African American Cultural Program: Fine Arts and Radio Outreach to Low–income and At-risk Children Elementary through High School
Principal Investigator(s): Nathaniel C. Banks, Asst. Dean of Students, African American Cultural Center; Bruce D. Nesbitt, Dir., African American Cultural Center
This project establishes a partnership with two local churches (Salem Baptist and Bethel A.M.E.) to assist local schools in addressing the personal and intellectual development of at-risk students through fine and applied arts. The program is based on the premise that students who participate in programs highlighting artistic expression are better disciplined, better able to utilize abstract reasoning, and relate better to collaborative group dynamics. The project will provide supplemental music instruction for students currently participating in their school band and will utilize jazz music as a way of making the music instruction culturally relevant. UIUC students from the School of Music jazz and vocal programs will be recruited to give private and small group lessons.
The Afya Project
Principal Investigator: Idethia S. Harvey, Kinesiology & Community Health
Project Team Leaders: Ann Peterson Bishop, Graduate School of Library & Information Science
The goal of this initiative is to provide learning and engagement opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students. Using a lay health advisor model, the project leader will (1) recruit local African American women to become health educator-activists; (2) recruit students from a cross-section of UIUC department-units; (3) recruit Parkland college Health Profession students; (4) engage community women, student and faculty in research and development of a grassroots health empowerment curriculum and training program; (5) implement the curriculum through “Tupperware” style house parties; and (6) evaluate the effectiveness of this approach for expansion and replication. The project expects to reach and impact over 1000 women and their social impact members, teaching women and students to become culturally relevant and responsive health educators and activists, filling a serious gap in existing health education access to this population segment.
Building Teacher Capacity to Support Civic Leadership and Global Citizenship
Principal Investigator: Edward A. Kolodziej, Dir., Center for Global Studies
Project Team Leaders: Steve Witt, Asst. Dir., Center for Global Studies; Susan Noffke, Dept. of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education
The funding for this project will be employed to strengthen the Center for Global Studies’ (CGS) Illinois International High School Initiative (IHSI) civic leadership and global citizenship program. It aims to create a sustained online professional development course that will enhance and support the K-12 outreach programs of UIUC’s eight Title VI National Resource Centers (including GCS). Some of the primary goals of the funded program are to help IHSI students appreciate and understand cultures other than their own, realize how others around the world view the United States, engagement those students from other countries in constructive ways, and help them learn how to assume leadership roles in addressing civic issues.
Civic Commitment and Public Engagement in Three Illinois Museums
Principal Investigator: Helaine Silverman, Dept. of Anthropology, LAS
Project Team Leaders: Boyd Rayward, School of Library and Information Science; Brenda Trofanenko, Dept. of Curriculum and Instruction; Carla Santos, Dept. of Recreation, Sport and Tourism, Applied Health Sciences
This project will develop an institutional ethnography of three museums in Illinois: the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum and Library and Museum of Funeral Customs in Springfield, and the Dickson Mounds Site Museum in Lewistown, which is a branch of the Illinois State Museum in Springfield. The projects goals are to promote and integrate: education (coursework); training of students to participate as active citizens in the real world and to gain expertise in the museum profession; and research (directed by faculty and involving students). In accomplishing these goals the project will assist the targeted museums with their own public outreach and community impact, and will strengthen UIUC’s presence in Springfield. The project is institutionally located in three interlinked campus domains: CHAMP/Collaborative for Cultural Heritage and Museum Practices, the multi-year “Museums Write Large” IPRH Reading Group, and the Museum Studies graduate certificate (under review at LAS).
Community Matters
Principal Investigator: Richard E. Warner, Asst. Dean, Extension, College of ACES
Project Team Leaders: Kathleen Brown, Extension Educator Community & Economic Development; James Becker, Extension Educator Community & Economic Development; Janet Burnett, County Extension Director; Rachelle Holllinshead, Extension Educator Community & Economic Development, Pattsi Petrie, AICP
An extension of a new collaboration between Extension and the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, this project presents an opportunity to build the capacity of communities to pursue balanced planning and development. Students will gain hands-on experiences working with various UI faculty, UI Extension, and community leaders to address local problems. The project will provide insight into ways to better move the university’s expertise and intellectual resources off campus while simultaneously receiving input and expertise from the community in ways that serve both institutional and community needs. A new course under this broader initiative, UP 494P Community Matters, was designed as the academic foundation for public participation planning needed for engagement with a community. The Town of Fayetteville will be a community partner in this new planning participation initiative.
