Alexis Doyle wins 2017 Indiana Campus Compact Wood Student Award

Notre Dame senior Alexis Doyle has been awarded the Richard J. Wood Student Community Commitment Award by Indiana Campus Compact, a partnership of higher education institutions that advances the public purpose of colleges and universities by deepening their ability to improve community life and to educate students for civic and social responsibility.

The Wood Award was created in 1996 to honor Dr. Richard J. Wood who served as the founding chairperson of Indiana Campus Compact and President's Board from 1992 until 1996. It is given annually to students from Indiana Campus Compact member campuses who have demonstrated an outstanding commitment to community engagement.

Connie Snyder Mick, director of community-based learning at the Center for Social Concerns, wrote in support of Doyle's application for the award that "from South Bend to Guatemala, Ms. Doyle has practiced what we preach in community engagement pedagogy: listening to community partners to find a match between their needs and her gifts, considering sustainability and local control of projects, analyzing the system to contextualize a social concern, and so much more." 

In recognition of Doyle's award, Indiana Campus Compact issued the following statement:

"Alexis Doyle is a senior at the University of Notre Dame where she will graduate this May with a degree in Biology and Peace Studies. That combination of majors is reflective of Alexis’s blend of intellect and compassion. She will use both as she pursues formal studies in public health and public policy. She says, `Pursuing this education will allow me to be a doctor who uses her expertise in medicine to contribute to conversations taking place out of hospitals and that deeply affect the health of the underserved and marginalized.' Alexis has a clear calling to be a doctor who works outside the exam room.

Alexis’s interconnectedness of her studies, her community and global engagement, and her sense of vocation are remarkable. She is being educated to impact health solutions at the personal, local, and policy level. As further evidence of the caliber of student she is, Alexis was recently named a Rhodes Scholar.

She is a strong leader with a deep commitment to service and those she serves. She sees the cyclical nature of the health issues facing the people with whom she works and she is fully prepared to find the cyclical solutions. Her dedication and foresight combined with her social entrepreneurship and wide-ranging educational plans are the kind of tools that will make an enormous and positive impact on her community--wherever that may be."

Contact: JP Shortall, jshortal@nd.edu