Current Awards

Supporting Early Biliteracy Instruction for all learners  

Project VIBE is a research study to describe and support Volusia County Schools’ (VCS) first implementation of bilingual education, an English-Spanish 50/50 Dual language (DL) program. Its priority is to provide professional development to new DL teachers to become better-qualified teachers who can plan collaboratively to implement the instructional model, use assessment to monitor language growth, develop knowledge of early literacy opportunities for DL students and promote equitable, welcoming, and safe environments for their students. In addition, the project seeks to support the engagement of DL parents, families, and the local community as well as mentor Stetson’s pre-service teachers through the ESOL Endorsement. Data will be collected at multiple points to describe variables of DL program implementation. Results will inform next phases of the project and will be disseminated to local, state, and national scholarly venues. Equitable education of English Learners (ELs) with the Nina B. Hollis Institute for Educational Reform as Project VIBE seeks to positively impact Volusia County Schools; efforts through collaborative partnership.

The “Pathways to Justice Youth Advocacy Academy” is an empowering, year-long educational pipeline program for high school students that focuses on interactive civic learning and youth advocacy engagement and mentoring, particularly at a time when civic learning and engagement continue to face concerning reductions in secondary education throughout Florida and nationwide. Our research will explore the importance of civic learning to further connect youth to their educational experiences and goals, their communities, their sense of identity and well-being, and their familiarity with local democratic structures as current and future leaders. Initially launched in 2021 as the “Youth Civic Engagement Program”, the Youth Advocacy Academy has completed three successful summers (week-long) programs and is growing in momentum and interest within Florida’s education and advocacy communities. In February 2024, the program was featured in a statewide online webinar hosted by Florida Civic Advance, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to civic excellence and education in Florida through collaboration and civic action. Also, in January 2023, Community Tampa Bay (CTB), a local nonprofit education program that collaborates with local school districts, acknowledged our efforts and reached out to explore partnership opportunities with their esteemed youth program that launched in 2016. We are elated to begin our partnership with CTB in May 2024 to make this a year-long experience and impact.

Dr. Steven Smallpage

The goal is to have a robust pre-college, week-long summer camp (ideally, more than once a summer) where all students, regardless of their backgrounds and ability to pay, will learn about the practical side of politics: the importance of polling public opinion in a democracy, the scientific ways in which polls are conducted, how to avoid the potential pitfalls of misinformation, and gaining hands-on experience doing a political poll of their own. Students should leave the summer camp with a new appreciation for how difficult, though not impossible with the right knowledge and skill sets, change in political life (particularly in Florida) can be. Moreover, ideally, the student-designed poll will be published by the Center for Public Opinion Research.

Dr. Tony Abbott, Dr. Primrose Cameron, Dr. Nicole Mottier

 Project Goals

Specifically focused on elevating equity in our community, this project builds on the mission of the Nina B. Hollis Institute by creating educational opportunities for middle through high school students through applied partnerships. Through a town and gown collaboration between Stetson University and Sisters Build Network for Girls, inc., and Man Up Mentoring, inc., we are working with students in the Spring Hill Community and greater West Volusia for two objectives. The first is to demonstrate to students, through an interactive project, the value of historical knowledge work—work that requires thoughtful collection and presentation of information—as self-affirming and remunerative labor. The second is to elevate the contributions of local equity and justice leaders (Local Legends) through the production of public history media. Through this project middle through high school participants will develop skills in intergenerational collaboration and writing with revision, and further, they will come to understand knowledge work as a potential career trajectory. The artifacts of their work will appear on the Local Legends online dashboard (hosted by the Department of Environmental Science) and support their professional development as they emerge from secondary, and perhaps post-secondary, education.  

