The Engaged Scholar E-Newsletter

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October 2024

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Message from the Vice Provost

Kwesi Brookins, Vice Provost for University Outreach and Engagement

A Season of New Beginnings

As we settle into a new academic year, we’re feeling energized at University Outreach and Engagement (UOE) as we welcome a new leader, participate in a new experience, and mark a new milestone for our community-engaged learning efforts.

We congratulate Kevin Leonard, Ph.D., who became director of MSU’s Native American Institute (NAI), a unit with UOE, on August 1. Named interim director in October 2022, Kevin was tasked with revitalizing NAI and rebuilding relationships with Michigan’s 12 federally recognized Tribes along with Native communities within MSU and throughout the state. Kevin traveled the state for listening sessions with Tribal leaders facilitated by Grassroots Solutions. The priorities and needs that emerged from these conversations are summarized in the newly released Tribal Outreach Project report, which will help guide NAI's engagement efforts in the years ahead.

I’m also excited about joining the inaugural Spartan Bus Tour! This month, MSU President Kevin Guskiewicz, Ph.D., and a group of MSU faculty and administrators will visit locations throughout the western Lower Peninsula of Michigan. The goal of the tour is to highlight MSU’s contributions throughout the state, build community connections, and identify further opportunities for collaboration. I am looking forward to conversations with faculty, academic staff, and past and potential community partners as we travel from Mt. Pleasant to Glen Arbor to Hickory Corners and points between. Whether or not you are joining the tour, please know that we at UOE are always happy to support you in your engagement journey ... read more

Featured MSU Engaged Scholars

Brooke Ingersoll (second from left) directs the MSU Autism Lab. She is pictured last summer with Hannah Tokish, a clinical science doctoral student; Jessie Greatorex, research assistant; and Isabelle Saligumba, lab manager.

Study Examines the Power of Play for Children Showing Early Signs of Autism

Brooke Ingersoll, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Psychology
Director, MSU Autism Lab
College of Social Science

“Bop-bop-bop.”

A mom shakes a maraca to the beat as her toddler looks on. “Now, you do it!” she says.

This simple game can help young children at risk for autism develop imitation skills, a key building block of social communication.

“Imitation is a core behavior for learning all sorts of things,” said Brooke Ingersoll, a professor of clinical psychology at MSU. “We use imitation to learn new skills. We also use imitation as a way of socially connecting with others. So, it’s a very important developmental skill that many children with early signs of autism have difficulty acquiring.” ... read more

Mandela Washington Fellowship participants pause for a photo after completing the program.

Young African Leaders Leave Lasting Impact on MSU and Local Communities

Salah Hassan, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of English
Director, Global Studies in the Arts and Humanities
College of Arts and Letters

In June of 2024, a steady arm accompanied Tsaone Mosweu as she approached a wooden lectern on the Blackbox Theatre stage in MSU’s Auditorium. One of her hands was gently placed on the lectern while the other was guided toward the microphone stand next to her. She took a moment to gauge her surroundings before addressing an audience of her peers.

Confidently she began, “I champion the principle of leaving no one behind.”

Mosweu, 28, is a young professional from Botswana living with blindness. She has dedicated her career to promoting reproductive health rights for young women with disabilities. She holds a bachelor’s degree in public health and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in sexual and reproductive rights ... read more

Golden mantella frog perched on a pathos leaf

Researchers, Pet Industry Collaborate to Keep Amphibians Free of Disease

Alexa Warwick, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife
College of Agriculture and Natural Resources

On a windy spring night at the Bengel Wildlife Center in Bath, Michigan, Alexa Warwick led 45 people on a “frog walk.” They were rewarded with a chorus of high-pitched frog calls, each representing a different species. “It can be really incredible to go out at night and listen to them,” Warwick said.

Warwick relishes sharing her love of wildlife and the outdoors with others.

As an MSU conservation biologist, she has focused her research on the ecology and evolution of amphibians such as frogs and salamanders. As a community-engaged researcher, she is equally interested in the role humans have in protecting the rich biodiversity of the natural world ... read more

Announcements and Events

Community-Engaged Scholarship Fall Writing Retreat
MSU Office for Public Engagement and Scholarship
Shelbyville, Michigan
October 24-25, 2024

Working in Community to Change the Narrative about Crime (Virtual)
MSU Office for Public Engagement and Scholarship
October 28, 2024

Civic Engagement Minors, Certificates, and Distinctions (Virtual)
Campus Compact
October 30, 2024

Community-Engaged Scholarship Write-Ins
MSU Office for Public Engagement and Scholarship
November 1, 2024 (Virtual and East Lansing, Michigan)
December 6, 2024 (Virtual and in East Lansing, Michigan)

MSU Broader Impacts Conference 2024
MSU Office for Public Engagement and Scholarship
East Lansing, Michigan
November 12, 2024

Call for Nominations: University Outreach and Engagement Awards
MSU University Outreach and Engagement
Nominations due: November 14, 2024

(Re)Design Your Community-Engaged Learning (CEL) Syllabus Through Exploring the Social Change Wheel: Working Toward Anti-Racism, Equity, and an Expanded Definition of CEL (Virtual)
Center for Community Engaged Learning
November 13, 2024

Community-Engaged Research: Getting Started (Virtual)
MSU Office for Public Engagement and Scholarship
November 18, 2024

Call for Proposals: MSU Science Festival
MSU University Outreach and Engagement
Proposals due: December 2, 2024

Community-Engaged Learning in the Classroom: Rubrics, Reflections, and Resources (Virtual)
Center for Community Engaged Learning
December 4, 2024

Call for Nominations: Advancing Research Impact in Society (ARIS) Awards
Advancing Research Impact in Society
Nominations due: December 6, 2024

Broader Impacts Writing Retreat, Fall 2024
MSU Office for Public Engagement and Scholarship
East Lansing, Michigan
December 10, 2024

Outreach and Engagement Resources

MSU Graduate Certification in Community Engagement
This program prepares graduate students for academic careers that integrate scholarship with community engagement. It offers students a transcript notation indicating that they have completed the program.

Community Engagement Toolkits
Designed by the Center for Community Engaged Learning to guide and support MSU faculty, students, staff, and community partners.

Transformations in Higher Education: The Scholarship of Engagement Series
Available from Michigan State University Press

The Engaged Scholar Magazine

The 2021 issue of the Engaged Scholar Magazine looks at how Michigan State University faculty, students, and staff and their community partners adapted to work with each other during the pandemic to create a "new normal" that we can all live with into the future.

View the latest volume

Looking for Community Partners?

Collaboration and partnership with communities are at the core of engaged scholarship. In all of its work, University Outreach and Engagement emphasizes university-community partnerships that are collaborative, participatory, empowering, systemic, transformative, and anchored in scholarship. If you are a faculty or academic staff member wanting to establish a community partnership, University Outreach and Engagement may be able to help you. Our staff and researchers have connections across the state in areas such as education, mental health, human services, business, and government. For more information, contact Burton Bargerstock, Executive Director of the Office for Public Engagement and Scholarship, at (517) 353-8977 or bb@msu.edu.

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