Story to Story: E Pluribus Unum: A Collection of Stories by Thirty-Two Individuals from University of Richmond and Bon Air Juvenile Correctional Center

Dear Reader, How many times have you touched a penny? When is the last time you stopped to actually read what it says? You see, if you really take the time to look at a penny, engraved on it is “E Pluribus Unum”, meaning “out of many, one.” People are similar to pennies; we see the surface and examine them based on our own preconceived notions, but if we just took time to see what’s really there, the world would be a better place. Out of many, we are one and united we stand, story to story, hand in hand. Our unity began as a storytelling workshop, but it has become so much more. We, the storytellers, are a group of 32 young individuals from the University of Richmond and Bon Air Juvenile Correctional Center who have worked together to share our stories. During our time together, we got to know each other and ultimately wrote this book, which features stories that were chosen to be published by each partnership. Our only expectation going into this project was this publication. However, we never had a specific prompt nor subject in mind. We wanted to tell our stories for the sake of telling them; we wanted to let the stories speak for themselves. While many projects associated with Bon Air act as mentorship programs, we actually strove to foster a sense of equality between each Richmond student and Bon Air participant. Specifically, our goals were to build a healthy, short-term, peer-to-peer relationship as we use stories to bridge across difference, collaborate with our partners in order to reflect on and understand our own lives in a new way, and tell a story about ourselves in a way that can be shared with others and helps others understand us. Each partnership had the choice of editing the stories after writing them for the book, and of the extent of the edits. We could either choose to leave them as written, or edit for grammar. We chose to let each group decide to honor the nature of the partnership, as well as maintain the integrity and voice of the stories as they were written. Dispersed between each set of stories are quotes sharing one thing we took away from this experience, in order to demonstrate the impact this project has had on the storytellers. On the night of our last workshop, we wrote down our preconceived notions about this experience, and our thoughts after having gone through this together. Some of these initial sentiments include: On the first night I thought...this was going to be fun. - Robert On the first night I thought...that this was going to be different like people trying to talk to us, like preach or something. - Jermaine On the first night I thought…it might be difficult to make connections with my partner. - K. Stewart On the first night I thought...this experience was going to be exciting but nerve wracking. I was nervous about what my partner would think of me and this project. - Amanda On the first night I thought...that I wouldn’t learn anything new. - Troy V. On the first night I thought...that I wouldn’t find much in common with my partner, or that they wouldn’t want to open up to me. - KaylaOn the first night I thought…that wow I signed the paper but I aint think they would really come - Jarell On the first night I thought…it was cool that y’all came. - Naqwon On the first night I thought… that I wouldn’t be able to talk to him as a friend - Bianca On the first night I thought...this would be a terrific experience. - Jaquan On the first night, I thought… I wouldn’t be able to connect with Hannah. - Troy L. On the first night, I thought… My life would not be interesting to my partner. - Hannah The stories that we shared helped deepen our relationships with our partners, and, for many, changed our initial thoughts about the project as a whole. We hope that by reading the stories we wrote, you will understand the remarkable connections that each partnership made during this experience. While reading, please keep in mind that each partnership chose the specific prompt and story they wished to share, and that the stories contained in these pages are by no means all of what transpired while storytelling. Each partnership got to know one other through stories of all kinds, but these specific ones mean the most to them. We hope you enjoy.https://scholarship.richmond.edu/storytellingsocialchange/1001/thumbnail.jp

Editor\u27s Introduction

The mission of the VA Engage Journal is to build our collective practical and intellectual capacities for meaningful community engagement by providing a forum in which students enrolled in colleges and universities across Virginia can share and reflect critically on their own community-engaged experiences, and can disseminate knowledge emerging from their engaged practice and research. In this issue, which relaunches the journal after a hiatus in 2013, we present four thought pieces produced by seven authors from across the Commonwealth

Tell Me a Story: Bridging the Gap Between University of Richmond Students and Bon Air Juvenile Correctional Center Residents

