Funding for Engagement

1999 Outreach & Engagement Seed Grants Projects

Total Funding for 1999: $80,358

1. DNA Fingerprinting Workshop for Middle School Students ($10,000)

Amanda Simcox, Molecular Genetics Department, Biochemistry Department, Microbiology Department, School of Journalism and Communication, and Columbus City Schools

Faculty and undergraduate students in the College of Biological Sciences present workshops in Columbus high schools that give students hands-on experience in DNA analysis using molecular biology techniques. These workshops are designed to stimulate students to consider careers in the biological sciences. Department of Theatre students made a video that serves as a critical part of the workshops.

2. Grade 9: Strengthening Bridges that Link Schools, Families, and Communities ($6,000)

Barbara Newman, College of Human Ecology, and Indianola Middle School

The Linmoor Middle School Ethnic Student Services Partnership entailed taking University students into the school as volunteer tutors and mentors for Linmoor students in grades six through eight, sponsoring workshops, and inviting Linmoor students onto the Ohio State campus. The student volunteers who served as tutors and mentors showed how the positive decisions they made as early as the sixth grade enabled them to go to college.

3. The Pied Piper Fantasy ($7,000)

Donald Harris, School of Music, Department of Dance, Wexner Center for the Arts

Thanks to this seed grant, 150 young flutists shared center stage with Ohio State musicians, dancers, and world-renowned composer John Corigliano during the 2000 Contemporary Music Festival. The young musicians were involved in two performances of Corigliano’ Pied Piper Fantasy. The School of Music and Department of Dance teamed up for the production, which featureed OSU dancers as the rats and elementary, middle, and high school flutists portraying the children led astray by the Piper.

4. Mentoring and Sharing through the Power of Books ($4,000)

David Strauss, Office of Minority Affairs, African American and African Studies Extension Center, University Honors and Scholars Center, Columbus Africentric School

The South High Urban Academy Mentoring Program matched approximately 45 Ohio State students with high school students in advanced English classes. The college students combined college life lessons with discussions of literary classics with their e-mail pen pals. The program encouraged high school students to get comfortable with technology and to think about further education. The seed grant was used to purchase literary classics that the high school and college students read and then discussed together via e-mail.

5. Trevitt Elementary/OSU Partnership for Literacy ($6,135)

Andrea Lunsford/Mindy Wright, Center for the Study and Teaching of Writing, Community Extension Center, Trevitt Elementary School

An English 110W/193W class funded by this seed grant tutored third graders after school at Trevitt Elementary School. The English class combined intensive reading and writing about literacy, language, community, and culture with service in a particular community setting. Trevitt is one of several literacy partnerships undertaken by the Center for the Study and Teaching of Writing with Columbus public schools.

6. Community Commitment ($2,500)

Tracy Stuck, Office of Student Affairs

The seed grant helped support the annual Community Commitment day, one of the largest single-day student-led community service projects on a college campus in the nation. The event familiarizes students, especially freshmen, with the campus-area community, enabling them to make connections for future volunteer work. 2009 awards nominee >

7. Peer Power!: Making Community Connections and Engaging Ohio’s Youth through Peer Education ($8,000)

Elizabeth Allan, Women’ Studies and Consumer and Textile Sciences

Peer Power was an interactive peer education program designed to strengthen girls’ aspirations and commitment to higher education and promote critical thinking and life skills. OSU undergraduate students were trained to present workshops on a variety of topics including gender socialization, body image/self-esteem, dating violence, leadership development, and changing career aspirations. These presentations were made to Ohio schools, youth groups, and other community organizations. Peer Power was grounded in a Women’s Studies curriculum designed to help women and girls acquire a sense of empowerment and catalyze educational and career aspirations that were previously undeveloped.

8. Living with Dignity: Innovative Health Outreach for Terminally Ill Persons and Their Families ($4,365)

Silvana Napier, Department of Human and Community Resource Development

Columbus Soul: A Millennium Center for Healing through the Creative Arts served as a clearinghouse linking central Ohio hospice directors, staffs, patients, and families to palliative care, stress relief activities, and educational workshops. The seed grant supported a class for somatics graduate students and their onsite training and placement in community partner sites. The partnership included major Columbus hospitals, the Columbus Health Department, the Ohio Hospice Organization, and Ohio State’s Cultural Studies/Somatic Studies and Music Education programs (College of Education) and the Department of Human and Community Resource Development. The center was eventually merged into a somatics clinic and studio, a clinical professional practice setting that offered workshops and health care to the unviersity and community.

Grant Recipients

2009 Excellence in Engagement Grants
2008 Excellence in Engagement Grants
2007 Excellence in Engagement Grants
2006 Excellence in Engagement Grants
2005 Excellence in Engagement Grants
2004 Excellence in Engagement Grants
2005 Outreach & Engagement Seed Grants
2002 Outreach & Engagement Seed Grants
2001 Outreach & Engagement Seed Grants
2000 Outreach & Engagement Seed Grants
1999 Outreach & Engagement Seed Grants
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