Celebrating 30 Years of the Shaw Center as a Hub for Academic Community Engagement

Community engagement. Reciprocal learning. Service to others through volunteering.

Those were the principles behind the creation of the Mary Ann Shaw Center for Public and Community Service in 1994 under the direction of then-Syracuse University Chancellor Kenneth Shaw and his wife, Mary Ann, who also served as the associate of the Chancellor.

The Shaw Center represented Kenneth and Mary Ann’s promise to the University and Central New York community that student learning would hold the highest priority on campus, promoting volunteer service as a fundamental component of the student experience.

For 30 years, the Shaw Center has proudly served as the University’s hub for academic community engagement. By giving back to nonprofits and organizations around Syracuse through service learning and volunteering, the campus community engages in the high impact practice of experiential learning.

When senior Claire Ceccoli ’25 learned that there were children who didn’t have a bed to sleep on at night, she chaired the annual bed-building project that benefits the local chapter of Sleep in Heavenly Peace. Through efforts she spearheaded the last two years, 132 beds have been built and donated to children in need.

“We want to help the community, and we’re also learning from them. It’s a two-way street, doing this work with that reciprocal learning mindset,” says Claire Ceccoli ’25, a Shaw Center leadership intern who is studying public relations in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Derek Wallace ’00 was in the first group of Syracuse University Literacy Corps tutors in the Syracuse City School District during the summer before his sophomore year. He eventually took over as Literacy Corps student manager, planting the managerial and entrepreneurial skills that inspired him to become CEO of Golden Fork Media and founder of the children’s book series and brand, “Kalamata’s Kitchen,” a multimedia property that uses the power of food to help children get excited to experience all that their world has to offer them.

“It’s hard to imagine what I would be doing or where I would be if I wasn’t given those opportunities to do well, do good and create change in the community under the mentorship of [Shaw Center Associate Vice President and Director] Pam Heintz,” says Wallace, who earned dual degrees in policy studies from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and public relations from the Newhouse School.

On April 21, the 30th anniversary of the Shaw Center will be celebrated and ahead of the event, Wallace and Ceccoli discuss how their involvement with the Shaw Center transformed them into leaders in their communities.