Kellogg Award
2020 W. K. Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement Scholarship Awards

Recipients of the 2020 W. K. Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement Scholarship Award
and
Finalists for the 2020 C. Peter Magrath Community Engagement Scholarship Award

Ohio State University

Learning in Fitness and Education through Sports (LiFEsports) Initiative

LiFEsports' mission is "to prepare youth for life and leadership through sport." Aligning with Ohio State's impact areas, LiFEsports seeks to: provide quality sport-based positive youth development (PYD) programming, especially to youth from vulnerable circumstances; prepare and train tomorrow's sport-based PYD workforce; and research, discover, and share best practices in sport-based PYD. Since 2008, more than 8,000 low-income youth aged 6-18 have participated in LiFEsports Summer Camps, year-round sports clinics, and Youth Leadership Academy. Annually, approximately 200 college students complete internships, research, classwork, and paid or volunteer work. The project has resulted in 22 journal articles, book chapters, and proceedings, and more than 50 research papers, posters, and workshops. Translational research at LiFEsports improves practices in PYD and sport, locally and globally.

LiFEsports is spearheaded by the Department of Athletics, College of Social Work, Department of Recreational Sports, Office of Outreach and Engagement, and OSU Extension, along with 13 other OSU units. In collaboration with more than 20 community partners, such as the City of Columbus Recreation and Parks Department, Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority, Franklin County Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Board, and Columbus City Schools, LiFEsports transforms lives through outreach and engagement, teaching, learning, and research.

University of Memphis

University of Memphis Institute of Interdisciplinary Memphis Partnerships to Advance Community Transformation (iIMPACT)

The University of Memphis (UofM) institute, iIMPACT, and its community partners collaborate to address issues of childhood trauma, improve families' access to supportive services, and build a culture of health in Memphis. Harnessing UofM's research capacity, students' desire for applied experiences, and the guidance and support of community leaders, iIMPACT developed a set of programs and services that address a wide range of health and socioeconomic issues facing local families, including childhood asthma, autism spectrum disorder, adverse childhood experiences, child social-emotional development, and connectedness to services and resources.

Partners include: Agape Child & Family Services, Child Advocacy Center, Family Safety Center, Goodwill Homes, Knowledge Quest, LeBonheur Children's Hospital, Porter-Leath, Shelby County School District, Shelby County Health Department, Shelby County Community Services, Union Grove Baptist Church, Assisi Foundation, United Way of the Mid-South, and Urban Child Institute. Together these organizations have worked to address the needs of families with young children and connect them to community resources. iIMPACT's successes have been shared in academic journals, conferences, news media, and through the ACEs Symposium: Awareness to Action, a free, open-to-the-community conference in Spring 2019. iIMPACT's students have gained valuable insights about conducting applied community research, as well as about the needs and strengths of our local community.

University of Utah

University Neighborhood Partners

* Winner of the 2020 C. Peter Magrath Community Engagement Scholarship Award

A partnership between the University of Utah and Salt Lake City's (SLC) west side neighborhoods, University Neighborhood Partners (UNP) was an early adopter of what the Coalition for Urban and Metropolitan Universities calls "hyperlocal engagement"—a long-term commitment to a specific geographic area. Drawing on academic and community knowledge to promote learning, inquiry, and benefit for all involved, UNP convenes faculty, staff, students, west side residents, and local organizations to address resident-identified priorities in education, leadership, and community capacity and well-being.

A year-long research project to understand west side residents' priorities and the role the University can play in addressing them became UNP's blueprint for supporting many efforts on SLC's west side. One effort, the Westside Leadership Institute, has supported hundreds of residents in building leadership and organizing skills, designing projects addressing local issues, and starting community-based organizations. Another, the UNP-Hartland Partnership Center, is a hub where the University, organizations, and community leaders collaborate on culturally responsive, resident-led neighborhood services and educational opportunities. Guided by goals defined by residents and partners, UNP-supported efforts have contributed to the education of thousands of students; increased access to higher education for residents; disseminated knowledge through hundreds of academic, practitioner, and community-oriented products; and increased the capacity of communities to define their own future.

University of Vermont

Connecting Cultures

Connecting Cultures was established in 2007 in partnership with Vermont's expanding community of refugees, to serve the needs of refugees and survivors of torture. The impact of torture can be far-reaching, not only affecting individuals who have directly experienced trauma, but also their families and communities. Failing to adequately address trauma among refugees can lead to re-traumatization, poverty, discrimination, and unsuccessful re-integration. Utilizing a multidisciplinary, evidence-based model of mental health intervention, the Connecting Cultures clinical science specialty services have served more than one thousand refugees and survivors of torture since 2007.

Research with Vermont's refugee community has led to six peer reviewed publications, over one hundred presentations, a TEDx Talk, and a language-free mobile mental health application for refugees. Graduate and undergraduate students engage through research, practicums, and internships, participating in multi-disciplinary teams with psychologists, social workers, and other refugee advocates. Doctoral students receive advanced diversity training and opportunities to nationally disseminate integrated clinical and research findings regarding refugee mental health.

