Cabrini College has nominated two professors, Eric Malm, PhD. and Amy Persichetti, Ed.D for a prestigious national award which highlights their commitment to civil engagement and social justice issues. The Thomas Ehrlich Award recognizes one senior faculty member each year “for exemplary engaged scholarship, including leadership in advancing students’ civic learning, conducting community-based research, fostering reciprocal community partnerships, building institutional commitments to service-learning and civic engagement, and other means of enhancing higher education’s contributions to the public good.”
Dr. Amy Persichetti has been working at Cabrini for 15 years in the English department. She started to work on community-based research that goes beyond the soup kitchen model and engages students not only in the classroom but through the strong ties that Cabrini has built with its community. Persichetti finished her doctorate at Widener University in 2012 and has been committed to social justice for as long as she can remember.
“For me, social justice means awakening others to their own rights and privileges and being sure that whatever resources we have are distributed equally,” Persichetti said. “If it’s done really well social justice becomes a matter of justice, not charity.”
The criteria for the Thomas Ehrlich Award has some demanding requirements but to Dr. Eric Malm, the eligibility requirements were something he does everyday. Malm has been a critical team member, as well as Persichetti, in shaping the Justice Matters curriculum. A favorite story of his is how he got involved with teaching a social justice course. While in the Wolfington Center for a lunch with community partners, he met a woman who was the small business coordinator for the municipality building of Norristown. She helped him learn more about the community engaged courses and Malm felt the need to teach one of those courses. For the last six years, Malm’s students have been participating in the Norristown Arts Festival and have developed community strategies to help the community of Norristown.
Social justice is a large part of both professors’ lives.
According to Malm, social justice means reciprocity.
“To me, reciprocity means honoring the other person and vice versa,” Malm said. “Part of me feels like if were able to act with reciprocity than social justice is likely to result. If we don’t honor other people in the world than that’s where social injustice comes from.”
Persichetti was honored that Cabrini had nominated her to represent the college in a special way.
“At a place like Cabrini, where everyone is a talented professional it was really an honor for me to be nominated because I know how hard the rest of our faculty works and I know how invested people are in social justice. To rise above the masses in that aspect was really touching,” Persichetti said.
Malm hopes that the students themselves will gain valuable knowledge to take away into their professional career and adult lives. “To me, one of the things I really like about Cabrini is that this is a place where we can talk about values and live values,” Malm said. “The Mother Cabrini phrase, ‘the education of the heart,’ means that we’re not just reading something in a book, we’re doing it and we’re living it.”
Junior Kiley Sharp feels that taking a course focused on the common good has had a positive impact on not only her life, but others as well.
“After going out in the community and seeing problems such as poverty and hunger first hand, I find myself wanting to make a difference,” Sharp said. “These classes not only fulfill a requirement, but I believe they really shape students into caring, helping individuals that attain a true education of the heart.”
