Community Action and Social Change Commencement 2022

Graduation Program

Friday, April 29

• Check-in
  10:30 - 11:30 AM
  School of Social Work Building – lower level, Atrium
• Land Acknowledgement
  11:30 - 11:35 AM
  Professor Abigail Eiler, Interim Director of CASC
• Welcome
  11:35 - 11:40 AM
  Professor Abigail Eiler, Interim Director of CASC
• Alumni Keynote Speech
  11:40 - 11:50 AM
  Brandon Bond, MSW/MPH Student
• CASC Poem
  11:50 - 11:55 AM
  Micaiah Webb, CASC Student
• CASC Graduate Procession
  11:55 AM - 12:20 PM
  Professors Justin Hodge, Trevor Bechtel, Katie Richards-Schuster, & Joe Galura
• Graduation declaration
  12:20 - 12:25 PM
  Dean Joseph Himle, School of Social Work
• Closing & Reception Invitation
  12:20 - 12:30
  Diana Seales, Asst. Director, CASC and Alison Albrecht, CASC Student
• CASC Graduate Reception
  12:30 - 1:00 PM
  1st Floor ECC room 1840 & Outside Courtyard Seating

Student Performers

Micaiah Webb

Micaiah Webb is from Oak Park Michigan. She is graduating with a Bachelors of Arts in psychology with a minor in Community Action and Social Change. Micaiah has been involved in the Black Student Union, Curl Talk at Umich, and several other student organizations. Next year Micaiah will continue her education at the University of Michigan School of Social Work. Micaiah plans to utilize her academic achievement and community involvement to become a clinical therapist in the future.

Alison Albrecht

Alison Albrecht is a graduating senior earning a bachelors of science degree in biopsychology, cognition, and neuroscience with minors in community action & social change and performing arts management & entrepreneurship. Alison intends to combine music and social work in her future career path, using songs to promote healing and empower underserved individuals. At CASC graduation she will be performing an original song from her SW 401 final project titled, “Cross the Line”. She would like to thank all of her CASC professors and mentors, in addition to her family for making her University of Michigan education possible.

Keynote Speaker

Brandon Bond

Brandon Bond is a first-generation graduate student at the University of Michigan (UM) pursuing an MPH in Health Behavior Health Education with an Injury Science Certificate and an MSW in Global Social Work Practice and Management & Leadership with an Anti-Racist Trauma-Informed Care Certificate. His interest in these degrees stems from his desire to create and enhance culturally sensitive and sustainable health programming and policies. As an undergrad at UM, he double majored in Biopsychology, Cognition, Neuroscience, and International Studies: Global Environment & Health with a minor in Community Action Social Change. His diverse educational background equipped him with the knowledge and skills to think critically, develop feasible action steps, and facilitate partnerships to enact change.

As an undergrad, Bond engaged in several experiential learning opportunities including volunteering for LGBT Detroit and the Ruth Ellis Center to do LGBTQ+ Awareness work; performing ethnographic research on the LGBTQ+ community in London; working with a Deaf Commission on an advocacy campaign for the Deaf community in Mexico; working as a Psychiatric Intern at the Clínica de Salud Mental in Madrid; working on social justice initiatives through the performing arts as an intern at a law school in Brazil; and an LGBTQ+ Mental Health Needs Assessment in Zambia. He used these opportunities to prepare him for his graduate internships. One of which was interning at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the Violence Prevention Division on their Global Violence against Children and Youth project. Bond also interned at UM’s University Health Services as a Public Mental Health Intern where he focused on health disparities and equity. While interning in both positions he also served as a Graduate Student Instructor in the HONORS department where he crafted lesson plans and taught a First-Year Writing course on Wellness. He currently serves as a Social Work Intern in the National Network for Arab American Communities at the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS). As an intern, he performs health and education policy analysis and works with their Infectious Disease Program on harm reduction grants and HIV programming.

Despite starting graduate school in a pandemic, Bond continues to maximize his time and the resources provided to him. From his first semester in his program, he was trained in Motivational Interviewing and Wellness Coaching. As a Wellness Coach, he has provided mental health coaching for students, facilitated a wellness group for students of African descent, and as a Program Intervention Facilitation Coordinator of the Young Black Men (YBMen) mental health project. Bond’s current and previous leadership also led to his participation in the 2022 UM Presidential Search Committee and the 2021 Advancing Public Safety at the University of Michigan Task Force where he composed recommendations for public safety reform concerning human resources protocols, hiring procedures, and training. Additionally, he serves on the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) committee for his department. Through this, he was recruited to serve on the department’s recruitment task force to get more underrepresented students into the department and provide action steps to ensure their needs are supported. Bond is also currently partnering with campus colleagues on conducting a Collective Needs Assessment on 2SLGBTQ+ Graduate Student Holistic Wellness, Safety, and Inclusion. Throughout all this work Bond has maintained a 4.0 GPA while working a part-time job.

Bond’s commitment and actions serving the public allowed him to earn a DEI Impact Award from the School of Social Work and the Eugene Feingold Diversity Award from the School of Public Health both within his first year of graduate school. Additionally, in this second year, he's earned the 2022 George Orley Student Mental Health Advocate Award, the 2022 Michigan Difference Student Leadership Graduate Student of the Year and Wellness Award, and through the School of Public Health the Outstanding Event of the Year Award for a discussion he facilitated on being of African descent in the public health field with the SPH Dean and finally Organization of the Year Award for the Public Health Student Assembly of which he served as President.

Bond plans to obtain his DrPH in Leadership in Global Health and Humanitarian Systems and pursue a career in global mental health. He hopes the skills he develops from this degree will aid him in his desire to reimagine organizations and policies to prioritize taking a humanitarian, equitable, and culturally inclusive approach. He credits his love and desire to approach social justice issues from a diverse and interdisciplinary lens to his time in CASC.