Dear Reader, We are sixteen University of Richmond students who registered for a class called Storytelling and Social Change in the second semester of our first year of college. Our class explores the ways that stories—particularly life narratives—contribute to a community’s shared or imposed sense of identity, and considers whether and how storytelling is a tool for social change. As part of our class, we completed a Community Based Learning Project in which we worked with sixteen residents at Bon Air Juvenile Correctional Center to build relationships through stories. The goals of our storytelling workshop were: 1. Build a healthy short-term peer-to-peer relationship as we use stories to bridge across differences. 2. Partner each Bon Air resident with a UR student and share stories in order to reflect on and understand our own lives in a new way. 3. Settle on one story prompt and write about ourselves in a way that can be shared with others and helps others understand us. Most of the residents we partnered with at the Bon Air Juvenile Correctional Center are involved in a program called “Career Pathways,” which is an educational and vocational training program that offers youth between the ages of 14-21 years old educational, career and placement services by engaging youth in individual and group mentoring, leadership, service-learning, and workforce development opportunities. It was through a series of storytelling workshops, created by our class as part of the Pathways program, that we had the opportunity to exchange stories and gain a new perspective. When we first entered Bon Air JCC, it was like nothing that we had ever experienced before. Here are some of our thoughts at the time, as captured in journal reflections we wrote: “I am especially uncomfortable with opening up on a deep, personal level with someone who I have just met and who is imprisoned.” -O.W. “I think there’s a sense of guilt that will accompany all of us as we view the facility—we can’t help but feel bad because we can’t imagine what it’s like to be in their place, or have gone through the hardships that they have.” -C.I. “I hope he wants to talk to me. About real stuff. Not just surface things.” -A.S. We visited the center on three different occasions for two hour sessions. Each time, we met in small groups before breaking off into pairs. As a group we had a short discussion, for example sharing about our day or telling stories about our favorite places. When we broke off into pairs, we asked our partners different story prompts and alternated in sharing stories. Each pair had a different experience and exhibited different levels of success with the prompts. Eventually, we all landed on a story that we wanted to share. It was up to each pair how to present the stories, side-by-side or intertwined. Finally, it was up to our class to create this booklet. During our workshop, we focused on finding and telling stories more than perfecting them in written form. For that reason, we have chosen not to edit the stories significantly. Throughout the booklet, we also included short excerpts from our class’s journal reflections about this storytelling experience. In addition, we included illustrations drawn by two of our classmates, Christine and Vi. The purpose of the illustrations is to place the partners together in the same space, just like the goal of our project. The title page was a collaboration between a Bon Air resident and a University of Richmond student. We would like to thank Ashley Williams, as well as the staff of Pathways and the officers at Bon Air JCC, who supported this project and ensured that we would have a positive experience; without them, this exchange would not have been possible. As a class, we would like to thank Dr. Sylvia Gale and Miranda Rosenblum for guiding us and keeping our goals in sight throughout the project. We’d also like to acknowledge the University of Richmond Bonner Center for Civic Engagement for supporting our community based learning experience from start to finish. Finally, we would like to thank those who have pursued similar programs, such as Dave Coogan, for inspiring us to embark on this project. The stories you are about to read are initialed for privacy reasons. They are also initialized to emphasize the stories themselves, rather than any preconceived notions about the writer. Something that we have learned through this experience is that all stories are equally important; the difference is who’s listening to them.https://scholarship.richmond.edu/storytellingsocialchange/1000/thumbnail.jp

