turn classroom ideas into sustainable resources that ultimately become contributions to community capacity.
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