Team of two

Stephanie Selvick: Project Leader

bio coming soon...

Sydney Owens: Pedagogical Leader

Sydney is an English Ph.D. student / lecturer at the University of Miami focusing on African and Caribbean literature. She currently teaches composition, with a focus on Caribbean visual art and culture. Sydney has taught at the high school and secondary school levels in both rural and inner-city environments (Zuni reservation in Gallup New Mexico and the Dallas Independent School District). She has worked extensively with children as a day camp counselor at Albuquerque Academy, a sports camp coach, and a childcare provider. Sydney strongly believes in the power of optimistic expectations, and feels that every student, regardless of age or life circumstance, can become an actively involved learner. Her pedagogic mantra is: be open, flexible, and daring.

Prior to her doctoral work, Sydney earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and English from Southern Methodist University. She worked as a Clinical Research Specialist at the SMU Family Research Center on two longitudinal studies: The Family Project and Safe Start Project Support. The former was sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health and included over 650 families with school-aged children in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. It was designed to better understand how a family’s interactions and conflict can affect children’s adjustments. The latter was a longitudinal intervention study funded by the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. The overarching objective of this research was to assist families characterized by domestic violence and to reduce the harmful affects of children’s exposure to such violence. During this study, Sydney was responsible for locating accessible, affordable, and sustainable community resources/services ranging from transportation, shelters, food drives, clothing drives, treatment centers, healthcare, and employment opportunities.