Evaluating the Family Advocacy Project
Principal Investigator: Elaine Shpungin, Director, Psychological Services Center
Project Team Leaders: Nicole E. Allen, Psychology; Gladys Hunt, Psychological Services Center
This15-week intensive service learning advocacy program links families to needed community services. Each family enrolled in the program is connected to a service team made up of a trained undergraduate student and a “cultural broker” from the community. CCTF funding will make possible a thorough evaluation of client and student outcomes. Early data suggest that clients benefit from the services provided, but often drop out of the program because of delays in providing these services. On the other hand, anecdotal data and the re-enrollment of students in the course suggest that students may be experiencing a number of positive social, academic, and personal outcomes. This evaluation process is expected to inform campus experiences at UIUC and well as in higher education more broadly. It is also expected to document the effectiveness of the Family Advocacy Program as a valuable community resource.
Expanding the Community Informatics Corps
Principal Investigator: Ann Bishop, Graduate School of Library & Information Science
This project expands and improves the Community Informatics Corps course (LIS 490CIC) so that it better serves more students, connecting them with civic commitment opportunities on campus and in community settings. The course is structured to increase understanding of how communities create and apply knowledge, and use information and communication technologies in such areas as art and culture, health, environmental protection, and education. Through increased opportunities for student/community engagement, the expanded course is expected to help sustain and expand the linkage between campus and community organizations, providing actual economic, social and cultural benefit to the community and civic organizations. The course is further aimed at systemizing institutional support of civic engagement activities through data collection and dissemination.
Facilitating Active Aging: A Community-Based Intervention Project
Principal Investigator: Wojtek Chodzko-Zajko, Head, Dept. of Kinesiology & Community Health
Project Team Leaders: Hank Wildonson, Dept. of Natural Resources & Environmental Sciences; Cory Rolfe; Dept. of Natural Resources & Environmental Sciences; Chae-Hee Park; Dept. of Kinesiology & Community Health; Lisa Sheppard, Dept. of Kinesiology & Community Health; Leticia Malavasi, Dept. of Kinesiology & Community Health; Huei-Jhen Wen, National Taiwan University
This project will expand on UIUC’s National Blueprint: Increasing Physical Activity Among Adults Age 50 and Older and the New Active Green Environment (New Age) programs which encourage environmentally friendly ways to encourage healthy physical activities among older citizens. Funding will be used to develop a new community based learning course for undergraduates that facilitates health and well-being in the 50 Plus population in and around Urbana-Champaign. It will also provide faculty and grad-and undergraduate students an opportunity to conduct state of the art research in the New AGE facility under construction at Clark-Lindsey Retirement Village as well as allow the convening of a summit of local community organizations with an interest in healthy aging to facilitate inter-agency collaborations.
Here and Now Project
Principal Investigator: Jan Erkert, Head, Department of Dance
Project Team Leaders: Kirstie Simson; Jason Finkelman; John Toenjes, Department of Dance
The Department of Dance will sponsor the Here & Now Project, an integrative series of courses, workshops and performance events based on the art form of improvisation. These events will link the UIUC Dance, Theater and Music Departments, with community partners such as the Preservation and Conservation Association, 40North, local businesses, CU Improv (a new community Contact Improvisation Group) and the Urbana Park District blending research, teaching and public engagement based on the work of world renowned improvisational artist Kirstie Simson. The inquiry will focus on a specific historic building selected by Ms. Simson to explore the nature of past experience lived in this space here and what is the living experience of the community now, and will include a series of lectures on the historic site selected by architectural historian Karen Lang Kummer (Director of PACA). Culminating performances by Simson and participating community partners will take place as part of the annual arts and cultural Boneyard Festival.
