PACT selected to be Ohio State's nominee for Magrath and Kellogg Awards
Partners Achieving Community Transformation (PACT) has been selected to be Ohio State's nominee for the 2021 C. Peter Magrath and W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement Scholarship Awards. PACT earned the nomination through a competitive selection process earlier this year.
"We are proud to nominate PACT for this prestigious award," said Ryan Schmiesing, vice provost for Outreach and Engagement. "With all PACT has accomplished in partnership with the community and university, it is very deserving of this honor."
The Magrath and Kellogg Awards, which are presented by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities and the Engagement Scholarship Consortium, are among the highest honors that a community-university partnership can receive.
"It is exciting to be selected as Ohio State's nominee this year. It is a testament to the impacts our community and university partners have made over the past decade," said Autumn Glover, president of PACT and senior director of community and civic engagement at the Wexner Medical Center.
PACT is a historic community reinvestment initiative on the Near East Side of Columbus between the City of Columbus, Ohio State and PACT's anchor partner the OSU Wexner Medical Center, and the Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority. Since its inception, PACT and its partners defined stakeholders as anyone who lives in, works in, worships in, or loves the Near East Side. The invitation to imagine a mixed-income community was extended and accepted by hundreds of residents, churches, schools, nonprofits, and business leaders. In 10 years, PACT has transformed an underserved neighborhood in ways no one could have predicted, making it one of the most remarkable public/private success stories in the country.
PACT began initially as a short-term initiative with a $10 million investment from the Wexner Medical Center, and a vision 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 in that same neighborhood.
However, PACT's success as a convener of academic and medical research and support at Ohio State and building trust with a dedicated population of historically underserved residents, while also garnering $220 million in meaningful and impactful redevelopment and programmatic support, ensures that it will be a long-term and critical component of both the city's and Ohio State's future. PACT's breadth of programming from academic, social and health research, community redevelopment, resident-led and resident-focused training and educational programs, school curriculum development, to COVID-19 outreach initiatives, social action and dozens of other efforts is seemingly boundless.
Today, PACT serves as a model for community development initiatives nationwide and an example of how universities can have real-world transformational impacts on communities most in need, while advancing academic, medical, and social research within those very neighborhoods.
The Magrath-Kellogg Awards consist of two phases. First, nominees compete for their regional Kellogg Award. Second, the four regional winners move on for the opportunity to be selected as the national Magrath Award recipient.
Ohio State has earned four Kellogg Awards, the second most in the nation, and one Magrath Award (Young Scholars Program, 2013).
More information about applying to be Ohio State's 2022 nominee will be available during autumn semester. For questions about the nomination process, please contact Assistant Vice Provost Nicole Nieto at nieto.12@osu.edu.