Buffalo State Junior Honored as 2017 Newman Civic Fellow
Ada Garcia-Poll, a junior at Buffalo State, was named a 2017 Newman Civic Fellow by Campus Compact, a non-profit organization working to advance the public purposes of higher education. Garcia-Poll is one of 273 students across the country who will make up the organization’s 2017 cohort of Newman Civic Fellows.
“Ada is an outstanding member of the Buffalo State community and a superb representative of Buffalo State’s civic and community engagement efforts,” President Katherine Conway-Turner wrote when she nominated Garcia-Poll for the fellowship. Conway-Turner cited Garcia-Poll’s involvement with the Alternative Break program beginning in Garcia-Poll’s first year. As a sophomore, she became a site leader for an Alternative Spring Break program in Detroit, Michigan, and she was asked to join the Alternative Break Leadership Team.
She has also demonstrated both her commitment to service and her leadership skills in other programs and events, including “Say Yes Syracuse” and, at Buffalo State, Random Acts of Kindness Week and the college’s annual Bengals Dare to Care Day. In Buffalo, she has worked as a tutor providing homework help and educational enrichment for urban youth through the XCEL program.
As a 2017 Newman Civic Fellow, Garcia-Poll will take part in a one-year experience emphasizing personal, professional, and civic growth. Through the fellowship, Campus Compact provides a variety of learning and networking opportunities, including a national conference of Newman Civic Fellows in partnership with the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate. The fellowship also provides fellows with access to exclusive scholarship and post-graduate opportunities.
“The cultivation of community-committed leaders has never been more crucial,” said Campus Compact president Andrew Seligsohn. “We rebuilt the Newman Civic Fellowship experience because our country needs more people who know how to bring communities together for positive change.”