Innovative Virtual Conference Creates Solutions Collaboratively

Highland Heights, KY. – April 13, 2020– On February 07, 2020 from 12 to 4 pm, the Greater Cincinnati Service Learning Network (GCSLN), in coordination with Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio Campus Compacts, hosted a virtual conference on homelessness. The conference, titled Hacking Housing Insecurity: One Movie, Five Ideas, Infinite Conversations was inspired by Emilio Estevez’s 2018 drama “The Public.” Participants to the conference heard stories from five presenters highlighting their unique perspectives on the topic of housing insecurity. Following the presentations, each participating campus then hosted a campus dialogue to identify new strategies on how our colleges and universities can work to end substandard housing in Greater Cincinnati and beyond.

The five speakers all shared their ideas on how to ease housing insecurity in the region and beyond. These speakers were Liz Blume, Director of the Community Building Institute at Xavier University, Roxana Hawkins, Assistant Professor of Social Work at Mount St. Joseph University Kaitlyn Frick, undergraduate student at the University of Kentucky and Newman Civic Fellow, Yolanda Hamza, social work student at Mount St. Joseph University, and Leila Kubesh, Norwood Middle School teacher. These presentations can all be found on the KyCC Recruiter YouTube channel. Participants included faculty, staff, community partners, students, and national service members

KyCC and our partners are proud of this innovative conference that was hosted on 12 campuses across four states and three regions with public, private, and community & technical institutions represented. This is particularly timely in the age of the novel coronavirus. KyCC is happy to support partners in their efforts to bring engagement online.

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About Kentucky Campus Compact: Kentucky Campus Compact (KyCC) is a statewide coalition of Kentucky college and university presidents and their institutions, both public and private, committed to college access, college success, and community impact. KyCC was created in 2005 and opened its doors for operation in January 2006. KyCC is a chapter of the national Campus Compact organization, which boasts over 1,000 members since its founding in 1985. KyCC is housed on the campus of Northern Kentucky University. NKU is the fiscal agent for KyCC and serves as its fiscal agent and engagement partner.  provides facilities, payroll, accounting, grants, human resource and IT services.  visit www.kycompact.org.

About GCSLN   Convened in 2011 by regional leaders at Skyward and Agenda 360, the Greater Cincinnati Service Learning Network includes representatives from post-secondary institutions, K—12 school districts, nonprofit organizations, and foundations. This consortium of educators, community partners, civic leaders, and nonprofit organizations offers consultation, provides resources, hosts events and more as a means of support in the service-learning community