2013 University Engagement Recognition Awards

On behalf of The Ohio State University, the Offices of Outreach and Engagement, International Affairs, Undergraduate Education, and the Service-Learning Initiative recognize faculty, staff and students for outstanding achievement with the University Outreach and Engagement Recognition Awards program. The overall top partnership, which receives the University Outreach and Engagement Award, serves as the university's nominee for the national C. Peter Magrath University Community Engagement Award.

Ohio State's Young Scholars Program was selected as the 2013 C. Peter Magrath University Community Engagement Award winner!

Outreach Scholarship W.K. Kellogg Foundation Engagement Award North Central Region Award
University Outreach and Engagement Award (National Magrath Nominee)

Young Scholars Program

Primary Contact: Curtis Austin - austin.288@osu.edu

The Young Scholars Program (YSP), a comprehensive pre-collegiate and collegiate program, enhances the academic, personal, and career development skills of students from low-income families to prepare them for college success. Founded in 1988, YSP identifies academically talented first-generation middle and high school students from Ohio's nine largest urban school districts: Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Lorain, Toledo, and Youngstown.

YSP has made it possible for nearly 800 students to become first-generation college graduates. With exemplary community engagement for over 25 years, YSP works with superintendents, principals, and counselors to significantly improve student performance and district graduation rates.

YSP works with parents to become more involved in their children's learning. Hundreds of parents and siblings have earned G.E.D.s and college degrees in the process, contributing to the growth and improvement of their communities.

Ohio State Colleges/Units Involved: Office of Diversity and Inclusion, College of Education and Human Ecology, College of Engineering College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, College of Medicine, Fisher College of Business, Department of Mathematics, Department of Sociology, School of Music

Community Partners Involved: School Districts of: Akron, Canton, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Dayton, Lorain, Toledo, Columbus, Youngstown; Price Waterhouse Coopers, Limited Brands, American Honda Foundation, Nationwide Children's Hospital, United Way, Ronald McDonald House, EarthFest, Habitat for Humanity, Cleveland Ministerial Alliance

Public Health in Action

Primary Contact: Randi Love - love.45@osu.edu

Public Health in Action is field-based graduate course taught by Randi Love through the College of Public Health. The course is intended to provide graduate students with real world experience in public health research and practice. The field of public health seeks to extend the potential benefits of the physical and behavioral sciences to all groups in society, especially when the burden of disease and ill health is unequally distributed. Public Health in Action is designed to prepare future practitioners for the realities of addressing conditions that negatively affect the health status of the most vulnerable populations.

Since public health is a field concerned with the health of populations and communities, this experience is invaluable for future practitioners. Each year, the course starts with grounding in the research associated with the health issue. After meeting with community partners, students develop an action plan. The focus of the course varies from year to year depending on partnerships and community needs.

Over the years, partners have included Columbus Public Health, United Way, Broad St. UMC, Healthy Mothers and Babies Coalition, Neighborhood Services Inc., Amethyst Inc., Faith Mission, St. Vincent DePaul, YWCA Family Center, Physicians Free Clinic and others. For the last two years, each student enrolled in the class provided 42 hours of volunteer work for community partners serving residents in poverty.

Ohio State Colleges/Units Involved: Health Behavior/Health Promotion; College of Public Health

Community Partners Involved: Columbus Public Health; Faith Mission; Broad St. UMC; United Way of Central Ohio; Council for Healthy Mothers and Babies; Amethyst Inc., YWCA, St. Vincent DePaul, Neighborhood Services

LASER High School Mentoring Program

Primary Contact: Frederick Aldama - aldama.1@osu.edu

The Ohio State LASER High School Mentoring Program prepares Latino students in Columbus-area high schools for successful admission to Ohio State and elsewhere, integrating students and their families into a supportive network of college students, professionals and information resources to help them successfully navigate college application and financial aid.

LASER (Latino & Latin American Space for Enrichment and Research) is a multi-pronged initiative of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion that provides a forum for faculty, students, and staff to build a scholarly community on campus for preparing, recruiting, and retaining Latino scholars.

One component, the High School Mentoring Program, matches undergraduate mentors with high school mentees for regular, ongoing academic coaching and college readiness activities. Special workshops are organized for students and parents on topics such as college admissions, financial aid, resources for undocumented students, and cultural topics. Mentors are trained, use established curricular materials, and receive compensation for their commitment. LASER currently works with 20 high schools in the Columbus public school system and has recently added the Arts and College Preparatory Academy and Hayes High School, Delaware. Our partnerships have led to the building of bridges between principles, counselors, and teachers at these high schools and OSU's Office of Diversity and Inclusion and other units on campus, including the Fisher College of Business.