2019 Storytelling and Social Change Stories

Dear Reader,This book is the final product of a six week long storytelling journey in which 39 young writers, poets, artists, and most importantly, humans came together and worked as partners, sharing with each other their own life stories--a part of their identity and something that makes them who they are. What you will be reading is the compilation of the physical works some of these humans created in hopes of sharing their life beyond this storytelling group -with you and any other reader who chooses to delve into our lives and what they offer. As you immerse yourself in the stories inscribed within each page, you may notice that some of these storytellers used art to capture these fragments of their lives, whereas others chose written reflections. These variances reflect the storytellers individualities and differences, something that cannot be set aside. Nonetheless, these works may also exhibit the bonds these storytellers formed along the way. Indeed, getting to know each other became a by-product of sharing these stories. However, if you at one point are unable to see the bonds and connections that we, the storytellers, so inevitably expected to form along this journey, then you are not wrong. Along this journey, we found that some of us were quick to connect, whilst many others were still in the process even when our time together had come to an end. Thus, in making this book, we, as the storytellers, feel the need to acknowledge that humans are complicated beings. We may be all different, our backgrounds polar ends, our circumstances extreme or easy, yet being a human is what we all ultimately share. As you now read the many stories, you may then be able to see this shared humanity reflected on each page. Ultimately, we wanted to create something that captured the youth and spirit of our work and more importantly our storying process. We hope you see this reflected in the different dynamics of each page, each section and the whole book itself. This book compiles our time together and now we are sharing it with you.https://scholarship.richmond.edu/storytellingsocialchange/1002/thumbnail.jp

Editor\u27s Introduction

The VA Engage Journal is an annually published scholarly journal promoting reflection and dialogue on the topic of civic engagement by undergraduate, graduate, and professional students at Virginia colleges and universities. The journal acts as a forum for discussion to enhance our collective understanding of the purposes and practices of civic engagement. Students may submit critical reflections on engagement, reviews of current literature, and personal quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods research studies for publication. In the fifth volume of the VA Engage Journal, four authors reflect on the different limitations in their communities and the potential for growth through engagement that challenges these limits

Transcript of Selected Panelist Remarks from IA’s Plenary on Assessment October 2, 2009

This transcript includes panelist remarks by: Bruce Burgett, Professor and Director, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, University of Washington, Bothell; Fluney Hutchinson, Professor, Economics, Lafayette College; Sylvia Gale, Associate Director, Bonner Center for Civic Engagement, University of Richmond; Dudley Cocke, Director, Roadside Theater/ Appalshop; and George Sanchez, Director, Center for Diversity and Democracy, University of Southern California

First molecular phylogenetic insights into the evolution of Eriocaulon (Eriocaulaceae, Poales)

Eriocaulon is a genus of c. 470 aquatic and wetland species of the monocot plant family Eriocaulaceae. It is widely distributed in Africa, Asia and America, with centres of species richness in the tropics. Most species of Eriocaulon grow in wetlands although some inhabit shallow rivers and streams with an apparent adaptive morphology of elongated submerged stems. In a previous molecular phylogenetic hypothesis, Eriocaulon was recovered as sister of the African endemic genus Mesanthemum. Several regional infrageneric classifications have been proposed for Eriocaulon. This study aims to critically assess the existing infrageneric classifications through phylogenetic reconstruction of infrageneric relationships, based on DNA sequence data of four chloroplast markers and one nuclear marker. There is little congruence between our molecular results and previous morphology-based infrageneric classifications. However, some similarities can be found, including Fyson’s sect. Leucantherae and Zhang’s sect. Apoda. Further phylogenetic studies, particularly focusing on less well sampled regions such as the Neotropics, will help provide a more global overview of the relationships in Eriocaulon and may enable suggesting the first global infrageneric classification

Phenotypic Characterization of EIF2AK4 Mutation Carriers in a Large Cohort of Patients Diagnosed Clinically With Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension.

