News and Notes

A new award has been named in honor of Hiram E. Fitzgerald, University Distinguished Professor of psychology and former Associate Provost for University Outreach and Engagement. The Hiram E. Fitzgerald Distinguished Engaged Scholar Award recognizes an individual for exemplary contributions to the field of engaged scholarship. The award was named in his honor to recognize his sustained leadership in advancing both the scholarship and practice of engaged scholarship in higher education. The inaugural Hiram E. Fitzgerald Distinguished Engaged Scholar Award is being presented to Amy Driscoll, Consulting Scholar, Carnegie Community Engagement Classification, during the 2019 Engagement Scholarship Consortium Annual Conference.

Miles McNall, of UOE's Office for Public Engagement and Scholarship, and Bengt Arnetz, Professor and Chair of the Department of Family Medicine, received the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services' (ACCESS) Academic Partnership Award for MSU's commitment to community-based research and education. ACCESS is recognized nationally and internationally for its work on social justice and health equity with special focus on the health of Arab Americans and immigrants. MSU and ACCESS have a long-term relationship and ACCESS commonly serves as a community partner on federal grant applications.

Robert Brown, Associate Director for the MSU Center for Community and Economic Development in Flint, received the 2019 Excellence in Diversity Award (EIDA) in the category "Lifetime Achievement" from the MSU Office of Inclusion and Intercultural Activities. EIDA is an award program that recognizes outstanding efforts of faculty, students, and staff at MSU who are committed to the principles of diversity and inclusion and who actively engage in activities that demonstrate a sustained commitment to these principles.

Laurie Van Egeren, Interim Associate Provost for University Outreach and Engagement, was named to the newly formed Commission on Economic and Community Engagement (CECE) of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. CECE is committed to the development of meaningful and sustainable partnerships, founded on the principles of quality engagement among universities, communities, government, industry, and philanthropies. Core activities center around professional development, leadership, and peer exchange; projects, research, and initiatives; and federal policy contributions and communication.

Vaughn Watson, Assistant Professor in the Department of Teacher Education, has been named to the inaugural cohort of the Midwest Region Campus Compact Engaged Scholars Initiative. Watson was selected from a highly competitive pool of candidates nominated by college and university presidents and chief academic officers in 12 states. He joins a prestigious group of scholars participating in an 18-month learning and leadership process designed to strengthen their scholarship, research, and impact.

Junior Katarina Huss (James Madison College, 2020) was named a Campus Compact 2019 Newman Civic Fellow. Campus Compact, a national coalition of colleges and universities committed to the public purposes, established the Newman Civic Fellowship to recognize and support community-committed students who create change and are public problem solvers. Huss has worked with resettlement and post-resettlement agency programs to assist refugees in adjusting to life in the U.S. by teaching English, connecting them with local community members, and accessing resources.

The Opioid Prevention and Education Network (OPEN-MSU), coordinated by MSU's Office of University Outreach and Engagement and funded by the National Corporation for Public Service, provides a platform for building partnerships and support for local organizations working to address opioid addiction and overdose. Full-time AmeriCorps VISTA members will be trained to work with nonprofit organizations across the state that serve as host sites for the OPEN-MSU initiative. Jessica Barnes-Najor of UOE's Office for Public Engagement and Scholarship leads the initiative, and will provide oversight to recruiting, onboarding, and training members, as well as coordinate grant reporting and management. For more information: vistaopen.msu.edu

Campus Compact of the Midwest named MSU a strategic partner for the Engaged Scholars Initiative (ESI), a multi-state effort to address complex, challenging, and intractable societal issues. Michigan State University, University of Kansas, and University of Minnesota are strategic partners for the initiative. ESI will support a small cohort of engaged scholars who will advance co-created knowledge, critically engaged pedagogies, and collaborative action. Cohort members commit to ongoing participation from May 2019 to August 2020.

Through the Youth-Driven Space in Southeast Michigan project, a partnership with Neutral Zone, Ann Arbor's Teen Center, UOE is collaborating with six diverse youth-serving agencies in Southeast Michigan. The goal of the partnership is to document and enhance the dissemination of youth-driven practices in these communities so that teens can have authentic leadership roles and experiences before transitioning into adulthood. The project is funded by the Ralph C. Wilson Foundation. UOE's Heng-Chieh "Jamie" Wu is principal investigator.

The Andrew J. Mellon Foundation has awarded a grant of $800,000 (over a 3-year period) to MSU and South Africa's Stellenbosch University. The grant will support the Ubuntu Dialogues initiative, which aims to build bridges among students, faculty, and heritage professionals in South Africa and the USA. The lead administrative unit for Stellenbosch is the university's Museum. Partners at MSU include the African Studies Center (lead unit), UOE, Department of History, MATRIX, African and African American Studies Department, and MSU Museum. Kurt Dewhurst of UOE's Office for Public Engagement and Scholarship is a PI on the grant.

The Residential College in the Arts and Humanities, in partnership with the Center for Community Engaged Learning, has launched the MSU Network for Global Civic Engagement. The Network will enable faculty, staff, students, and community partners to learn more about what each is doing in the area of global civic engagement and build upon this work in innovative and more effective ways.

MSU is one of three public universities that are joining forces with the City of Detroit to provide economic forecasting services and data to the city. The City of Detroit University Economic Analysis Partnership is a five-year agreement between Michigan State University, the University of Michigan, and Wayne State University. It will be led by the Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics at the University of Michigan. The MSU effort will be led by the Extension Center for Local Government Finance and Policy. The universities will work with the Detroit Chief Financial Officer's forecasting and economic analysis unit to build a forecasting model for the city's tax revenues and develop local economic indicators, indices, and reports. The research team will present an economic forecast every year, utilizing public data from various sources.

UOE's Office for Public Engagement and Scholarship is partnering with investigators from the University of Utah, Oregon State University, the Pacific Science Center, Utah State University, and MSU Department of Advertising and Public Relations (John Besley, Ellis N. Brandt Professor) on a newly funded NSF Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) grant. The STEM Ambassador Program aims to develop strategies for scaling and sustaining training programs that engage "hard-to-reach" publics.

The Office of the Associate Provost for University Outreach and Engagement has reorganized its administrative structure. The new Office for Public Engagement and Scholarship will facilitate work in the following key areas: community-engaged research; faculty and professional development; partnership facilitation; and institutional research, policy, and recognition. OPES will also work collaboratively with the other UOE departments to enhance and support the community engagement efforts of faculty, staff, and students across the University.

The Center for Service-Learning and Civic Engagement celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2018. As the oldest such center in the country, the Center has led the way in community-engaged learning. In the fall of 2019, the Center will launch the next 50 years with a new name, the Center for Community Engaged Learning. The new name represents the mission of the center: to advance community-engaged learning at Michigan State University and prepare students for lifelong civic and social responsibility in an increasingly diverse and complex global society.