Volunteerism, Interfaith Work Earns Iyleah Hernandez 2022 Mulroy Award

When Iyleah Hernandez learned from Dominican University President Dr. Glena Temple that she was the recipient of the school’s highest student honor, the news came with momentary skepticism.

“I didn’t believe her at first,” Hernandez said, laughing. “I said, ‘You can’t tell me this on April Fool’s Day, come on!’ But she said it was legit.”

Hernandez, who is receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics and computer science, is the winner of the 2022 Dorothy Reiner Mulroy Award, presented annually to a graduating senior who has demonstrated outstanding academic and leadership skills.

Letters to the Mulroy Award Selection Committee noted Hernandez’s many volunteer roles, her work as an interfaith intern with University Ministry and her strength as a student.

“Iyleah is most deserving of the highest honor Dominican University bestows on a graduating senior,” wrote Dr. Marion Weedermann, professor of mathematics, in her recommendation to the Mulroy Award Committee. “She truly resembles a model first-generation student, a life-long learner (and teacher) with a strong personal desire to give back to the community.”

“Her ability to build trust, listen deeply, learn new skills quickly and teach those skills to others has not gone unnoticed,” Amy Omi, project coordinator for the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, wrote of Hernandez in her recommendation. “She is recognized by her peers, clients and students as reliable, trustworthy and humble in her willingness to serve.”

The first in her family to graduate from college, Hernandez credits her father for instilling in her a strong work ethic and her mother for encouraging and cultivating her interest in computer coding.

“My parents came to the United States trying to find a better life and they sacrificed so much while I was growing up, trying to give me the world,” Hernandez said. “Now, this is a way in which I can say I’m working hard enough to give some of it back.”

And work has been Hernandez’s focus across her four years at Dominican. Her internships included roles as a student researcher at Louisiana State University, where she and a partner developed a computerized system of lip movements for mask wearers during the pandemic; a global data insights and analytics intern with Ford Motor Company, where she aided in the creation of a website for improved tracking of vehicles on the grounds of the manufacturing plant; a site manager at Ladder Up Chicago, an organization providing free tax preparation to lower income workers; and an interfaith intern with Dominican’s University Ministry, where she developed programs and events.

It is her engagement with the university’s interfaith work that has had a significant influence on Hernandez’s life, setting her on a path to embrace Catholicism and become baptized into the faith.

“It’s amazing to finally be a part of (the Catholic Church),” Hernandez, a self-described former agnostic, acknowledged. “I had already been searching for awhile and this was a four-year-long journey that hasn’t stopped. It never does.”

Hernandez initially became involved in interfaith work after attending a spiritual retreat her freshman year and discovering how passionate the interfaith interns felt about their own work.

“I became in love with that world,” Hernandez said. “I wanted to be the next intern and take up that mantel.”

She saw participation in initiatives like the interfaith coffeehouse and opening up a dialogue among students as ways to “build bridges and work toward peace in any way I could,” she noted.

“I think it’s very important for students to feel that Dominican can be a home,” Hernandez added. “If you don’t feel welcome in a house, if you don’t see things you can resonate with, if a Muslim student has to leave to pray somewhere else or if students are stressed because their religious holidays coincide with important exam times, then that doesn’t make someone feel seen, loved or wanted. And that is the statement of Dominican: Taking everyone in and making them feel loved and wanted.”

The Interfaith Youth Core, a national organization, took notice of Hernandez’s leadership at Dominican and awarded her a fellowship in 2019, providing her with a new platform to advocate for interfaith initiatives and facilitate events and service opportunities — even if many had to take place virtually due to the pandemic.

That same year, she was featured in a Christian Science Monitor article about interfaith and interpolitical dialogue among college students.

Because the pandemic impacted many events that would have normally brought a diverse community of students together, Hernandez says one of her most memorable experiences as an interfaith intern was a potluck dinner that occurred just before the March 2020 shutdown.

“We had students sharing their own stories and everyone brought something to eat,” she said. “There was just so much engagement and everyone loved it. It was a time when we were all together.”

Hernandez is also heavily involved in volunteer causes. She provided Spanish translation help at Quinn Center, a social outreach ministry in Maywood; she joined Catholic Charities to help parents learn about computer technology as their children transitioned to online learning; and she is a mentor to middle school students at Erie Neighborhood House in Chicago.

“I really like meeting people and hearing their stories,” Hernandez said of her varied approaches to volunteer work.

After graduation, Hernandez is headed to Virginia to work for Ernst & Young as a technology consultant.

“Dominican has completely changed who I thought I would be,” Hernandez acknowledged. “I thought my future would be in politics. Every time I thought I was finding a path, I learned something new about myself and I found another path. But everything has felt very natural and nothing has been according to plan. I have Dominican to thank for that.”