BACKGROUND: Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a rare disease with an emerging genetic basis. Heterozygous mutations in the gene encoding the bone morphogenetic protein receptor type 2 (BMPR2) are the commonest genetic cause of PAH, whereas biallelic mutations in the eukaryotic translation initiation factor 2 alpha kinase 4 gene (EIF2AK4) are described in pulmonary veno-occlusive disease/pulmonary capillary hemangiomatosis. Here, we determine the frequency of these mutations and define the genotype-phenotype characteristics in a large cohort of patients diagnosed clinically with PAH. METHODS: Whole-genome sequencing was performed on DNA from patients with idiopathic and heritable PAH and with pulmonary veno-occlusive disease/pulmonary capillary hemangiomatosis recruited to the National Institute of Health Research BioResource-Rare Diseases study. Heterozygous variants in BMPR2 and biallelic EIF2AK4 variants with a minor allele frequency of <1:10 000 in control data sets and predicted to be deleterious (by combined annotation-dependent depletion, PolyPhen-2, and sorting intolerant from tolerant predictions) were identified as potentially causal. Phenotype data from the time of diagnosis were also captured. RESULTS: Eight hundred sixty-four patients with idiopathic or heritable PAH and 16 with pulmonary veno-occlusive disease/pulmonary capillary hemangiomatosis were recruited. Mutations in BMPR2 were identified in 130 patients (14.8%). Biallelic mutations in EIF2AK4 were identified in 5 patients with a clinical diagnosis of pulmonary veno-occlusive disease/pulmonary capillary hemangiomatosis. Furthermore, 9 patients with a clinical diagnosis of PAH carried biallelic EIF2AK4 mutations. These patients had a reduced transfer coefficient for carbon monoxide (Kco; 33% [interquartile range, 30%-35%] predicted) and younger age at diagnosis (29 years; interquartile range, 23-38 years) and more interlobular septal thickening and mediastinal lymphadenopathy on computed tomography of the chest compared with patients with PAH without EIF2AK4 mutations. However, radiological assessment alone could not accurately identify biallelic EIF2AK4 mutation carriers. Patients with PAH with biallelic EIF2AK4 mutations had a shorter survival. CONCLUSIONS: Biallelic EIF2AK4 mutations are found in patients classified clinically as having idiopathic and heritable PAH. These patients cannot be identified reliably by computed tomography, but a low Kco and a young age at diagnosis suggests the underlying molecular diagnosis. Genetic testing can identify these misclassified patients, allowing appropriate management and early referral for lung transplantation

Comprehensive Rare Variant Analysis via Whole-Genome Sequencing to Determine the Molecular Pathology of Inherited Retinal Disease

Inherited retinal disease is a common cause of visual impairment and represents a highly heterogeneous group of conditions. Here, we present findings from a cohort of 722 individuals with inherited retinal disease, who have had whole-genome sequencing (n = 605), whole-exome sequencing (n = 72), or both (n = 45) performed, as part of the NIHR-BioResource Rare Diseases research study. We identified pathogenic variants (single-nucleotide variants, indels, or structural variants) for 404/722 (56%) individuals. Whole-genome sequencing gives unprecedented power to detect three categories of pathogenic variants in particular: structural variants, variants in GC-rich regions, which have significantly improved coverage compared to whole-exome sequencing, and variants in non-coding regulatory regions. In addition to previously reported pathogenic regulatory variants, we have identified a previously unreported pathogenic intronic variant in $\textit{CHM}$ in two males with choroideremia. We have also identified 19 genes not previously known to be associated with inherited retinal disease, which harbor biallelic predicted protein-truncating variants in unsolved cases. Whole-genome sequencing is an increasingly important comprehensive method with which to investigate the genetic causes of inherited retinal disease.This work was supported by The National Institute for Health Research England (NIHR) for the NIHR BioResource – Rare Diseases project (grant number RG65966). The Moorfields Eye Hospital cohort of patients and clinical and imaging data were ascertained and collected with the support of grants from the National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre at Moorfields Eye Hospital, National Health Service Foundation Trust, and UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, Moorfields Eye Hospital Special Trustees, Moorfields Eye Charity, the Foundation Fighting Blindness (USA), and Retinitis Pigmentosa Fighting Blindness. M.M. is a recipient of an FFB Career Development Award. E.M. is supported by UCLH/UCL NIHR Biomedical Research Centre. F.L.R. and D.G. are supported by Cambridge NIHR Biomedical Research Centre