Our Team

Christina joined the NC Campus Engagement team in July 2022 to serve as the AmeriCorps VISTA Program Manager. In this role, Christina provides ongoing leadership support to volunteers and partners across the state who engage with the North Carolina Afterschool Corps and the North Carolina Hunger Corps programs. She leads the recruitment efforts for new volunteers, works to grow the network of host sites and partner institutions where volunteers serve, and facilitates training and professional development opportunities for VISTA members throughout their service time with the program. She also serves as a liaison to the federal Corporation for National and Community Service. Additional key responsibilities include grant management, leading alumni engagement efforts, and general program oversite for all aspects of the North Carolina Campus Engagement (NCCE) AmeriCorps VISTA program.

Christina brings an array of service experiences to her role such as serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kenya, 2011-2013 and participating in immersive service-learning experiences on poverty and educational disparities with Elon’s Kernodle Center.

Prior to joining NCCE, Christina worked for Elon University’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning and Center for Engaged Learning as a program coordinator where she was instrumental in coordinating events throughout the year.

Christina holds a Master of Business Administration and Master of Health Care Administration joint degree from Pfeiffer University in Charlotte, NC, where she completed a comparative international healthy study course in London, England, and investigated healthcare management practices for her practicum project. She also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Kinesiology from the University of North Carolina Greensboro in Greensboro, NC and a Bachelor of Science degree in Biomedical Sciences from Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, MI.

Christina can be reached at cwittstein@ncengage.org or (336) 278-7238.

Sam joined the NC Campus Engagement team in July 2023 as the Program Coordinator. In this role, Sam produces engaging programs and events that develop and promote practices of democracy for college students across North Carolina. Her portfolio includes the NC College Voter Summit, CSNAP Student Conference, Community Change Collegiate Challenge, Redesigning Democracy Competition, NC Collegiate Hunger Challenge, and the NC Student Dialogue Ambassadors program.  She is helping design and launch the pilot NC Civic Impact Fellowship in the 2023-24 academic year.

Sam graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of New Mexico with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. Prior to joining NCCE, she worked at Girl Scouts of New Mexico where she coordinated key fundraising events and built on donor relations initiatives. Sam also served constituents throughout central and rural New Mexico as a member of the Legislative Council Service research team at the NM State Legislature. Before moving to North Carolina, Sam completed an international cultural immersion sabbatical in Central and South America, Europe, and northern Africa in 2022-2023.

Sam can be reached at sdelap@ncengage.org or (336) 278-7197.

Kelli joined the NC Campus Engagement team in July 2023 as the Program Assistant. Kelli serves as the connector to member campuses, facilitator of information, and conference planner.

Prior to joining NCCE, Kelli worked for Elon University’s Office of Leadership and Professional Development as a program assistant, coordinating learning opportunities for all faculty and staff.

Kelli is an active member in the local community as well as the co-founder of the non-profit organization, Love Is Bald since 2010. Kelli has a servant heart and truly enjoys working as a team to assist others.

Kelli can be reached at krussell11@elon.edu or (336)278-7154

Alice joined the NC Campus engagement team in January of 2025 as VISTA Leader.  Prior to her first experience as an AmeriCorps VISTA, Alice attended the University of Maine where she graduated in 2020 with a B.S. in Biology.  During her time as a student Alice was involved in several organizations, notably the International Student Association where she served terms as Secretary and Vice President organizing multicultural events for over 600 international students.  Alice also worked as a student researcher in the University’s plant pathology lab, where she focused on treatments for oomycete-infected local crops. 

Alice joined Colorado State University Extension in 2020 as an AmeriCorps VISTA.  Her project consisted of writing a 4-H curriculum on Colorado agriculture for 3rd-5th graders, fostering local partnerships, and enhancing organizational efficiency.  After her term ended Alice was onboarded as Program Coordinator for 4-H STEM AmeriCorps at CSU, where she led orientation and trainings for new AmeriCorps members, reorganized the team data base, and developed an internal website to streamline operations for members.  

