Robin Bradford, Foundation Communities

Robin Bradford is the director of development and communications for Foundation Communities, Austin’s largest provider of affordable housing and supportive services. Robin is responsible for fundraising and public outreach for the organization, raising $1.5 million annually from foundations, corporations, and individuals. She is also a short story writer and essayist whose honors include an O. Henry Award and a Dobie Paisano Fellowship for Texas writers.

During her Community Sabbatical Research leave, Robin will focus on a book in progress about the complex relationship between social workers and the families they serve, especially the cognitive, emotional, and spiritual challenges of the social worker's continuing labor and hope for change in the face of overwhelming need and suffering. Her faculty consultants will be Dr. Margaret (Peg) Syverson of the Department of Rhetoric and Writing in the College of Liberal Arts and Dr. Holly Bell from the School of Social Work. Dr. Syverson is also an ordained Soto Zen priest who will provide expertise on Buddhist studies. Dr. Bell has recently done research on social workers’ views on their own spirituality.

Stephanie Jarvis, French Legation Museum

Stephanie Jarvis is the new Director at the French Legation Museum. In December 2005 she received an M.A, from the Public History Program at Texas State University – San Marcos. Before joining the staff of the French Legation Museum in August 2006, she worked as a Researcher/Interpreter at the Barrington Living History Farm at Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site near Brenham, Texas. Although her current research centers mostly on materials relevant to program development at the French Legation Museum, she is always eager to broaden her studies with as much Austin and Texas history as possible.

She is especially excited about the project planned for her Community Sabbatical Research Leave, which will focus on the African American presence on Robertson Hill (the site on which the French Legation sits). The information gained will revitalize the Museum, connect the content of its tours more closely to its surrounding community, and make its interpretation of the site it occupies more inclusive of all of the historical inhabitants of Robertson Hill. Her faculty consultants will be Dr. Shirley Thompson from the Department of American Studies and Dr. Martha Norkunas from the Department of Anthropology. Dr. Thompson’s own work explores African American passages from property to property ownership. Dr. Norkunas is currently trying to launch a project on the meaning of slavery in Austin which would involve documentation of the enslaved people here, identification of sites associated with slavery, archaeology, and national register nominations.

Brian Radley, Breakthrough Austin

Brian Radley is the Director of Middle School Programs at Breakthrough Austin, an educational non-profit that builds a path to college for students who will be first-generation college graduates. Starting in sixth grade and continuing through college entrance, Breakthrough provides rigorous academic summer sessions at the University of Texas, school-year support and advocacy, and college prep programming to 250 low-income, AISD students who have a dream of going to college. Research shows that low-income students are seven times less likely to attend college than their higher-income peers, and first-generation college students must overcome countless challenges on their path to college. An additional layer of challenges faces such students when they are children of undocumented immigrants.

Brian will use his research leave to study the systemic, financial, and social-emotional barriers that undocumented immigrant students face in pursuing their college goals. Collaborating with UT faculty, Dr. Barbara Hines from the School of Law, and local and national partner organizations, he will investigate tools and strategies that Breakthrough—and other 501c3’s—can use to counsel, support, and advocate for Breakthrough’s undocumented student population. Dr. Hines is the director of the immigration clinic at the School of Law. She is Board Certified in Immigration and Nationality Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. She has litigated many issues relating to the constitutional and statutory rights of immigrants in federal and immigration courts. Brian hopes to publish and share his findings with other programs in Austin, and Breakthrough’s National Collaborative.