From the president
Completing his fifth year of the six-year PHARMD program at Ohio Northern University, Spencer Short is a proven leader on campus. As a religious life assistant, Spencer revived Polar Buddies, a program in which ONU students mentor students in the local community, and coordinated a team of volunteers to provide a weekly lunch for students. A long-time member of the Student Senate, Spencer currently serves as the Secretary of Service and Philanthropy. He is a member and past president of the Polar Health Club, a drug information intern for our Healthwise Pharmacy, and a teaching assistant for a foundational pharmacy course. Spencer successfully advocated for the continuation of the public health program at ONU and is committed to community-based service to remedy gaps in food and health equity in underserved populations. As a member of ONU’s Rural and Underserved Health Scholars Program, Spencer works to increase awareness of food insecurity services available to residents in rural Ohio. Similarly, in response to student hunger and poverty, Spencer helped establish the Polar Bear Food Cupboard and the Northern Clothing Donations Box. In these efforts, Spencer prioritizes interpersonal trust and community autonomy, ensuring that those most affected by inequities help shape the solutions.
Personal Statement
Civic engagement is, perhaps, the most important factor considered when addressing societal challenges. What comes to mind when thinking about civic engagement is building relationships with the people who are affected by the disparities and inequities at hand. Developing trusting relationships with stakeholders involves working together to find solutions and ensuring the representation of all who are affected at the table. This is the approach my classmates and I have employed throughout the Rural and Underserved Health Scholars Program as we increase awareness of food insecurity services available to Alger, Ohio. I undertook this approach when my friends and I advocated for the continuation of the public health program here at ONU. We gathered viewpoints and concerns from faculty, staff, and students, used that information to craft an appeal to the university administration, and participated in conversations that ultimately led to the program’s continuation. I have worked to establish the Northern Clothing Donations box and the Polar Bear Cupboard as solutions that meet expressed campus needs. Civic engagement without the involvement of the affected communities is pointless because it leads to slower rates of improvement, less buy-in to solutions, and unnecessary loss of autonomy of communities as agents of their own change.