Credit: Provided

Senior Greta Sloan has been named the 2018 winner of the Cornell University Relations’ Campus-Community Leadership Award. The annual honor is presented to a graduating senior who has shown exceptional town-gown leadership and innovation.

Sloan, a human development major in the College of Human Ecology, has served as a four-year volunteer and most recently as co-president of Cornell’s Youth Outreach Undergraduates Reshaping Success program, which mentors youth in mobile home parks in the town of Dryden, New York.

In addition, Sloan is a Program for Research on Youth Development and Engagement (PRYDE) scholar through Cornell’s Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research.

PRYDE partners with New York state 4-H programs to investigate youth development, and in recent months designed and conducted program evaluation on 4-H after-school programs in Tompkins, Seneca, Ontario and Warren counties.

Sloan recently finished her undergraduate thesis on cumulative risk in childhood ecological systems and severity of hyperactivity/impulsivity.

“I found that the accumulation of stress on a caregiver, family conflict and factors associated with poverty were linked to hyperactivity and impulsivity in a sample of youth at an East Coast behavioral health agency I interned at last summer,” Sloan said. “I was grateful for this opportunity, and care about these families.”

Sloan will be a Teach for America corps member this coming fall, teaching elementary school.

“Cornell students have a wide-ranging and positive influence on campus, in nearby communities and around New York state,” said Joel Malina, Cornell vice president for university relations. “We are grateful for the time, talent and passion that Greta has dedicated to helping youth throughout Tompkins County. She truly embodies Cornell’s public engagement mission.”

Gary Stewart is associate vice president for community relations.