Featured MSU Engaged Scholars
- Kirk Astle, Ph.D.
- Assistant Professor, Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures
- College of Arts and Letters
Michigan State University students chat among themselves in the cramped waiting room at Parnall Correctional Facility in Jackson, unfazed by the TSA-like security process.
They place their shoes and socks in bins, walk through a metal detector enclosed in chain-link fencing, and go through a pat-down before the steel doors lock behind them. Next they walk across a prison yard ringed by razor wire to a classroom where they meet with incarcerated college students for a weekly writing workshop.
The paths that led them here stand in sharp contrast, but differences fall away as MSU students and their incarcerated counterparts put pen to paper. Whether clad in Spartan green and white or prison-issue blue and orange, here they are all writers working to improve their craft.
They meet every Wednesday as part of Write On!, a program that pairs MSU undergraduates and incarcerated college students to collaborate on projects ranging from poetry and ...
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- Jean Hardy, Ph.D.
- Assistant Professor, Department of Media and Information
- College of Communication Arts and Sciences
- Cory Heald, M.A.
- Professor of Practice, Department of Media and Information
- College of Communication Arts and Sciences
Jean Hardy knows firsthand the challenges rural communities face when it comes to broadband infrastructure and digital equity.
Hardy, an assistant professor with MSU’s College of Communication Arts and Sciences, lives on a 42-acre farm 30 miles from East Lansing with no wired Internet access. Facing the prospect of a $127,000 price tag to connect via fiber, he opted for Starlink, a satellite Internet provider.
Residents in rural areas across Michigan face a plethora of digital challenges as varied as the state’s terrain. They may have access to broadband, but at a higher cost than in urban areas. Even where broadband is available, other challenges arise, whether keeping young people safe online or helping seniors navigate health-care portals. Geographic inequality can exacerbate these digital inequities, according to Hardy’s research on the “rural information penalty.” ...
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Their work has touched communities from Detroit, Lansing, and Northern Michigan to the Himalayas and Brazilian Amazon.
This spring, MSU researchers and their community partners, along with graduate and undergraduate students, were celebrated for their accomplishments in community-engaged scholarship and service.
Elena Ruíz, College of Arts and Letters, and community partners Sara’s House and Women Healing Eternally and Transforming (WHEAT) of Detroit, received the Community Engagement Scholarship Award (CESA) at the All-University Awards Ceremony on April 7.
One of 10 all-university awards conferred, the CESA recognizes exemplary, impactful engaged scholarship in collaboration with a community partner. Ruíz and her community partners were honored for their 4-year partnership to address the overwhelming public health crisis of gender-based violence in Detroit.
Ruíz was among several faculty, staff, and students recognized at the annual Outreach and Engagement Awards Ceremony on March 12 for their collaborative work with communities involving research, teaching, and ...
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