Alex Farmer
Alex Farmer (center) learns she has been selected as a Newman Civic Fellow
Alex Farmer wasn’t sure what she wanted to do after high school.
So, she moved to Alaska and pursued working in the gritty, grimy,
male-dominated fishing industry. After that, still seeking clarity and growth
in life, she moved to Nepal. During her travels, she “witnessed a culture other
than my own that had their own set of social challenges, which were different
than my own that I had never witnessed nor heard of.” Before coming back to the
Utah and enrolling at Salt Lake Community College, she figured out that she was
passionate about working with local communities and their environmental
challenges.
At SLCC, she learned about the Thayne Center for Service and
Learning, which connects students with volunteer opportunities at the college
and throughout the community. Over the past few years, she has run the SLCC Bruin
Food Pantry, which provides low-income SLCC students with free food. She helped
organize the largest Earth Day festival in SLCC’s history. She successfully
wrote a proposal that established bicycle repair stations at SLCC’s two largest
campuses. She helped start an on-campus community garden. And more recently the
geospatial technology student, on a path to graduate in 2018, was working with
the school’s Environmental Club on a school-wide composting system.
“Alex has had a varied life already at a young age and has
taken many opportunities to learn about herself, stretch her thinking and
experience and lead others to do the same,” SLCC President Deneece G. Huftalin
wrote in her nomination letter to the Newman Civic Fellow Selection Committee.
Farmer, already recognized as a Student Leader in Civic Engagement at SLCC, was
presented with the Newman honor at a Thayne Center event honoring civically
engaged scholars.
Alex Farmer (right) presents a gift she made to SLCC President Deneece G. Huftalin.
The fellowships are part of the nonprofit Campus Compact, a
national coalition of more than 1,000 colleges and universities “committed to
the public purposes of higher education,” which includes building democracy
“through civic education and community development.” The fellowship is named
after Campus Compact founder Frank Newman and provides training and resources
that “nurture students’ assets and passions to help them develop strategies to
achieve social change.” As a fellow, Farmer will become part of a national
network of engaged student leaders “who can support one another in building
transformational partnerships between campuses and communities.”
A bio of Farmer on the Campus Compact page that highlights
her achievement reads in part, “Her commitment to social justice is realized in
her interactions with peers and partner agencies.”
Circa Nov., 2015 on the Taylorsville Redwood Campus