Jasmin Bioteau attended her first University of Delaware classes virtually from home. Since then, Bioteau has built houses in Georgetown, Delaware, tutored elementary school students in reading in Baltimore, and helped farmers and restored rainforest in Puerto Rico.

Bioteau, a senior honors chemistry and Spanish double major from Glenside, Pennsylvania, is one of 21 Community Engagement Scholars who graduated this month. 

“Being a Community Engagement Scholar means putting service in the forefront of your mind,” she said. “It teaches you how to integrate service into your everyday actions and into what you want to do in your lifetime.”

The class of 2025 is just the fourth graduating class of Community Engagement Scholars, a program that has provided thousands of service hours to community organizations since its inception. 

Those hours of service are a valuable resource to local partners and a hands-on opportunity for students to create positive change.

“Regardless of their discipline, Community Engagement Scholars have the uniting experience of engaging and partnering with communities to address real world problems, challenges, issues and opportunities, and learning to do so with humanity, grace, and humility,” said Michael Vaughan, chief community engagement officer in the Office of the Provost and faculty director of the Community Engagement Initiative (CEI) which administers the scholars program.

Community Engagement Scholars are required to complete 160 hours of community service, including an immersion experience, which many scholars use as a way to explore new perspectives on their area of academic interest. 

“Empathy and compassion can’t be taught, but can be nurtured,” said CEI Associate Director Leann Moore, who oversees the three- to four-year course of study. “Through academic inquiry, authentic community partnership and reflection, we prepare students for lives as empathic, engaged citizens.” 

Avery Wolverton, a hometown honors biomedical engineering major with a minor in chemistry, enrolled in a local EMT certificate course as a practice run for her plans to become a doctor. 

“I absolutely love working with my patients,” she said. “These people might be having one of the worst days of their life, but I'm there to walk them through it and get them to the hospital and take care of them. I am honored to be entrusted with people's health.”

To date, Wolverton has logged more than 1,800 hours of field experience as an EMT.

“Avery’s passion for patient care is one of the best I have seen in my career,” said Chris King, the fire company’s Career Services EMS Lieutenant. “She has done so well that we asked her to help us round out training for some of our newer EMT trainees.”

Wolverton also spent the summer of 2024 at Nemours Children’s Hospital as an undergraduate summer scholar working in the Cancer Modeling Lab. 

That experience led her to her senior thesis, which explores how nanoparticles can be used to incite the body’s immune system to destroy cancerous cells in acute myeloid leukemia, a fast-growing bone cancer. 

Maggie Johnson, an honors double major in psychology and human services, has been interning at a dialectical behavior therapy practice in Wilmington, Delaware, where she co-leads a skills group among other responsibilities. 

“My major is pretty conducive to community work and volunteership,” she said. “The direct practice work and hands-on experience I've gotten is the most impactful piece of the puzzle. It changes your outlook on the world.”

Service near and far

Scholars also contribute to the University community through student organizations and on-campus opportunities, and translate their altruism into global engagement.

As a peer educator with Sexual Health and Relationships Educators (SHARE) and Support of Survivors (SOS), Johnson advocates for healthy relationships and interpersonal violence prevention.

As the Puerto Rico site leader for UD Alternative Breaks (UDAB), Bioteau has been responsible for preparing program participants for the trip, specifically the culture and politics of the U.S. territory.

“Jasmin is a devoted leader who pours her time and energy into helping others,” said Amelia Carte, assistant director for Alternative Breaks in the Creative Leadership, Innovation and Service office. “As a UDAB Site Leader, she exemplified her values of amplifying the voices of underserved communities while creating meaningful experiences and learning opportunities for her participants."

Last summer, Bioteau interned at the French National Center for Scientific Research’s Coordination Chemistry Laboratory in Toulouse.

“Doing an internship abroad made me think more globally about the impacts of science, but also how important it is to think about things from the local perspective,” said Bioteau. “Locals know what they need more specifically than someone who's coming in [from the outside].”

Amrutha Veeramachineni, an honors biological science major with a minor in business administration, had a strong background in service before coming to UD. After watching her parents volunteer at Longwood Garden and their local temple, she served with Key Club and the Food Bank of Delaware throughout high school. 

At UD, Veeramachineni has expanded her engagement, volunteering at Nemours Children’s Hospital and joining the registered student organization Charity Crossing—an organization that sorts and distributes Amazon warehouse overflow to lower-income families. 

Veeramachineni, who plans to attend dental school, traveled to Thailand with a Disabilities Studies study abroad program in January 2024.

The experience, she said, exposed her to “how to be more inclusive and the methods that governments and hospitals can employ to provide an inclusive and accessible environment.”

Community engagement is everywhere for Veeramachineni now, including at her part-time job at SNAP Pizza on Main Street. 

“It has given me an opportunity to be more engaged in the community,” she said. “Being able to talk to people through a customer service role has allowed me to be more well-rounded.”

Next steps

After Commencement, these four scholars look forward to continuing their education. 

Wolverton plans to take a gap year while applying to medical schools. 

This fall, Veeramachineni will begin her studies at the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine and Johnson will attend Boston College to pursue her master of social work with the aim of becoming a therapist.

Bioteau — who has been inducted into the Phi Kappa Phi, Sigma Delta Pi and Phi Beta Kappa honor societies — will pursue her goal of becoming an organic synthesis chemist at UCLA. 

Doctor, dentist, therapist, chemist — wherever the future takes them, the scholars have a common foundation. 

About Community Engagement Scholars

The Community Engagement Scholars program is open to all undergraduate students and is administered by the Community Engagement Initiative, which works to facilitate and strengthen UD’s identity and impact as an engaged research university and community partner throughout the state of Delaware and beyond.