Kellogg Award
2025 W. K. Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement Scholarship Awards
Recipients of the 2025 W. K. Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement Scholarship Award
and
Finalists for the 2025 C. Peter Magrath Community Engagement Scholarship Award
Indiana University
Sustaining Hoosier Communities
Working to enrich the health, prosperity, and vitality of rural areas, the Indiana University (IU) Center for Rural Engagement's Sustaining Hoosier Communities (SHC) program connects students and their faculty with community-led projects that expand IU and rural Indiana's networks while addressing community-identified needs in southern Indiana. The program convenes residents to identify assets that could be strengthened in partnership with Indiana University, such as libraries, social services, government entities, natural resources, local landmarks, social networks, and more. SHC pairs community-identified projects with courses and programs at IU Bloomington, infusing local capacity with the energy and fresh ideas of IU's students and faculty. The effort has connected more than 2,400 IU students and faculty with rural communities in Indiana. To date, SHC has partnered with six rural Indiana counties, each with populations ranging from 19,000 to 43,000, to advance 151 community-identified projects that benefit more than 208,000 people across the state.
Oregon State University
Oregon Whale Entanglements
When Oregon's largest commercial fishery was threatened by a rise in whale entanglements, Oregon State University (OSU) deployed a team of researchers to partner with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and other community stakeholders to better understand and address the challenge. The group developed a plan to identify areas of overlap in fishing areas and whale activity, assess potential whale exposure to Dungeness crab gear, and share knowledge with commercial fishermen to mitigate further whale entanglements. OSU convened subject matter experts, industry, and environmental groups in a working group to develop a consensus understanding of the challenge at hand, identify key knowledge gaps, and leverage community connections to address the problem. OSU researchers boarded U.S. Coast Guard helicopters and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ships to collect and analyze data on the locations of over 3,500 whales. The researchers monitored 42,000 miles over 376 days between 2016 and 2024, identifying when the density of humpback and blue whales peaks over the Oregon continental shelf. A follow-up predictive analysis mapped whale distribution with fishing activity to identify areas and times of elevated entanglement risk, informing Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Dungeness crab management decisions that support the commercial fishing industry while protecting whales.
University of Tennessee-Knoxville
REACCH: Research and Education Aligned for Clinical and Community Health
Looking to address gaps in research at federally qualified health centers and improve care, the University of Tennessee – Knoxville (UTK) teamed up with River Valley Health (RVH), formerly Cherokee Health Systems, in 2022 to launch the Research and Education Aligned for Clinical and Community Health (REACCH) partnership. Building on longstanding collaborations between UTK and RVH, REACCH established a structured partnership through shared policy, research, training, and a place-based engagement hub. REACCH systematically identifies community health issues through RVH frontline clinical insights and UTK's research capabilities. The partnership directly engages with communities to understand their unique needs, leveraging RVH's deep community connections alongside UTK's academic resources. The REACCH partnership allows university faculty and students to gain experience serving East Tennessee's patient populations, as well as multidisciplinary research and experiential learning opportunities. These interdisciplinary collaborations provide opportunities for UTK faculty, undergraduates, and graduate students to participate in engaged scholarship while implementing innovative, effective, and nationally recognized community-engaged research and teaching programs. The partnership is currently conducting studies and outreach efforts on improving health literacy, advancing maternal health education, reducing chronic illness, and nutrition education.