Ohio State Colleges/Units Involved: Office of Diversity and Inclusion

Community Partners Involved: Cardinal Health; National Society of Hispanic MBAs; Ohio Wesleyan University; Columbus State Community College; Arts and College Preparatory Academy; Dublin High School, PricewaterhouseCoopers

Food Security and Rural Development in Tanzania

Primary Contact: David Kraybill - kraybill.1@osu.edu

The International Agricultural Research Initiative (iAGRI) is a five-year project led by Prof. David Kraybill and funded by the United State Agency for International Development funded at $24,000,000. The project's purpose is to increase the capacity of the Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) and the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives in Tanzania to achieve food security and improve the livelihoods of rural inhabitants. More than 80 percent of the Tanzanian population reside in rural areas and depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. Agricultural higher education, research and outreach are critically needed inputs to increase agricultural productivity and decrease food insecurity. iAGRI is designed to address gaps by focusing on multiple dimensions of human and institutional capacity building.

By the end of the project advanced degree training will have been provided to 120 staff members from partner institutions. To date 84 have been placed in degree programs at OSU and its partner institutions. Nine collaborative agricultural research projects and four agricultural policy research projects have been funded and are building bridges between scientists from OSU consortium and Tanzanian research institutions and contributing to greater productivity through new technology development. To-date, 399 individuals have received agricultural sector short-term training in Tanzania; 2,738 students received training via ICT; 40 new technologies under development and 22 SUA and OSU consortium faculty have participated in short-term professional visitations at OSU or other partner institutions.

Ohio State Colleges/Units Involved: College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences; College of Veterinary Medicine; AEDE, ACEL, FABE, Entomology, Plant Pathology, HCS, SENR, & Vet. Prevent Med.

Community Partners Involved: Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania; Ministry of Agricultural, Food Security and Cooperatives, Tanzania; Regional University Forum for Agricultural Capacity Building (RUFORUM); Punjab Agricultural University; Universities of Florida, Iowa State, Virginia Tech, Tuskegee, Michigan State

Interprofessional Teamwork in Underserved Patient Care

Primary Contact: Alexa Sevin - sevin.5@osu.edu

The Columbus Free Clinic (CFC) is a clinic maintained and staffed by student volunteers from the Wexner Medical Center that serves a large proportion of the uninsured in Columbus. CFC was founded on two main pillars: 1) service of the community and 2) education of its volunteers. Last year, the CFC saw more than 1,500 patients and provided more than 500 richly rewarding volunteer experiences. Since its inception, the clinic has evolved and a third pillar has arisen: the importance of interprofessional collaboration. This environment not only brings about the highest levels of care, but also fosters a nurturing learning opportunity where students can learn and grow along with one another. In an effort to further integrate students, a new service-learning course has been created in partnership with the College of Pharmacy, College of Nursing and College of Social Work.

The service experiences in the clinic differ for each of the health professions. The nursing students are working primarily in the lab providing crucial tests to patients in need. The pharmacy students work with physicians to provide patients with the appropriate medications and screen patients with multiple medications for drug interactions and/or redundancies. The social work students provide assistance with all-around patient health as they are able to offer an array of support services ranging from counseling to connection with community resources. This collaborative environment allows students to practice their procedural skills and fosters an environment where students teach one another, all while making a marked difference in a patient's life. The service-learning aspect brings students together to discuss their experiences at the CFC through a bi-monthly seminar that will help to both enrich the educational process and improve patient care.

Ohio State Colleges/Units Involved: College of Pharmacy, College of Nursing, College of Social Work; Pharmacy Practice and Administration

Community Partners Involved: The Columbus Free Clinic

Community Partners of PACT

Partners Achieving Community Transformation (PACT) is a partnership between the City of Columbus, The Ohio State University, the Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority (CMHA) and Near East Side stakeholders. PACT's vision is to create a healthy, financially and environmentally sustainable community where residents have access to safe and affordable housing, quality healthcare and education, and employment opportunities on the Near East Side of Columbus, Ohio. PACT recognizes that one of the essential components of any community development or revitalization plan or strategy is education.

