Dr. Nix-Early co-founded BuildaBridge with Eastern University faculty member Dr. J. Nathan Corbitt in the Germantown section of Philadelphia to transform lives through the creative arts. It sponsors community arts programs that teach life skills and work with families and children in the city’s homeless shelters. Its international education and service arm works with the world’s poorest and with those living in the most challenging situations, from children living on the streets of Guatemala City to a Muslim-Christian Youth Exchange in the Netherlands. Its Institute for the Arts in Transformation trains others to do the same - use the power of the arts to heal.  

“It is very satisfying to teach things like financial management, parenting, healthy lifestyles, and how to respond to trauma experienced by children for those who want better lives—we do it all through the arts,” Dr. Nix-Early said.

This June, the Institute will kick off the second year of a partnership between BuildaBridge and Eastern University to prepare artists to become leaders of change. The University’s Master of Arts in Urban Studies, with a concentration called Arts in Transformation, accepts artists with a wide range of creative expressions, teaching them skills that Drs. Nix-Early and Corbitt have refined through years of service in the world’s toughest places.

As founding dean of the School for Social Change, Dr. Nix-Early has designed and oversees graduate, undergraduate and high school programs, as well as non-degree and community education programs. Eastern in the City is a uniquely themed two-year program offering the core of the University’s undergraduate curriculum to city students who might otherwise not have access to a private Christian education. Its substantial scholarship reduces the debt burden with which most students graduate from traditional four-year institutions. The Cross-Boundaries dual-credit program offers high school juniors and seniors an opportunity to earn college credits that count toward high school graduation. It exposes students to college life early, helping them to see themselves as “college material.” 

Mary McLeod Bethune overcame many obstacles to realize changes in her community through education. “I hope what I’ve helped Eastern do—to make a quality education accessible to everyone in the city—is something of which Mary McLeod Bethune would be proud,” said Nix-Early.  “To be included in her company through this award is not only an honor to me, but honors the family, friends, and colleagues who share in these accomplishments.”

For more information, contact  Philip Grover: 215-769-3102 or pgrover@eastern.edu