Teacher education organization presents award to Miguel Lopez

Dr. Miguel Lopez has been honored for the significant contributions he has made in service learning at CSU Monterey Bay, in the local community and beyond.

The International Center for Service-Learning in Teacher Education presented him with its Rahima Wade Award for Outstanding Contributions to the field. The award was presented at the organization’s annual meeting at Duke University in June.

Dr. Lopez, a faculty member in CSUMB’s Liberal Studies Department, earned national attention for his award-winning service learning collaboration, Increase the Peace, an intensive summer program designed to counter the perceptions that the East Salinas neighborhood of Alisal was merely a site of gang violence.

The program used literature, art and culture to strengthen Latino students’ sense of pride and cultural identify, better enabling them to reject harmful influences and get more involved with school.

As a result, there was a shift in perception at the school, from low expectations to a college-going culture.

“While there were many collaborators on this project, Dr. Lopez was its heart and soul,” said Dr. Seth Pollack, director of Service Learning at CSUMB. “Through his persistence and role modeling, he has helped to build meaningful connections to college for thousands of students.”

Dr. Lopez works directly with future teachers, directing them in their initial field experience courses. All of his classes are service-learning courses. As a result, each semester he provides guidance for more than 100 students who work in elementary and middle schools throughout the region. In turn, those students tutor and mentor over 1,000 underserved students in the region – every semester.

Said Dr. Pollack: “No single faculty member embodies a deep commitment to social justice and diversity, reciprocity, reflective practice and partnership-building more completely than Dr. Lopez.”

CSUMB is a national leader in the field of service learning. It is the only two-time recipient of the President’s Award for Community Service in Higher Education – one of those awards was for Increase the Peace – and has been included in U.S. News & World Report’s list of “outstanding service learning programs” since the list’s inception.

And it's the only public university in California, and one of the few nationally, where service learning is a requirement for all students. Each year, nearly 50 percent of CSUMB’s students enroll in service learning courses contributing more than 84,000 hours of service to more than 250 schools, non-profit organizations and government agencies in the tri-county area. And service learning is an academic department, where issues of service, diversity, social justice and social responsibility are linked to the core curriculum.

To learn more about Professor Lopez, click here.

Photo (left to right): Dr. Miguel Lopez received the Rahima Wade Award for Outstanding Contributions to Service Learning in Teacher Education in the United States. Dr. Loshini Naidoo of the University of Western Sydney was the international award winner.