Goals include:

• To promote a healthy, culturally and economically diverse community
• To be a catalyst for continuing and expanding redevelopment efforts in the surrounding area and promote and protect commercial and retail development within the defined geography.
• To provide recreational opportunities for children and families.
• To provide education, job training and employment opportunities.
• To include stakeholders in major decisions throughout the redevelopment process.

Aparna Dial

Since 2005, the Mayor's Office of Environmental Stewardship has made a concerted effort to make sustainability a way of life in the city of Columbus. They have worked towards this common goal in partnership with the Ohio State University, an effort led by Aparna Dial, director of Energy Services and Sustainability for the Office of Energy and Environment. Aparna has been a consistent champion, constantly finding opportunities for the university and city to partner. Efforts like zero waste football games, led by Aparna and her team, help sustainability gain traction by engaging a wider audience to consider how their personal actions can affect their environment.

When Columbus began offering recycling to High Street restaurants, Aparna recruited students in the learning experience of program implementation. Students visited eligible High Street businesses to educate and engage owners in the new recycling program. These same students advocated that the city install public space recycling containers along High Street, and the city fulfilled this request. Aparna was also able to engage Ohio State facilities in the Columbus GreenSpot program. The pledge program is membership based providing a roadmap for sustainability and recognition for these efforts. Ohio State now has more registered GreenSpot locations than any other participating entity.

Marcelita Haskins

In line with the mission of The Ohio State University, WOSU Public Media serves as an extension of the university into its communities of service. Since 1979, Dr. Marcelita Haskins has been directing these efforts as Director of Educational Services at WOSU Public Media. Every year for the past decade, Marcelita has directed the Ready to Learn service that provides workshops across a 21-county area to hundreds of child care providers in our region. Last year, WOSU hosted 77 workshops with an attendance of 1,235 child caregivers. Those participants serve over 16,000 pre-school children. These workshops help caregivers strategically advance early literacy, emotional development and lifelong health habits with their children.

Marcelita has also been instrumental in the leadership of other key outreach projects, such as WOSU's partnership with Surge Columbus. In 2012, WOSU joined with four other prominent local nonprofits to receive funding from Battelle to support Surge Columbus. The program connects five learning labs with teens so they can access the latest in technology and create art, learning objects, and digital stories. The WOSU@COSI Ross MediaLab is the center for WOSU's involvement. This is an innovative network of learning labs set up for teens to access after school and on weekends to be mentored and grow in learning technological and creative skills.

Meera Nagarajan

Meera has taken on a leadership role at Ohio State through her involvement in meaningful and engaging service experiences in the areas of food access, food security, health, and water access. As a member of the Food Fellows Program, a student cohort, trains and educates students about food-related issues through research and service with community agencies, Meera has helped coordinate several programs that focus on social justice and service issues. For example, Meera serves as a volunteer at local food pantries, coordinated the SNAP Challenge on campus, which participants simulate what it is like to live on SNAP (Food stamp) benefits, which is approximately $4.50/day for food, as well as hosted a documentary screening in collaboration with several colleges and departments on campus on food insecurity in the United States. Meera states that these experiences have reinforced her passion for studying nutrition and its impact on basic health, and her future plans on being a physician.

Adam Kolatorowicz

Adam has been a member and Team Leader for the OSU Forensic Anthropology Case Team (FACT) since 2008. The team is a group of graduate students and faculty in the Department of Anthropology and Division of Anatomy. All of the work that Adam does through his involvement through FACT is in service to the community. For example, Adam led FACT with a collaborative service project with the Village of Fort Jennings, Ohio to uncover significant historical information for this community. Adam states that his service experiences have supplemented his work as a graduate student at OSU as well as enriched his life as a community member.

Rajiv Mallipudi

Over the last two years Rajiv has served as President and Co-Founder of medFIT, which is a student interests group that provides personal training and nutrition counseling to medical students. Through this experience, Rajiv has coordinated a meaningful partnership with SHINE Academy through offering fitness training to elementary school students. Rajiv states that his measures the successes of his medFIT through the lives they change through the individuals they train.

Master of Accounting Association

The Master of Accounting (MAcc) Association has always placed a high emphasis on student leadership in community service. They have utilized their strengths and interests to positively impact the community in several ways. This academic year, MAcc students volunteered in the Financial Education Teaches Children Healthy Habits (FETCH!) program, hosted by the Ohio Society of CPAs, organized an event known as MAcc Gives Back in November where 50 MAcc students volunteered at Columbus non-profits, and have been integral leaders and participants in the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program, where student volunteers offer free tax preparation to low-to-moderate income households.