Message from the Interim Associate Provost
Laurie Van Egeren, Interim Associate Provost for University Outreach and Engagement
Dear Engaged Spartans and our partners in Michigan and around the world,
One of the great privileges of the Office of University Outreach and Engagement is recognizing and awarding the exceptional engaged work of our faculty, staff, students, and community partners. Our annual celebration of their accomplishments declares how deeply MSU values their commitment to meaningful collaborations that reflect both scholarly integrity and real-world impact.
Each partnership we celebrate highlights diverse expressions of experience and knowledge, enacted in ethical and equitable ways to address challenging issues locally and around the world ...
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Featured MSU Engaged Scholars
- David Mota-Sanchez, Ph.D.
- Assistant Professor, Department of Entomology
- College of Agriculture and Natural Resources
La Cosecha (The Harvest): Growing Sustainable Farming Businesses
New farmers attempting to establish a profitable farming business face daunting challenges: a steep learning curve, expensive acreage and equipment, federal and local guidelines, the need for credentials and business savvy, stiff competition, and a declining labor force, to say nothing of pest damage and climate concerns. For Latino/a farmers, these challenges can be intensified by cultural and linguistic barriers. For new farmers to be successful, access to funding and up-to-date information is indispensable.
David Mota-Sanchez, assistant professor in MSU's Department of Entomology, directs La Cosecha, a three-year training program for first and next generation Latino/a farmers, that seeks to help farmers access the resources they need to establish sustainable farms that can potentially be passed to the next generation ...
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- Brad Willcuts, MFA
- Assistant Professor, Department of Theatre
- College of Arts and Letters
Commemorating the Year of COVID in Dance and Spoken Narrative
Dance is for the most part a social thing. People tend to dance together. So you might think doing collaborative dance projects during a pandemic lockdown would be impossible.
Brad Willcuts thinks otherwise.
Willcuts is an assistant professor who teaches musical theatre and choreography in MSU's Department of Theatre. He has a long-standing interest in virtual reality and other technological enhancements to the performance experience.
He is also always on the lookout for projects that engage with the public. Currently he has several irons in the fire ...
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- Keith Hampton, Ph.D.
- Professor and Quello Center Associate Director for Academic Research
- Department of Media and Information
- College of Communication Arts and Sciences
- Johannes M. Bauer, Ph.D.
- Professor, Quello Center Director, and Quello Chair in Media and Information Policy
- Department of Media and Information
- College of Communication Arts and Sciences
Critical Connections: Rural Broadband Access and School Learning Gaps
In groundbreaking research led by Keith Hampton, professor in MSU's College of Communication Arts and Sciences, and Johannes M. Bauer, professor and MSU Quello Center director, there is now evidence that middle and high school students who cannot connect sufficiently to the Internet at home are falling behind in educational accomplishments. It has been called the homework gap, but it's so much more than that.
Partnering with Merit Network, a Michigan nonprofit with extensive roots in technology development and advocacy, Hampton and Bauer worked with a dedicated network of collaborators to measure and quantify the realities of broadband access in rural communities, and what it means for educating Michigan's students ...
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