Magis Award

The Magis Award recognizes a Xavier undergraduate alumnus (ae) who, within 15 years of graduation, has achieved a high degree of excellence and embodies Jesuit morals and ethical values in his/her life. Xavier presented the first Magis Award at Commencement 2008. Two of first 14 Magis Awards at Xavier University have gone to social work alums!

Angela Staubach '01 receives Magis Award at 2009 Commencement

2009 – Angela U. Staubach, ‘01

Angela Staubach believes in taking initiative and using creativity to bring about positive change. Her service and experience since leaving Xavier have taught her that people are fundamentally the same everywhere, that our lives and problems are interconnected, and that while the need and the problems are vast, the power of even one individual is huge.

Staubach earned a bachelor of social work from the University in 2001. That year, she also received the Paul L. O’Connor Scholarship, which is awarded based on academic and extracurricular achievement and contributions to the University, and was co-recipient of the Charlotte Towle Social Work Award for outstanding seniors in social work. She became a member of Alpha Sigma Nu in 1997. While at the University, Staubach did practicum/fieldwork at Santa Maria Community Services in Price Hill, working to support pregnant women and mothers of young children who are at risk.

Staubach earned a master’s degree in international community-based practice with women and minority populations from Washington University in 2002, and immediately headed to Dangriga, Belize, to work for the National Garifuna Council. Later that year, she moved to Belize City to work with the Women’s Issues Network of Belize, an umbrella organization involved mostly in advocacy work. There, among other efforts, she worked on a campaign to highlight the issue of violence against women.

January 2003 found Staubach in Geneva Switzerland, working on human rights issues with the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the world’s oldest women’s peace organization. She represented that organization at various United Nations meetings, and followed the U.N. Commission on Human Rights.

Later that year, Staubach traveled to Kingston, Jamaica, to work for Habitat for Humanity International as a national program developer. She completed that work in December 2004 and intended to leave the island, but took a position in the disaster response office in the wake of Hurricane Ivan. She left Jamaica in 2005, and in 2006 returned to Cincinnati where she currently works as a services coordinator for the International Family Resource center and as a social worker with The Health Alliance/University Hospital. Staubach returned to Xavier as an adjunct faculty in the Department of Social Work during the 2006-2007 school year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Megan Zarnitz '07 receives Magis Award at 2017 Commencement.

2017 – Megan E. Zarnitz, ‘07

Megan Zarnitz’s passion for working with immigrants began when she was at Xavier studying for her degree in Social Work. She went on the University’s first service-learning trip to Ghana, where she lived with a host family and worked as a volunteer at a local non-profit while studying the history and culture of the region.

The trip was transformational, giving her the opportunity to get to know people from another country and culture and setting set her on a path she is still traveling. Now as Director of Refugee Resettlement for Catholic Charities, Zarnitz leads a 12-person team serving more than 350 refugees who have come to Cincinnati seeking a better life.

"These experiences changed the way I look at the world," she says of her Ghana trip. "They taught me a lot of compassion and empathy for people’s experiences different from my own. ‘Men and women for others’ has stuck with me and how I do the work I do."

Since graduating from Xavier in 2007, Zarnitz, a native of Sidney, Ohio, has earned a master’s degree in international social work from Boston College. She has had a mix of diverse experiences serving local and global clients, beginning her career as a case manager for the homeless with AIDS Volunteers of Cincinnati. She has also worked as a transitional housing manager and medical case manager for Caracole serving HIV-positive clients, and with Habitat for Humanity in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on advocacy development.

Zarnitz is also active in the community, serving on the board of the Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition and the Young Non-Profit Professionals Network. Previously, she served as an International Peer Mentor at Xavier and as a refugee tutor in Cincinnati. She joined Catholic Charities in 2015.