Volume 10 - Issue 4 - Home Page

April 2018 | Volume 10, Issue 4

Featured MSU Engaged Scholars

Distinguished Partnership Award for Community-Engaged Creative Activity Award Winners

MSU Outreach and Engagement Awards Ceremony Honors Outstanding University-Community Collaborations

The Michigan State University Outreach and Engagement Annual Awards Ceremony was held on Wednesday, February 21 at the Kellogg Center with an audience that included award recipients and their families, community partners, deans, colleagues, and students.

The awards program was established by University Outreach and Engagement (UOE) in 2005 with the Community Engagement Scholarship Award (CESA). Formerly known as the Outreach Scholarship Community Partnership Award, the CESA is a university-wide recognition of exemplary engaged scholarship with a community partner.

The Distinguished Partnership Awards, established in 2017, are bestowed annually from highly regarded projects that emerge from CESA nominations in the areas of community-based research, creative activity, teaching, and service. These collaborations reflect engaged and scholarly community-based work that positively impacts both the community and scholarship ... read more

A field technician prepares to band a young American kestrel who is nearly old enough to leave the nest box.
  • Catherine Lindell, Ph.D.
  • Associate Professor, Department of Integrative Biology
  • College of Natural Science

American Kestrel Nesting Boxes Keep Falcons Productive Partners for U.S. Fruit Farmers

Anyone with a backyard vegetable garden knows that nature is always trying to get at your plants. There are moles, chipmunks, ground hogs, rabbits, raccoons, deer, and a million insects that see your hard work as an all-you-can-eat buffet. Farmers have faced the challenge of natural pests since the beginning of agriculture. For Michigan cherry and blueberry growers, some of the most persistent pests are birds—starlings, grackles, American robins, and jays are just a few of the birds drawn by ripe sweet cherries.

These pest birds can have a dramatic impact on an orchard's yield. Not only do birds eat the crop, they also peck at fruit and leave it behind. Growers then have to invest time in picking out the damaged fruit or suffer a reduction in grade when it comes time to sell. This costs them time and money. Studies have shown that "managing bird damage prevents between $53 million and $65 million in annual losses to grower revenue in Michigan." ... read more

Safe Route to Schools Logo
  • Timothy Gates, Ph.D.
  • Associate Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
  • College of Engineering
  • Wayne Beyea, J.D.
  • Senior Specialist, Urban and Regional Planning
  • School of Planning, Design, and Construction
  • College of Agriculture and Natural Resources

It Takes More Than a Village to Create a Safe Route to School

Safe Routes to School (SRTS) is a program of the Federal Highway Administration that provides funding to states to help elementary and middle schools make improvements in infrastructure and programming to make it easier for children to walk, ride bikes, or use wheelchairs to get to school safely. While it used to be common for children to work and bike to school, today, many trips to school are made in private automobiles, contributing to a decline in physical activity, an increase in congested roadways around schools, and heightened concerns about the safety of children who do walk or bike to school ... read more

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.

Feedback

We would like to hear from you. Contact us with comments, suggestions, announcements, or "engaged scholar" project information for future e-newsletters. Send to: engaged.scholar@msu.edu.

Resources

MSU Graduate Certification in Community Engagement
This program prepares graduate students for 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

Like this E-Newsletter? Subscribe