LaTrina Parker Earns Board of Regents KUDOS Award

The Board of Regents is pleased to present a KUDOS award to Dr. LaTrina Hall, the P-16 Initiative Coordinator in the Service Learning Academy at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

During her tenure at UNO, LaTrina has facilitated the creation of service learning partnerships between P-12 teachers and UNO faculty members, engaging thousands of UNO and P-12 students in their learning and community. Dr. Hall leads the Service Learning Seminar, a week-long training for UNO faculty and P-12 teachers to learn about quality service learning standards; to date hundreds of faculty members and P-12 teachers have been trained together.

Dr. Hall is a practitioner and a scholar. She oversees data collection from UNO students in service learning courses and works with local school districts to collect data from P-12 students collaborating with UNO students in service learning courses. Because of her efforts, the Service Learning Academy better understands how students perceive their service learning courses—that they are more engaging, they make a special effort to attend class, and identify developing workforce skills such as critical thinking and team work during their service learning course. Dr. Hall was also recently accepted into a prestigious regional research group, the Engaged Scholars Initiative, where she will investigate the connection between student identity and service in African American students.

Dr. Hall’s leadership spans the entire UNO campus and community. She serves as a University Studies 1010 faculty member and a member of the First-Generation Guild. A former high school teacher, LaTrina collaborates with P-12 teachers, administrators and partners across the community to help them connect their student learning outcomes with community-identified opportunities. She does that by inspiring a team of 15 staff that include undergraduate and graduate students who help to break down barriers for faculty members in order to use service learning as a method of teaching. Because of her work, our students are better equipped for their professional careers, understand the community and its assets, and are prepared to lead in a diverse and evolving society.