Moving cross-country in 2022, Alice joined a biochemistry lab at North Carolina State University as a Project Coordinator and Research Assistant.  In addition to graduate student support and laboratory administrative work, Alice oversaw a multi-university research initiative focused on experimental design, safety compliance, and team training. During this time Alice also volunteered with the North Carolina Museum of Science and the Great Raleigh Clean-up Project.

Alice is passionate about volunteer work and is eager to grow her skill set of member engagement, program design, and administrative support during her VISTA term at NC Campus Engagement.

Alice can be reached at achesley@ncengage.org or (336) 278-7176.

Patti H. Clayton was born and raised in North Carolina and continues to live in the state with her husband, Kevin, and their feline family. She enjoys being in the mountains, especially in southwest Virginia, and visiting National Parks, especially Zion and Denali. John Denver, Parker Palmer, and Star Trek are major influences in her life.

Patti is an independent consultant (PHC Ventures) with over 20 years of experience as a practitioner-scholar and educational developer in service-learning and community engagement (SLCE) and in experiential education. She serves as a Senior Scholar with the Center for Service and Learning at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis and with the Institute for Community and Economic Engagement at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She has consulted with well over 100 colleges, universities, and higher education organizations in the US, Canada, and Ireland.

As our Practitioner-Scholar-in-Residence, Patti supports NCCE’s Virtual Learning Exchanges and Community of Practice, Inquiry, and Learning (COPIL), including our Primer on the Value and Benefits of Civic and Community Engagement in Higher Education, our essay on “Social justice in service-learning and community engagement: A conversation about meanings, practices, and possibilities,” and a variety of conference sessions.

Patti co-developed the DEAL Model for Critical Reflection, the SOFAR partnership model, the TRES protocol for assessing partnership quality, and the DPI Model for Institutional Transformation. She was co-editor with Bringle and Hatcher of the 2-volume set Research on Service Learning: Conceptual Frameworks and Assessment and co-authored the Democratic Engagement White Paper with Saltmarsh and Hartley and the Democratically Engaged Assessment White Paper with Imagining America’s APPS team

Patti’s current interests include operationalizing democratic engagement, designing SLCE for civic learning, conceptualizing place-engaged SLCE, integrating SLCE and relationships within the more-than-human world, and exploring the power of such “little words” as in, for, with, and of to shape identities and ways of being with one another in SLCE.

Patti can be reached at patti.clayton@curricularengagement.com.

Dr. Beckwith is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Counseling and Higher Education at NC Central University.

EFS project – Building Counselor Competence and Community Partnerships to Face a Mental Health Crisis

Through her Engaged Faculty Scholars project Dr. Beckwith will design and implement a service-learning course component for the Introduction to Clinical Mental Health Counseling course, which is an asynchronous online class required of masters students in clinical mental health counseling. As part of the service-learning requirement, students may choose to volunteer with the National Alliance on Mental Illness’s Helpline, assist NCCU’s Eagle Counseling, Consultation, and Research Clinic with outreach efforts in Durham and across North Carolina, volunteer with the Licensed Clinical Counselors of NC related to counselor advocacy work, or become trained in Stress First Aid for community wellness support.

Dr. Jones is a public historian and the Community Digital Archivist for the Walter Clinton Jackson Library at UNC Greensboro.

We Make Culture Hum: A Digital History of African American Musicians in the Piedmont, North Carolina

Specializing in archiving intergenerational trauma, lynching, and racial animus in the Jim Crow South, her Engaged Faculty Scholars project highlights the traditions and enduring legacy of African American musicians – as individuals and groups – in such music genres as gospel, rock & roll, folk, blues, bluegrass, jazz, classical, soul, rhythm and blues, adult contemporary, electronic dance music, rap, and hip hop.  The project will excavate archives to develop curricula about rich musical traditions in the past and present.  In addition, the project will utilize commemorative sites, photographs, maps, audio, and ephemera to experiment with the application of open-source research practices and digital media communications of interactive collages and digital visualizations.