Elizabeth Ford
Elizabeth (she/her) is a junior from Ellsworth, Maine, a small town in the Downeast region near Acadia National Park. She is majoring in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Health: Science, Society, and Policy with a minor in Sexuality and Queer Studies. She is also part of COMPACT's new Community Engaged Scholars Program. She is a queer and low-income student and a recipient of the MLK Jr Fellowship and Giumette Academic Award. Elizabeth is on the executive boards for MAD Band, Top Score, and Fencing Club. She is also a General Tutoring coordinator for Waltham Group. In her free time, she is often listening to or playing music, crocheting, hiking, or getting a coffee. She was also a part of the ‘24-’25 Samuels Scholars Cohort.
Her interest in community engagement stems from her upbringing in a small rural community, where communities and people tend to be more interconnected, and there is a level of common understanding and care throughout the larger community. Leaving that community for an urban area made Elizabeth realize how important that feeling of community is to her and how getting involved and making those interpersonal connections with others was an integral part of her education. Community engagement is especially of interest to her because she hopes to pursue a career in rural public health, a sector that strongly utilizes engaging with community partners and developing partnerships, direct involvement in the community, and the use of local knowledge, which can only be learned through intentional engagement with community members. COMPACT’s Samuels Scholars Program and Community Engaged Scholars Program have helped her explore her interest in community engagement and develop skills to build connections with the communities she interacts with.
Elizabeth sought to be a peer mentor because she has seen the positive impact this program can have on people, making them feel part of the Brandeis, Waltham, and COMPACT communities while guiding students to the opportunities Brandeis has to offer them. She struggled with feeling that she belonged at Brandeis throughout her freshman year, and the Samuels Scholars program and the mentors she met within it helped her finally find her place and path at Brandeis. Samuels Scholars gave her the support she needed to grow as a person and feel confident in her own skills while learning about what community and community engagement mean to her. She hopes to help the next cohorts of Samuels Scholars find the same perspective-changing experiences she found through the program.