Development of a Stetson Brain Fitness Academy for elderly individual and their caregivers

With the rising older adult population, the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias calls for increased treatment opportunities and community education and outreach. The Brain Fitness Academy (BFA) proposes an intergenerational and interdisciplinary program for older adults with dementia and their care partners. In the BFA, older adults will undergo twice weekly intervention and educational activities alongside current Stetson students, targeting cognitive, physical, and social well-being. Simultaneously, interested care partners will take part in support groups and educational activities led by current Counselor Education graduate students.  Outcomes including cognitive markers and quality of life outcomes for all participants will be assessed on a biannual basis. Given the strong emphasis in collaborative and intergenerational, nontraditional learning, the proposed program coincides well with the Hollis Impact Grant’s objectives and provides a unique opportunity for Stetson’s campus.

The purpose of the Language Development Through Focused Play grant is to develop a more natural approach to speech and language therapy by using a focused play approach.  This grant is designed to train speech and language therapists as well as preschool teachers who primarily work with children with language disorders, have been identified as developmentally delayed, or are on the autism spectrum in the use of focused play.  Jean Piaget said, "Play is the work of children."  Through play, children can learn many useful language skills.  Children develop best within the context of caring relationships.  Using baby dolls provides the opportunity for young children to experience being the nurturer by interacting with their baby dolls in the same way we as caring adults might interact with them.  As the children play with their dolls, they relive and strengthen the attachment and connection that they have with their caregivers and parents.  The caregivers of many of the children we work with do not have the language or parenting skills for optimal learning.  Utilizing baby dolls in language therapy is a way to ensure that children experience the attachment, attunement, and social play required for optimal brain development, thus helping close the achievement gap.

A know-your-rights program for troubled youths

The Public Defender Office of the 12th Judicial Circuit (which includes Sarasota, Manatee and DeSoto Counties) is partnering with the Social Justice Advocacy Concentration Program at Stetson University College of Law to design a Know Your Rights program for child clients between the ages of 12-19.  The juveniles in this group are all either on juvenile probation or in pretrial diversion programs.  By participating in these programs, the juveniles will receive community service hours and upon successful completion, they will have their cases dismissed by the Department of Juvenile Justice and avoid having to enter any type of plea. The Department of Juvenile Justice and the Teen Court Diversion Program have already approved our proposed project for community service hours. 

The program will teach children about their 4th & 5th Amendment rights under the United States Constitution and will make sure that they know how to safely exercise these rights without causing harm to themselves.  They will write essays reflecting upon how the constitutional rights of juveniles are different than the rights of adults and how the juvenile legal system impacts the lives of children labeled as “juvenile offenders”.  Our expected outcomes are that the children will leave with a better understanding of their 4th and 5th Amendment rights. Specifically, we want them to recognize what an interrogation is and when they should request counsel and/or remain silent.  In addition, we want the students to know when they should or should not consent to a search by law enforcement.

Certification and Symposium

SEEDs (Sustainable Equity Education Developments) for Justice aims to plant equity education “seeds” through inclusive storytelling and nurture gardens of transformation that advance justice through community-engaged education, with a particular focus on advancing justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. SEEDs for Justice is rooted in a deep commitment to providing educational stakeholders (K-12 public schools, youth-centered nonprofit organizations, juvenile justice systems and institutions of higher education) with relevant, engaging, and impactful learning about the civil rights movement and Artivism (art and social justice activism). This SEEDs for Justice project will focus on the creation of a documentary featuring diverse voices of human and civil rights activists (then and now) in juxtaposition with highlighting activist projects across the United States. The documentary will intentionally weave together oral history and digital storytelling on Artivism including narration and visual imagery, and it will include an accompanying learning guide to educate and inspire students, K-12 and beyond!

Following the NSF grant-funded Student-Adaptive Pedagogy project, the Volusia County Schools Early Elementary Math Professional Development project is designed to foster kindergarten and first-grade teachers’ mathematical content knowledge for the benefit of their students’ learning. Recognizing the importance of early intervention, this project aims to promote teachers’ understanding of and attention to early number concepts with the goal of bolstering students’ conceptual understandings of numbers, thus avoiding the need to later “fill in the gaps.” Through content-specific professional development, classroom observations, and deliberately designed instructional coaching, this project hopes to create a system of change through innovative pedagogical practices, aligning with the Nina B. Hollis Institute’s mission of addressing barriers to improving educational outcomes.