Outreach and Engagement Highlights
Noted education reform leader Geoffrey Canada to visit Columbus
Community revitalization efforts can be found throughout Columbus, from Weinland Park to Linden, Eastside and the Greater Hilltop Area Shalom Zone. Key to each communityÕs future is education Ñ todayÕs children will be tomorrowÕs leaders in sustaining revitalization efforts and making a more vibrant Columbus.
Local community and education leaders are hoping to learn from an expert in creating a sustainable model for improving education for low-income children Ñ Geoffrey Canada, founder of the Harlem ChildrenÕs Zone in New York City.
United Way of Central Ohio and Ohio State are coordinating CanadaÕs trip to Columbus, led by United WayÕs Champion of Children founder and Ohio State Board of Trustee member Linda Kass. Valerie Lee, vice president for Outreach and Engagement, is coordinating the campus events. Read more in onCampus.
New position intends to create strong families, strong students
Strong families equate to strong students. Strong students tend to pursue a college degree and graduate.
OSU Mansfield has hired a family engagement and outreach coordinator to put that notion into action, in what it believes is the first collaboration anywhere between a school district, university and community.
ÒStudentsÕ aspirations for college begin with the parents,Ó said Stephen Gavazzi, OSU Mansfield dean and director. ÒThey need to show students that going to college is attainable.Ó
Blacklick resident Renee Thompson is the new family engagement coordinator.
She commutes from Columbus every day to tackle a daunting list of duties, from engaging parents through events and town hall meetings to coordinating an advisory committee of local non-profit organizations and college organizations, serving as a liaison to the local ministerial alliance, ensuring students are college ready and promoting the First-Year Experience and early arrival programs to new OSU Mansfield students. Read more in onCampus.
Grad students learn the art of research, community outreach
Graduate students at the Ohio State School of Educational Policy and Leadership got some hands-on experience in community outreach as well as diversity studies as they recently completed a campus climate study for the Columbus College of Art and Design.
The study, which took nearly a year to complete, included a five-member team of graduate students led by Terrell Strayhorn, associate professor at the College of Education and Human Ecology, School of Educational Policy and Leadership. The study was funded through a grant from Abercrombie and Fitch.
ÒThey got to see from the moment the business deal was opened, how to negotiate a grant with them, once you have the grant how you use it to fund students, conducting the interviews, writing the reports and delivering the presentation,Ó Strayhorn said. ÒItÕs the business of higher ed that we donÕt often talk about.Ó Read more in onCampus.
Young Scholars keep eye on college prize
Program celebrates 25 years of success
It was just paperwork 21 years ago. Take it home, have your parents fill it out and bring it back to school when itÕs completed. Percy Lipsey and Keisha Hunley-Jenkins were in middle school in 1991, and the signing thing had become a ritual. They didnÕt realize until later that this paperwork was like no other.
What their mothers signed was a promise that Ohio State would ensure their children an opportunity to be the first in their families to earn a college degree. In return, as new members of the Young Scholars Program, Lipsey and Hunley-Jenkins agreed to keep up their already excellent grades and attend weekly and summer learning enrichment sessions with their fellow scholars. Read more in onCampus.
Cosmopolitan courtesy: Learning to be polite visitors
ÒThe Ugly AmericanÓ is a phrase used all too often to describe tourists in a foreign land.
But what might be considered rudeness is actually a form of coping Ñ albeit an ineffective one Ñ according to two Ohio State Newark English professors who have implemented a novel approach to removing the anxiety and frustration from traveling to a foreign place.
Stephanie Brown and Virginia Cope, who also is assistant dean at Newark, have integrated a discussion on cosmopolitan courtesy into their study abroad and service learning courses. Read more in onCampus.
Roads Scholars and President Gee get first-hand look at OSU partnerships across Ohio
Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee and Vice President for Outreach and Engagement Valerie Lee led a group of approximately 50 faculty and staff members on the 2012 Roads Scholars Tour, a two-day trip across southwestern Ohio, July 23-24. Along the way, participants saw some of Ohio StateÕs amazing partnerships.
The Office of Outreach and Engagement thanks all of our participants and tour hosts! Our stops included the Wright Center of Innovation in Biomedical Imaging, the Farm Science Review, Wright State University, the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, GE Aviation and the OSU Urban Arts Space. Read more about the 2012 Roads Scholars Tour.
More pictures are available on the Outreach and Engagement Facebook page.
The Ohio State University Endeavor Center Business Incubation Partnership
The Ohio State University Endeavor Center Business Incubation Partnership is a vibrant example of Ohio State and community partners collaborating to make a shared vision a reality in an economically distressed Appalachian community. The Endeavor Center business incubator and training center became a reality in 2005, after 15 years of community commitment and collaboration and has resulted in:
* More than $4 million raised via federal and state partners to design, build, and equip the center
* In excess of $50 million of increased economic impact for the area created by business partners occupying the center
* More than 600 new high-skill, high-wage, high-tech jobs created by business partners housed in the center
* Twelve business partners who have graduated to build facilities of their own or lease space outside the center, which has improved the economic vitality of the local commercial real estate market
2012 Engagement Impact Grant Recipients Represent Broad Spectrum of Outreach
From reshaping our nationÕs vehicle fleets and developing food security in Nicaragua to using Shakespeare to help children with autism and promoting civic engagement in Marion, the initiatives receiving 2012 Engagement Impact Grants from the Office of Outreach and Engagement show the diverse and far-reaching ways in which Ohio State impacts our communities.
The Engagement Impact Grant program supports innovative and creative outreach and engagement initiatives that connect academic excellence with societal needs and has a proven record of success, with metrics demonstrating an approximately 14:1 return on investment. Learn more about this year's grant recipients.
