Fairfield University has bestowed the Martin Luther King Jr. Vision Award on three area residents and two students whose lives have helped to promote the ideals of Dr. King: Rev. Paul F. Merry, pastor of Blessed Sacrament Parish in Bridgeport; Attorney Ellen A. Morgan, a resident of Shelton whose private law practice is in Bridgeport; Dr. Elizabeth Gardner of Fairfield, a professor of psychology at Fairfield University; and two seniors, Katherine Canner-O'Mealy of Belle Harbor, N.Y., and Orlena Cowan of Hartford, Conn.

Fr. Paul Merry, who received the Community Vision Award, is both a spiritual leader and friend to a very diverse parish of 172 families in the East End of Bridgeport. He was integral in transforming, through H.U.D. and City grants, the abandoned Blessed Sacrament School building into a 48-unit, low income, senior housing facility. By partnering with sister parishes throughout the Diocese of Bridgeport he has celebrated and shared the rich heritage of his parishioners and developed successful programs such as the Guns for Bells program in 1997, a gun redemption program that significantly addressed the homicide rate for the City of Bridgeport. Other programs include Project Rehab, where people and resources come together to renovate and repair neighborhood homes; and Blessed Sacrament's Thanksgiving Outreach, which brings parishes together for a Thanksgiving liturgy and then delivers Thanksgiving dinner to 1,000 Bridgeport families.

Earlier in his ministry, Fr. Merry spent four years in Peru, working in the 55,000-parishioner mission parish of San Juan Maria Vianney. Currently Fr. Merry is partnered with The Black and Indian Missions Office of the U.S. Bishops Conference to create an after school program for children in K through 5 grades.

Atty. Ellen Morgan, who received the Alumna Vision Award, is a 1986 graduate of Fairfield University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology, and a 1989 graduate of Tulane Law School in New Orleans. She was a founding member of the Black Democrats Club of Stratford where she served as the first woman and first black Assistant Town Attorney and was a board member of the South End Community Center and the Democratic Town Committee.

She is a lifetime member and first vice-president of the National Council of Negro Women, Inc., Greater Bridgeport chapter. She serves on the Scholarship Ministry of the First Baptist Church of Stratford, Inc., where she has served as a member of the Board of Trustees and is a founding board member of the Development Corporation.

In her law practice, Atty. Morgan emphasizes service to children and families, incorporating mediation as a tool. She received mediation training from The Center for Mediation in Law at Columbia University, The Dispute Settlement Center, Inc., in Norwalk and from the State of Connecticut's Child Protection Session of the State's juvenile court system. In addition to providing private dispute mediation, she currently is a volunteer mediator for the Dispute Settlement Center, Inc. providing dispute resolution to the community.

She also serves on the board of the Child Guidance Center of Greater Bridgeport, Inc., and is a member of the Greater Bridgeport Bar Association, Connecticut's Juvenile Matters Trial Lawyers Association. Inc., and the National Association of Counsel for Children.

Dr. Elizabeth Gardner, who received the University Community Vision Award, has been a member of the Psychology Department at Fairfield for 33 years. She currently teaches "Cognitive Psychology," "Sensation & Perception," and "Seminar on Aging." She also co-teaches "Homelessness: Causes & Consequences" in the Program in Peace and Justice Studies.

Over the years Dr. Gardner has expanded her scholarship from laboratory psychology to include research on teaching and participation in the Campus Ministry Mission Volunteer program. ,She has co-led student trips to Duran, Ecuador for the past 12 years. In 2000-01 she did a year-long sabbatical leave project in Duran, working with day-care center teachers to promote family literacy.

Over the past several years Dr. Gardner's interests have increasingly focused on multiculturalism and social justice. During the past several summers she has studied in week-long seminars at New York University on Latino Studies Across the Curriculum and Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice. She now co-teaches a course on "Cognition, Race, Culture and Identity" with Larri Mazon, director of Multicultural Relations at Fairfield.

The Earl W. and Hildagund A. Brinkman Private Charitable Foundation has awarded Dr. Gardner a grant for diversity education in psychology, which will be used to develop a senior seminar course, also to be co-taught with Mr. Mazon, tentatively titled "Psychology of Race and Ethnicity."

Katherine Canner-O'Mealy, a major is sociology with a minor in religious studies, received a Student Vision Award. Katherine traveled with other Fairfield students to protest the School of the Americas her junior year. She returned and helped start the Students for Social Justice Group on campus. She is a member of the Hunger Clean-Up board at Fairfield, part of a nation-wide university effort to address the problems of homelessness. She has applied for a year of post-graduate service work, to be followed by studies toward a Master's Degree in Social Work.

Orlena Cowan, a major in communications with a minor in marketing, received a Student Vision Award. Orlena is Vice President of UMOJA, Cultural Director of the Fairfield University Student Association, Marketing Club CMO, AHANA Currents Editor, and a member of the Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Committee. In addition, Orlena is an active member of the Center for Multicultural Relations where she has demonstrated great leadership and passion in issues of diversity. She has been an INROADS intern at Fleet, now Bank of America, for the past four years and recently finished an internship at a public relations firm in Westport. Orlena is currently seeking post-graduation career opportunities within the marketing communications field and exploring ideas for entrepreneurship in the future.

Posted On: 02-02-2005 10:02 AM

Volume: 37 Number: 153