2025 Civic Engagement, Community Service, and Community Organizing (CECSCO) Honorees
Nora Flanagan
Nora Flanagan (she/her) taught high school English in Chicago for 25 years and has researched and organized against racism for longer than that. Recent efforts have included speaking to government agencies, teachers unions, faculties and administrations, community organizations, faith groups, and media outlets about the intersection of bigotry and youth culture. She co-authored Confronting White Nationalism in Schools, a toolkit designed to help schools thoughtfully and effectively respond to incidents of racial hostility and proactively strengthen school communities. In 2023, she joined the staff of the Chicago Teachers Union as a Project Organizer, focused on pushing back against bigotry in all forms as it impacts our education and labor spaces. Nora is an amateur vegetable gardener, retired roller derby player, and fervent horror fan. She grew up on Chicago’s South Side and now lives in West Ridge with her husband who is a Chicago firefighter, their two sons, and a quirky but good-hearted rescue pit bull.
Nora earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in English/Language Arts Teacher Education and her Master of Education degree, with a concentration in Curriculum and Instruction – both from UIC. Nora’s nominator noted, “I bore friends and people I meet with how connected to the community UIC is and especially how GWS trains us to be leaders. Few people exemplify this better than Nora Flanagan.” GWS is proud to honor Nora with the 2025 CECSCO Award and is grateful for her many contributions to social justice, inside and outside the classroom.
Jenine Wehbeh
Jenine Wehbeh (she/her) is an educator-organizer, circle-keeper, and former Middle School Social Studies teacher and union delegate, with extensive experience in Critical Ethnic Studies and K-12 education. A Palestinian refugee from the camps of Lebanon and Syria, she has been an activist since a young age, working to dismantle the school-prison nexus through grassroots campaigns. Jenine learned restorative justice from Chicago elders, emphasizing community-centered circle keeping. Her work focuses on developing popular education curricula rooted in social justice, critical pedagogy, ethnic studies, and community organizing. She approaches critical pedagogies through place-based, diasporic, and indigenous knowledges connected to homeland. She is currently the co-coordinator for MECA’s Teach Palestine Project and the National Coordinator for the Coalition for Liberated Ethnic Studies.
Jenine earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Criminology, Law and Justice from UIC and her Master of Education degree, with a concentration in Elementary Education, from Roosevelt University. Jenine’s nominator wrote, Jenine is “a leader in grassroots abolitionist facilitation and mutual aid…She has paved the way for many young queer and feminist Arab people in Chicago to become community-based cultural and mutual aid organizers.” GWS is proud to honor Jenine with the 2025 CECSCO Award and is grateful for her many contributions to social justice, inside and outside the classroom.