One Person Can Change the World Program
Funded by The Teagle Foundation

Lack of empowerment. Helplessness. Feeling out of control. When looking at the change happening in the world during the past few years, Andrea Nevins, Ph.D., M.F.A., dean of NSU’s Farquhar Honors College, imagined that students under the age of 18, particularly those from an economically disadvantaged background, may experience those sensations. She set out to create a program entitled “One Person Can Change the World” to help high school participants see that they can make a difference.

“Part of what I wanted to see this program accomplish is helping students to understand how change has occurred in the past—the women’s movement, Chicano movement, civil rights movement,” Nevins explained. “When something was a particular way, and it needed to be different, how did that happen?”

Nevins applied for and received a grant from The Teagle Foundation. The foundation’s Knowledge for Freedom initiative supports programs that invite underserved high school students to college to study humanity’s deepest questions about leading lives of purpose and civic responsibility. NSU is one of more than 30 universities across the country—including Columbia, Elon, and Yale universities—that received the three-year grant.

The NSU program is a free year-long initiative designed to prepare high school juniors in Broward County for college. Students spend three weeks during the summer immersed in campus life—studying humanities with NSU professors, residing in the dorms, and enjoying field trips and other social activities to get the full college experience.

“After the lectures, the students would get together and talk about what they learned,” said Lynn-Sarah Prophete, program participant and now a high school senior at William T. McFatter Technical College and High School. “The type of conversations that we had would vary between politics, environmentalism, law, and natural rights. We would talk about these really, really important things. That was just a great part of the program.”

Prophete said she also enjoyed the activities that included a three-part Olympiad, where students participated in games that challenged the mind, body, and spirit. They worked in teams to answer questions, solve puzzles, and learn more about history, books, teamwork, and each other.  Other highlights for Prophete were field trips to the Haitian Heritage Museum, Mizell-Eula Johnson Beach State Park, and Pérez Art Museum Miami. She also appreciated the attention from the professors and NSU students who served as teaching and resident assistants (RAs).

“Getting around all of these people who are so educated and exude such confidence—you get that from them,” she said. “Students really need to experience being around people that genuinely care.”

“This program is really going help me with the future, with my college applications, with a helping hand when high school might get a little too tough. All the time and energy that was put into this really does show—from getting into the dorms to making sure that we had our own library card, giving us opportunities to go to the writing center to work our zines, and providing us with volunteer hours for our work on the beach—we got a lot of support.”

In addition to the experience, Prophete also walked away with lifetime connections to the other students in her cohort.

The bond made between students was not something that Nevins had completely anticipated as she focused on developing the program to teach participants how change evolves. At the orientation for Prophete’s cohort this summer, Nevins also invited the previous year’s students to attend and share what they had learned during their time in the program.

“The students who were graduating all spoke, and there were lots of tears talking about what the program had meant to them,” Nevins said. “They had bonded tremendously over the course of the year. When the three weeks on campus ended last year, they were in tears. But so many of those ties have been maintained, and they have kept in touch. It was a really moving moment to see that connection.”

The impact was also felt by NSU students, as one of the RAs shared how grateful she was to have the opportunity to mentor these high school students. A parent also spoke at the event, describing a transformation in her son and explaining what the program meant to her family.

Once the summer program is over, participants are tasked to work on their own change project during their senior year. From recycling and environmental initiatives to bringing awareness to homelessness, mental health, and the issues faced by Caribbean women, the students in the first cohort found ways to make positive change.

“Understanding how change happens through the lens of the humanities was a part of what I wanted the program to accomplish,” Nevins said. “I also wanted students to take a step in the direction of creating change that would be important to them.”

Prophete has already begun planning her project—a fundraiser for a local women’s shelter with food provided by the culinary arts program in which she is enrolled. She’s received support from her school leadership and looks forward to continuing a tradition in her family of helping other women.

Her journey will be shared through an online zine that houses contributions from all the participants. With the positive feedback from program participants, faculty members, and NSU students, Nevins hopes that making the projects and process of change visible to a larger audience will help with continuing the program in some form or fashion after The Teagle Foundation’s grant cycle ends in 2026. For now, she is grateful for the opportunity to carry out this introduction to humanities and the possibility for change.

“The Teagle Foundation is a great example of the power of philanthropy,” Nevins added. “The foundation is very invested in helping people understand what the humanities are, and appreciating what they bring to us as individuals and as scholars. When we see organizations doing work we value—even when we’re not Walter Teagle able to give millions of dollars—know that $5 or $10 can help create whatever the change is that we want to see.”