Director:  Robin F. Bachin, Ph.D., Assistant Provost for Civic & Community Engagement
Email: rbachin@miami.edu
Telephone: (305) 284-4261
Office: 606 Ashe Administration Building

Robin Bachin received her B.A. from Brandeis University and her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Michigan. Her areas of research and teaching include American urban, environmental, immigration, and cultural history. Her award-winning first book, Building the South Side: Urban Space and Civic Culture in Chicago, 1890-1919, was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2004 (paperback 2008). Her current book project is Tropical Urbanism: Modernity, Exoticism, and the Creation of South Florida, 1890-1965. Bachin also has published numerous articles and delivered scholarly presentations on topics including universities and community engagement; urban planning and public space; sustainability and urban design; and the intersections of urban and environmental history. She is the Past President of the Society for American City and Regional Planning History, and has served on the Boards of Directors
of the Urban History Association, the Miami Consortium for Urban Studies, the Coral Gables Museum, and the Urban Environment League of Greater Miami.

Associate Director:  Michael Powe, Ph.D.
Email: m.powe@miami.edu
Telephone: (305) 284-6626
Office: 606 Ashe Administration Building

Michael Powe came to Miami from the University of California, Irvine’s Community Outreach Partnership Center, where he worked on program planning, evaluation, and management of the Community Scholars Program. He received his Ph.D. from UC Irvine’s Department of Planning, Policy and Design in 2010 and focused his dissertation research on the politics and contradictions of planning in a distressed urban neighborhood, Los Angeles’s Skid Row. From 2010 to 2011 Mike served as the John E. Sawyer Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Washington, where he organized and managed a seminar series entitled “Now Urbanism: City-Making in the 21st Century and Beyond.” He has received several grants and awards, including a grant from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Alma H. Young Emerging Scholar Award from the Urban Affairs Association. In addition to his scholarship on urban planning, Mike has published articles and book chapters on topics including graduate education and engaged learning, as well as immigration laws and their impact on Latino communities.

AmeriCorps*VISTA: Lee Bloch
Email: lee.bloch@miami.edu
Telephone: (305) 284-6635
Office: 34P Pentland

Lee Bloch graduated from New College of Florida in May 2011 with a concentration in anthropology and gender studies.  At New College, he became interested in the relationships between community-based research, heritage studies, and social justice. He participated in a collaborative survey of the historically African-American Galilee Cemetery in Sarasota in order to produce accurate records that would help preserve the site and showcase its historic importance within the local community. For his senior thesis, Lee developed a collaborative archaeological project with a descendent Muskogee community to re-interpret the Lake Jackson Mounds Archaeological State Park in Tallahassee. Lee has volunteered for Children First in Sarasota and Oakhurst Community Gardens in Atlanta, and organized student involvement in the founding of Oakhurst Neighborhood Farm. He hopes to eventually return to school and continue research in collaborative archaeology in North Florida.

AmeriCorps*VISTA: Ashley Arostegui
Email: a.arostegui@miami.edu
Telephone: (305) 284-6636
Office: 34P Pentland

A Miami native, Ashley’s background is in film theory and production.  She holds BA degrees in English and History from Florida International University, and recently completed her MA in Media Studies at The New School in New York City.  Since graduating from the New School, she has worked on a number of Miami-based arts projects that have further cemented her commitment to non-profits, the arts, and education. At the Miami World Cinema Center, she taught at-risk students about film, providing them with hands-on experience and instruction in video journalism, interviewing, oral history, cinematography, and editing. Ashley also helped organize the 2011 Borscht Film Festival, a sold-out event that premiered to over 2,000 people at the Adrienne Arsht Center. Ashley is serving a year with AmeriCorps to learn more about the not for profit world and hopes to work in the future with education and food and agriculture policy.

AmeriCorps Public Ally: Mara D’Amico
Email: m.damico2@miami.edu
Telephone: (305) 284-6626
Office: 34P Pentland

Originally from Michigan, Mara relocated to Miami upon graduation from Central Michigan University in 2010 with a Bachelor of Science in International Business and Spanish. During her undergraduate career, Mara was engaged in an array of service and leadership activities, including Alternative Breaks, the Organization of Women Leaders, Residence Life, The Vagina Monologues, and the Michigan Service Scholars Program. Mara served this past year as an AmeriCorps*VISTA with the Center for Community Involvement at Miami Dade College. In this capacity, she worked to connect students and faculty with local community partners, and coordinated all service-learning and civic engagement activities at the Hialeah and West Campuses.  Mara is currently serving a term as an AmeriCorps Public Ally in order to gain more experience with civic engagement before attending graduate school for Nonprofit Management. She enjoys reading, baking, volunteering, dancing salsa, exploring South Florida, and spending quality time with quality friends.

M.S.Ed. Program Practicum Student: Mariel Butan
Email: m.butan@umiami.edu
Telephone: (305) 284-1046
Office: 34P Pentland

A Cane for life, Mariel Butan received her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Miami in 2009 after double majoring in Psychology and Motion Pictures, and she is now in her second year of the Master’s program in Higher Education Administration. Over the years, Mariel has become very involved on campus, serving as the Treasurer of the Graduate Student Association, a representative to the Board of Trustees Academic Affairs Committee, and a member of the Graduate Activity Fee Allocation Committee, and she enjoys being an advocate for all graduate students. As a practicum student in the Office of Civic and Community Engagement, Mariel has had the opportunity to connect her passion for service with her training as a college administrator, and she has spent the semester learning more about how to leverage university resources to meet community need. She hopes to eventually pursue a Ph.D. in Psychology and continue promoting an engaged culture among college students.