With support from the Center for Social Impact (CSI), the associate professor of public health partnered with Bridgeport’s Caroline House to translate research to advocacy in her award-winning course.
Jennifer Schindler-Ruwisch, DrPH, CPH, associate professor of public health at Fairfield University’s Marion Peckham Egan School of Nursing and Health Studies, won the 2025 Delta Omega Award for Innovative Public Health Curriculum for her community-engaged learning course on disease and injury. She accepted the award at a ceremony in Washington, D.C.
The annual award promotes excellence in public health education, research, and practice, and is accompanied by invitations to present at the annual meetings of the American Public Health Association (APHA) and the Delta Omega Honorary Society in Public Health.
“I am honored and humbled to have my course recognized by Delta Omega,” Dr. Schindler-Ruwisch said. “To teach this course and share it with others is a joy and genuine highlight of my academic career.”
The course for which Dr. Shindler-Ruwisch was recognized offers a population-focused survey of human health with an emphasis on leading global causes of morbidity and mortality, key risk factors, and broader social determinants of health.
Perhaps most distinctive, however, is that the course carries both a Community-Engaged Learning designation through CSI—for integrating academic learning with meaningful community engagement—and a Social Justice designation within the Magis Core—for focusing on cross-disciplinary skills and Jesuit values.
“We are proud to provide support and resources to meet the needs of Dr. Schindler-Ruwisch and her community-engaged work,” said Andrea Canuel, senior director of community-engaged learning at CSI. “Her course is a shining example of the positive impact that community partnerships can have on student learning and the advancement of social justice.”
Across five iterations and semesters of the course, Dr. Schindler-Ruwisch and her students have collaborated with Caroline House, a language and life skills program for low-income immigrant women and children in Bridgeport, Conn. Their ongoing project seeks to identify the key social determinants of health in the community and to design and implement collective advocacy efforts.
The project is unique insofar as it utilizes Photovoice, a participatory qualitative method, to transcend language differences and to foster dialogue between community members and institutional partners. The result is a true collaboration, built and sustained on the values of cultural humility and mutual respect.
“The goal of the project and the class is to cultivate a reciprocal and mutually beneficial relationship with the community,” Dr. Schindler-Ruwisch said. “Caroline House patrons identify wellness topics of interest or priority determinants of health, and we foster dialogues and workshops around these points.”
She added: “While my students work to curate content and flex their creative muscles to bring engaging activities to share on a variety of health topics, the community offers us even more in return. Their kindness, resilience, support, and advocacy are what brought our environmental justice initiative alive.”
To date, students in the course have helped community members launch several environmental health and advocacy initiatives within the Bridgeport area, including a letter-writing campaign to local leaders, a community and yard clean-up on Earth Day, and a door-to-door education campaign with translation support provided by students in Fairfield’s Modern Languages and Literatures program.
Read more about the course project in “Social Justice in Community Environments: A Collaborative Photovoice,” published in the Journal of Participatory Research Methods and coauthored by Dr. Schindler-Ruwisch, Fairfield Egan alumna Kaila Pryor ’25, and Helen Ramos Paiz, executive director of Caroline House.
