Mary Campbell has been named the 2015 recipient of the Grabill-Homan Community Peace Prize from the Illinois State University Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies Program. The award recognizes individuals in Bloomington-Normal for achievements in peacemaking, leadership, initiative, activism, and inspiration within the community.
Campbell is an Illinois State University social work professor emerita with more than 30 years of teaching experience. Throughout her teaching career she has worked to expose students to real world issues of poverty, homelessness, and social injustice. In addition to addressing those issues in the classroom, Campbell has led students on community service-learning projects and alternative spring break trips to provide support for homeless shelters in Chicago, impoverished areas of Appalachia, and hurricane-ravaged neighborhoods in New Orleans. Through those experiences, Campbell has helped her students to see others within their larger social contexts.
Campbell is a co-founder and co-director of the board of Labyrinth Outreach Services to Women, which provides direct counseling services to women released from jail or prison. Labyrinth assists women in securing housing, medical, education, job training, and family support services. Campbell is active in the Friends Forever organization that promotes cultural understanding by bringing together Muslim and Jewish youth from Israel. She is also involved in a number of environmental projects, has helped to establish the M.J. Rhymer Nature Preserve, and is a regular volunteer at the Sugar Grove Nature Center.
The Grabill-Homan Community Peace Prize is named for Joseph L. Grabill and Gerlof D. Homan, Illinois State emeritus professors of history, who helped to establish the University’s interdisciplinary Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies Program. The prize includes a plaque and a monetary donation to an established scholarship or program at Illinois State chosen by the recipient.
For more information, contact Dawn Beichner, co-director of Illinois State’s Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies program, at (309) 438-8278.
