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Redbird Impact spring 2025 issue cover, photo of the Edmund Pettus bridge.

The Social Justice Issue: Redbirds walk the path of the Civil Rights Movement.

Volume 8 • Number 1 • Spring 2025

A group of farmers and their families took a break from a busy harvest season on a Saturday afternoon last fall to meet in an outbuilding at a farm in Loda. Nestled between the cornfields of Central Illinois, the gathered farmers compared crop yields and speculated about the weather forecast between bites of pulled pork sandwiches and macaroni and cheese. It was an unlikely setting for a mobile health care clinic.

Hear to there

Dr. Antony Joseph, a professor in Illinois State’s Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD), was there that day. A United States Navy veteran, he was an audiologist in the service. In Japan, he flew on single-engine airplanes and traveled on the shinkansen bullet train to reach rural communities not all that different from the one in rural Loda.

Dr. Byron Craig, Illinois State University’s interim chief equity and inclusion officer, speaks with students in the Bone Student Center.

Let’s talk

The youngest of nine brothers and sisters, Dr. Byron Craig grasped the art of constructive conversations within his family’s home in Northern Ohio. Civil discourse, modeled by their parents, became ingrained in the way Craig and his siblings interacted. “My mother was a Democrat, my father was a Republican, and every Saturday morning, they talked

The spring 2025 Campus Hero is Dr. Noha Shawki, professor in the Department of Politics and Government.

Campus hero: Noha Shawki

Shawki grew up in Cairo, Egypt, and was educated in Europe and at Indiana University where she earned her Ph.D. in political science. She was teaching in Minnesota when she got the offer to come to Illinois State. She’s happily been a member of the Redbird community since August of 2007.

Bridging generations

Illinois State University students visited historical sites from the Civil Rights Movement over the course of a week during the Alternative Spring Break trip to Selma, Alabama.

Illinois State House and Capitol Building in Springfield, IL

Educators flock to the capitol for Redbird Advocacy Day

On May 1st, 2024, a number of Illinois State students visited the Capitol in Springfield to meet with legislators and discuss the needs of young educators across the state. SED student ambassadors Bella Chlada and Logan Hall were among those who attended and shared their experience during Advocacy Day.

Conceptual image of two people conversing.

Deliberative dialogues revisited

After five years in existence, one of the co-founders of an important program designed to help people navigate discussions surrounding controversial topics saw it as the right time for a research project to measure its effectiveness.

First graduate of Master of Public Health Program reflects on academic journey and global health initiatives

Mahalia Jackson ’23, M.P.H. ’24, made history this summer by becoming the first graduate of Illinois State University’s new Master of Public Health (M.P.H.) program