Faculty and partners share outcomes of their service, outreach, teaching, and research through such outlets as the National Consortium of Torture Treatment Programs and the Association of Psychology Training Clinics, with the goal of improving mental health services for refugees and survivors of torture across the country.

Exemplary Projects

  • Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS)
    Purdue University

    Millions of farmers in developing nations who depend on cereal and legumes for food security and income can lose 30% of their stored grains due to insect damages. Farmers often must sell their grain at harvest, when prices are low, or use insecticides that can be ineffective, expensive, or poisonous.

    Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS) technology, developed by Purdue College of Agriculture in collaboration with African scientists in 2007, utilizes a triple layer sealed plastic bag that cuts off the oxygen supply to insects by creating hermetic conditions, eliminating insect damage during grain storage (Murdock & Baoua, 2014). Since 2007, more than 7 million farmers have been taught how to use PICS bags in about 60,000 villages, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa.

    PICS has since launched PICS Global, a self-sustaining start-up company working with more than 23 manufacturers and distributors to expand its markets in new countries, stimulating economies and providing many new jobs. Plastics manufacturers and inputs distributors have produced and sold more than 20 million PICS bags, which have been distributed in more than 35 countries in Eastern and Southern Africa, South Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Continuous interaction between farmers and Purdue led to the development of PICS3, an ambitious outreach, research, and engagement initiative.

  • UCLA Million Dollar Hoods
    University of California - Los Angeles

    Million Dollar Hoods (MDH), based at UCLA's Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, is a research initiative co-founded in 2016 by UCLA Professor Kelly Lytle Hernandez and a coalition of prison abolition organizations in Los Angeles. MDH created web-based maps to visualize communities where local authorities are spending millions of dollars annually to jail residents. MDH calls these communities L.A.'s Million Dollar Hoods. MDH also produced research reports to monitor emerging trends in local policing, as well as policy memos and white papers to respond to emerging issues identified by community partners. MDH now trains residents of L.A.'s Million Dollar Hoods in data analytics and visualization.

    MDH research highlights the impact of mass incarceration on Black life while exemplifying the transformative power of Black-led and Black-focused data analysis. Community partners such as JusticeLA, a coalition of community organizations working to shrink the size of the local jail system, drive the conceptualization, curation, and distribution of MDH research. MDH staff and students regularly participate in JusticeLA meetings to discuss campaigns and identify opportunities to collect and deploy data to advance those campaigns. This collaborative, community-engaged scholarship enabled the L.A. County Board of Supervisors to vote down a new jail and instead approve a plan to invest in alternatives to incarceration. Additionally, MDH research prompted the L.A. Unified School District to change harmful policing practices.

  • Kentucky Racing Health Services Center and University of Louisville
    University of Louisville

    The Kentucky Racing Health Services Center is a nonprofit healthcare center established in 2005 by the University of Louisville (UofL) School of Nursing in partnership with, and funded by, the Kentucky Racing Health and Welfare Fund, a benevolent organization assisting marginalized individuals in the Kentucky thoroughbred racing industry.

    The target community—uninsured backside workers at Churchill Downs and their families—are primarily non-English-speaking Latinx immigrants of low socioeconomic status with minimal health literacy rates and no other means to access healthcare services. The community collaboration's focus is to provide essential healthcare services to this community, including primary care, women's health, and mental health services, through UofL nurse practitioners/School of Nursing faculty.

    Incorporating teaching, research, and interprofessional practice into the unique care delivery model, the community collaboration exemplifies significant reciprocity between partners. University partners include UofL's School of Nursing and School of Dentistry, and students from the Latin American and Latino Studies Department. Student internships and evidence-based research projects not only offer education to providers, but also have resulted in practice change, culturally competent care, and patient education presentations and materials, promoting highly effective care for the patients and positively impacting the university, students, community, and partners.

  • Pioneering Partnerships: Mobilizing Autism Services in Rural Communities
    Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

    Early identification and intervention can improve outcomes for people with autism spectrum disorder, but access to services is not comparable across all demographic groups. The Virginia Tech Autism Clinic & Center for Autism Research developed a mobile clinic to deliver crucial services to rural Southwest Virginia, partnering with Mount Rogers Community Services Board to extend assessment, intervention, and education to underserved populations.

    Results gathered from focus groups across six rural counties on needed autism services were published in the Journal of Appalachian Health and presented at multiple regional, national, and international meetings. Results also informed the development of the Mobile Autism Clinic, one of the few autism specialty clinics and research centers in this region of Appalachia.

    In 2018, student clinicians began offering sliding-scale therapeutic services through the mobile clinic. The waitlist for those needing therapy or diagnostic assessments grew, and in 2019, Richmond-based CA Human Services agreed to expand into Southwest Virginia and fund the mobile clinic's diagnostic assessments, allowing students to offer free assessments and parent education.

    This project galvanizes engaged scholarship by providing specialized training and practical services to clinical science graduate students. As a result, the Mount Rogers Community Services' waitlist is reduced and families are empowered with a diagnosis, opening gateways for services.