Building Playgrounds, Engaging Communities: Creating Safe and Happy Places for Children

Acknowledgments

175 Acknowledgments First and foremost, I acknowledge all the community partners and community members with whom I have had the privilege of collaborating to design and build playgrounds. Thanks especially to all the former and current students, faculty, and administration in the East Baton Rouge Parish Public School System and at Louisiana State University. I commend the company Aramark, whose corporate culture sets a model in terms of community engagement. The playground project would never work without the buy-in and hard work of the people affiliated with these organizations. I also acknowledge the thousands of people and organizations who have contributed time, money, ideas, and inspiration. People who have enabled the LSU Community Playground Project to thrive include Pat Duhon, Catherine Fletcher, Scot Givens, Ken Koonce, Belinda Martinez, Robert Martinez, Kenny Kohler, Treynor McAdams, Adam Pfeiffer, Julie Smith, Dan Thomas, and Lalit Verma. The organizational structure of this program does not fit easily into established university policies and procedures and has required tremendous time input from a number of people to make it work, including Jim Bates, Danielle Bayham, Lisa Geddes Capone, Gina Dugas, Donna Elisar, Charlotte Fruge, Russell Greer, Jeff Hale, David Hardy, Ping Li, Jeff McClain, Tom McClure, Eric Monday, Theresa Russo, Rhonda Shepard, and Angela Singleton. Two additional staunch supporters are Richard “Dick” Bengtson and Joe Howell. Dick has 176 / Acknowledgments set the gold standard on the LSU campus of what it means to be committed to student success; he is to the LSU campus what Joe Howell is to our local public schools. When I think about what it means to be a great man, I think of two half-horsepower guys standing shoulder to shoulder: Joe and Dick. The culture of service-learning on the LSU campus has also been a critical ingredient to the success of this program. I stand on the shoulders of local pioneers who built service-learning and community engagement initiatives before me and/or who practiced in the trench with me, especially Cecile Guin, Connie Hicks, Barrett Kennedy, Renee Boutte Myer, Deborah Normand, Carol O’Neil, Robert Perlis, Jan Shoemaker, George Stanley, Larry Rouse, Maud Walsh, and Colonel Harold Webb. To date, I’ve had the privilege of instructing approximately a thousand students during my career. Although it is impossible to acknowledge every student I’ve ever taught by name on these pages, I do acknowledge every single student I’ve ever had. The following current and former students are those who shared greatly of their time and immense talents to help build the LSU Community Playground Project from the ground up. Thank y’all for everything, and for the inspiration: Julianne Forman Audiffred, Megan Barnum , Jacob Beckham, Sandeep Bhale, Clayton Birkett, T. Kyle Bridges, John Casey, Patrick Coco, Nick Coleman, Jennifer Craig, Tessa Byrne Craig, Andrea Albright Crawford, Tony Daigle, Cody Darnell, Kristen Galloway, Sarah De Leo, Leah Moore Eisenstadt, Jason El Koubi, W. Chandler Emery, Stuart Feilden, Jacob Fusilier, Bilal Ghosn, Matt Gravens, Xinmei Guo, Komi Hassan , Carla Haslauer, Emily Hodges, Melinda Hunter, Jennifer Istre, Jackie Jones Edward, Andrew Keller, Brandon Kilbourne, Alicia Abadie Modenbach, Brooke Morris, Sean Nolan, Czarina Patolilic, Sajid Qadri, Malcolm Richard , Tel Rouse, Katie Rousseau, Rebecca Canfield Schramm, Jeremy Theriot, Michelle O’Brien Urbina, Nicole Walker, Alexandra Williams, Lakiesha Claude Williams, Sarah Williams, and N. Jeaux Zerkus. I am lucky enough to have my own group of “the ladies,” my soul sisters in community engagement. Sharon Williams Andrews, Christy Kayser Acknowledgments / 177 Arrazattee, Judy Bethly, Roxanne Dill, Lynn Hathaway, Saundra McGuire, Deborah Normand, Carol O’Neil, Peggy Reily, Jean Rohloff, Cindy Seghers, Jan Shoemaker, and Karen Stagg—all y’all are my slice of heaven. Yoga instructor Carmen Board, oriental medical doctor and acupuncturist Ching Guo, and social worker Stella Brown have had a profoundly positive impact on my life. I have benefited greatly from their collective wisdom and talent, and I consider them honorary ladies as well. I graduated from high school twenty-seven years ago. That kind of time creates a perspective that distills defining moments and makes clear influential teachers. I had two influential teachers. One was Mrs. Jeanne Dinwoodie , who taught math and the discipline of deep study in equal measure. While I struggled with both in high school (particularly the latter), I learned enough from Mrs. Dinwoodie to make every college math class I ever took a breeze. Since math is a major underpinning of engineering...