Livia Karoui, C’20, has been named a recipient of the 2019 Newman Civic Fellows Award, which recognizes students who are change-makers and problem-solvers.
Livia Karoui, C’20, has been named a recipient of the 2019 Newman Civic Fellows Award. The award is presented by Campus Compact, a Boston-based nonprofit organization working to advance the public purposes of higher education. It recognizes students who are change-makers and public problem-solvers at Campus Compact member schools. Karoui was nominated by Vice-Chancellor John McCardell.
Karoui, a political science major and history minor, is also pursuing a certificate in Civic and Global Leadership. She has worked in various ways, on and off campus, to learn about and address issues of food insecurity. “Growing up in Italy, I learned that eating is not just a physical need: it is a social activity,” said Karoui. “Eating ties people together into a community, and it is shaped by political, economic, and cultural factors.”
She spent a semester abroad in Ghana, interning for a USAID food security program. There she learned that increasing access to adequate nutrition can foster the economic and social wellbeing of individuals and their communities. Back at Sewanee, Karoui continued to study nutrition science, and designed a community engagement project illustrating the importance of food security from a local perspective. And she organized an Oxfam Hunger Banquet to help students, faculty, and staff understand the food inequality that exists in the world.
“Livia is an emerging scholar-leader with an academically grounded, passionate commitment to tackling the complex issue of food insecurity both domestically and internationally,” said McCardell. “She has continued to pursue the political, economic, and cultural dimensions of food security through academic coursework, a co-curricular internship in community philanthropy, and by supporting the work of the largest food bank in our community.”
Through the Newman Civic Fellowship, Campus Compact provides students with training and resources that nurture their assets and passions and help them develop strategies for social change. This year’s fellows are 262 community-committed students representing colleges and universities from 41 states, Washington, D.C., Mexico, and Greece.