West Virginia University
Mountaineer Area RoboticS (MARS)
To build talent, keep future leaders in the state, and provide communities access to innovation, faculty and staff at West Virginia University (WVU) engaged the community to create the Mountaineer Area RoboticS (MARS) program. MARS is a K–12 STEM partnership that helps students explore creativity and curiosity through competitive robotics. The partnership was designed to reach youth in underserved communities, connecting them with hands-on learning, mentors, and opportunities in STEM. WVU faculty, staff, and students collaborate closely with local schools and organizations to share technical knowledge and mentorship. In turn, community partners support outreach, events, and engagement with young people. This partnership brings WVU's land-grant mission to life by helping more West Virginians access higher education and connecting the university's research and expertise with real challenges facing the state. MARS helped launch hundreds of robotics and drone teams and hosts over 130 outreach events each year. In just five years, nearly 50,000 people have taken part. While only 47% of students in West Virginia go to college, 100% of MARS participants graduate from high school and 96% go on to college. Most choose STEM fields. Many come to WVU, lead student programs, and mentor others, creating a cycle of leadership and community impact across the state.
Exemplary Projects
¡Plo-NO! Santa Ana!
University of California-Irvine
¡Plo-NO! Santa Ana! (Lead-Free Santa Ana!) exemplifies a dynamic community-university partnership between the Orange County Environmental Justice Education Fund and the University of California – Irvine. This collaboration emerged in response to a 2017 investigative journalism report about lead contamination in Santa Ana. The findings ignited concern among community members, catalyzing a grassroots movement to address the issue. A resident-commissioned soil assessment and rigorous research identified the sources of contamination, leading to a long-term partnership on environmental public health in Santa Ana.
By engaging the community, the partnership has not only studied these pressing issues but also co-developed practical solutions. Community members have taken an active role in shaping the research agenda by posing critical questions and remediation strategies. Key examples of community involvement included the participation of youth in collecting over 1,500 soil samples, the organization of information sessions, and engagement with local officials to advocate for lead remediation.
This community-driven approach not only enhanced the relevance and impact of the research, but also empowered residents to take control of their environmental health. The collaboration between community members, local organizations, and academic researchers exemplifies community-based participatory research and highlights the importance of community engagement in addressing environmental health disparities through a research lens.
Fostering Coastal Resilience: A Community Partnership
University of Florida
Coastal communities in the Southeastern United States face increasing exposure to climate hazards such as rising sea levels and intensifying storms, which accelerate shoreline erosion and endanger people, property, infrastructure, and critical ecosystems. Cedar Key, a small city on Florida's Gulf Coast with a thriving aquaculture industry, is particularly vulnerable. The University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) operates off-campus research/education facilities across the state, including the UF/IFAS Nature Coast Biological Station in Cedar Key. For over a decade, UF/IFAS faculty and staff have partnered with the City of Cedar Key to develop innovative solutions to coastal erosion, build community resilience, and protect a working waterfront essential to Florida's economy. Through this partnership, UF/IFAS has collaborated with local stakeholders to facilitate the design, construction, and monitoring of nature-based infrastructure in Cedar Key. These efforts have softened or restored more than 30% of the shoreline in Cedar Key's Daughtry Bayou, making it more resilient to storm impacts while improving coastal habitat and enhancing the shoreline aesthetic. This partnership has resulted in the translation of coproduced, science-based guidance into policy, creating a model for effective collaboration between communities and academic institutions.
Mapping Prejudice
University of Minnesota
Mapping Prejudice began in 2016 as an experiment to raise awareness of racial covenants, which can be found in the property records of every American community. These restrictive clauses were inserted into property deeds to prevent people who were not white from buying or occupying land. In an effort to understand how systemic racism has shaped access to housing, property ownership, and generational wealth, the University of Minnesota Libraries team partnered with county governments and community organizations, mobilizing community members to read historical property deeds and transcribe information on racial restrictions. Mapping Prejudice's digital map of racial restrictions in Hennepin County, home to Minneapolis, was the first-ever comprehensive visualization of racial covenants for an American city. As a result, communities around the country seek to work with Mapping Prejudice to examine their local histories. Mapping Prejudice has generated the world's largest dataset of racial covenants, including communities in California, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. To date, over 11,000 students, faculty, staff, and community members have mapped over 50,000 racial covenants. Mapping Prejudice has transformed scholarly research by engaging community members in the creation of new knowledge of urban history in the United States.