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Redbird Impact Expungement_COVER2_NEWs
Professor Thomas McClure and his students are giving people with criminal records a new lease on life through the Expungement Clinic.

Volume 4 • Number 2 • Fall 2021

Thomas McClure, director of legal studies and professor in the Department of Politics and Government, created Illinois State's new Expungement Clinic. Kelly Larkin (left), a senior legal studies major and psychology minor, and Haley Schnapp, a criminal justice sciences major and legal studies minor, reviewed cases for the clinic last academic year.

ISU Expungement Clinic is giving people with criminal records a second chance

Last academic year, Kelly Larkin received a crash course in the moral complexities of being a lawyer through Illinois State University’s new Expungement Clinic.

Nazi concentration camp in Germany. Wall surrounded Sachsenhausen Camp

Confronting evil: Social justice trip at Holocaust sites inspires Redbirds to speak out and make a difference

Dr. Jacqueline Schneider and Dr. Susan Woollen’s partnership has given Illinois State students the opportunity to see just how important it is to look out for others.

Portrait of Nastasha Powers outside of YWCA building

‘Grab the wheel and take control’: Student’s message for survivors

Nastasha Powers ’19 has a passion for the work she does on behalf of survivors of sexual abuse and trauma.

Portrait headshot of Dr. Becky Beucher

Campus hero: Dr. Becky Beucher

In each issue Redbird Impact highlights an Illinois State faculty or staff member who exemplifies the University’s core value of civic engagement. The fall 2021 Campus Hero is Dr. Becky Beucher, an assistant professor of secondary literacy education in the College of Education.

Horticulture students with Professor Kopsell

Planting seeds of civic engagement: Horticulture students gain valuable skills through service learning

Dr. David Kopsell knows his horticulture students learn best when they engage with the class content and get their hands dirty.

Lonely chair in empty school room draped in a single beam of sunglight

Out of seclusion: Special Education faculty teach schools how to avoid the use of isolation rooms and restraints

Nikki Michalak and Dr. Stacy Jones-Bock look to alternatives to the practice of seclusion in classrooms.

Victor Ventura (right), William Restis, and Anna Raymond use electric drills to attach the sheets of tin-roof to the house as Tri-Cities Home Repair grant compliance coordinator Caroline Nowak (far left) keeps the sheet lined up with the previous panel.

Students reach new heights on Alternative Break service trips

Thirty Illinois State students and trip leaders traveled to five different locations in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Michigan to serve communities in need May 9-15 for Illinois State’s annual Alternative Spring Break (ASB) service trips.

A student poses in a commercial kitchen with packaged food

ISU Food Recovery Network receives national recognition

Redbirds in ISU’s Food Recovery Network were recognized by the national organization as “Top Food Recover-er” for 2020, logging more food recoveries than 99 percent of the FRN chapters in the country.