Message from the Vice Provost
Kwesi Brookins, Vice Provost for University Outreach and Engagement
Planting the Seeds of Scholarship
The sights and sounds of commencement weekend make me proud to be a Spartan, a feeling I hope that you share as our graduates prepare to contribute their knowledge and skills to the broader community. Among them are impressive numbers of graduate and undergraduate engaged scholars and volunteers supported by UOE programs, faculty, and staff. We congratulate them all for advancing MSU’s civic and land-grant missions.
Come Monday, our bustling campus will move into summer mode as many undergraduate and graduate students take a well-deserved break and our faculty regroups to prepare for the fall semester ahead.
While it will be relatively quiet outside the offices of University Outreach and Engagement (UOE) at the Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center, for our team the spring and summer will be a time to plant the seeds of scholarship.
One example is the Urban Community Engagement Fellows Program (UCEF), a joint initiative of UOE and MSU’s Graduate School. UCEF pairs graduate students with community partners to envision and complete community-identified projects aimed at revitalizing Lansing. This spring and summer, graduate fellows in the pilot cohort are working with community partners to develop a curriculum for the 2024–25 program when it launches in the fall.
We also are proud to offer the popular Summer Intensive on Community-Engaged Scholarship in early June. Early career, tenure-track faculty, and advanced graduate students from MSU and other colleges and universities will participate in a learning community focused on community-engaged research and community-engaged teaching and learning. Through workshops, field trips, lightning talks, case studies, panel discussions, and individual consultations, participants can develop strategies and plans for their own successful engagement activities.
In addition to these opportunities for our graduate students and faculty members, I am excited about the ways UOE is reaching out to future Spartans through our summer youth and pre-college programs.
The Office of College Access Initiatives (OCAI) within UOE offers programs aimed at setting up young people for success in post-secondary institutions. GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) begins in seventh grade and follows students through their first year of college. This summer, GEAR UP is offering a college tour for rising 11th and 12th grade students. The tour includes seven school visits in five days!
OCAI’s Upward Bound serves highly motivated, first generation, underrepresented high school youth. Its Summer Academy serves Lansing Public Schools students going into Grades 9–12.
Our Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) Office offers an impressive lineup of weekend and weeklong summer programs for gifted children in elementary, middle, and high school. New this summer is an opportunity for students in Grades 7–10 to explore Michigan’s history through an archaeological dig on campus.
Fall will be here before we know it. In the meantime, our staff here at UOE will relish the not-so-lazy days of summer connecting with scholars young and old!
Kwesi Brookins,
Vice Provost for University Outreach and Engagement