Immersing Students in the Disability Culture: EnhancingEnhancing SPED 117 Course by Engaging Students in Service Learning Project
Principal Investigator: Rosa Milagros Santos Gilbertz, Dept. of Special Education
Project Team Leaders: Tony Oligney-Estill, Program Manager, Champaign-Urbana Special Recreation, Champaign Urbana Park District; Lester Pritchard & Ms. Barbara Pritchard, Co-Directors, Campaign for Real Choice in Illinois; Nancy McClellan-Hickey, Executive Director, Persons Assuming Control of their Environment (PACE)
This proposal adds a research dimension and community partnership to SPED 117 Culture of Disabilities by creating a service learning component to help students gain a better understanding of the culture of disabilities and its influence in our society. The impact of the service learning component will be examined to understand (a) student attitudes and knowledge of the culture of disabilities, (b) the community organizations’ mission and goals, and (c) the overall quality of life of individuals with disabilities served by the projects’ external partner(s). Three community partners have committed to participate: the Champaign-Urbana Park District, Persons Assuming Control of their Environment (PACE), and Campaign for Real Choice in Illinois.
International Engaged Scholars: The Risks and Rewards of Civic Engagement
Principal Investigator: Patrick Keenan, Dir., International Human Rights Law Clinic, College of Law
Project Team Leaders: Stacey Ballmes, College of Law
This proposal will sponsor a series of campus visits by foreign scholars who have been forced from their home countries due to their scholarly work and civic engagement. Scholars at Risk is an international network of universities that defends the human rights of scholars worldwide and exposes university communities to the rewards of engaged scholarship. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is a founding member of the Scholars at Risk network. The project will be administered by the College of Law but the scholars invited to campus will come from a range of disciplines for a public lecture, visits to seminar classes, and an informal gathering with students. The project will bring up to five threatened scholars to campus during the 2007 calendar year. The project will bring real-world examples of the risks and rewards of scholars who engage with their communities, demonstrating to students the impact that individuals who are willing to work for the greater good can have on a community. The high-profile individuals expected to be invited to campus is likely to attract significant media attention to the campus.
Learning Reading through Learning Science: A Community EnviroTech Educational Project
Principal Investigator(s): Minosca Alcantara, Asst. Dir., Women in Engineering Program; Timothy Strathmann, Civil & Environmental Engineering
Project Team Leaders: Susan Larson, Dir., Women in Engineering; Sherry Alimi, Principal, Booker T. Washington School
The purpose of this project is to develop and implement an after-school environmental science and technology club (Enviro-Tech) for at-risk students (defined here as students whose reading and/or math skills are two grades below their grade level) at a high poverty minority-populated elementary school in Champaign. The program will use topics in environmental science and technology to engage students and improve their (1) literacy skills, (2) science knowledge, and (3) general attitude toward science, all of which are necessary for the students’ future success in science courses in middle and high school. Partners include the UIUC Women Engineering Program, the College of Education, the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and educators from Booker T. Washington School.
Music Without Borders: American String Festival 2007
Principal Investigator: Scott W. Schwartz, Archivist, Musical and Fine Arts
Project Team Leaders: Robin Kearton, Champaign County Community Center For the Arts; Louis Bergonzi, Conducting and Education/Strings; Charles McNeill, Chair, Jazz Studies
Music is a life-long skill that when once acquired and successfully used by children will continue to foster greater understanding, appreciation and support for the arts and arts preservation in Central Illinois’ public schools. Utilizing faculty and students from the University of Illinois’ School of Music, Library, Sousa Archives and Center for American Music and professional musicians from the local community, the 2007 festival will provide innovative hands-on performance clinics that blend today’s new and traditional instructional practices into a dynamic learning experience intended to help energize flagging string orchestra and music programs in Central Illinois schools by illustrating to their boards of education the benefits of preserving our nation’s cultural heritage through arts in action. The project will focus on children from economically challenged music education programs such as Taylorville and Danville.
New Orleans Collaborative Project
Principal Investigator(s): Robert Olshansky, Interim Dept. Head, Urban and Regional Planning; Lisa Bates, Urban and Regional Planning
This proposal seeks to build the capacity of communities to pursue balanced planning and development. Students will gain hands-on experiences working with various UI faculty, UI Extension, and community leaders to address local problems. The project will provide insight into ways to better move the university’s expertise and intellectual resources off campus while simultaneously receiving input and expertise from the community in ways that serve both institutional and community needs. A new course under this broader initiative, UP 494P Community Matters, was designed as the academic foundation for public participation planning needed for engagement with a community. The Town of Fayetteville will be a community partner in this new planning participation initiative.
The Social Entrepreneurship Summer Institute
Principal Investigator: Larry DeBrock, Economics, Assoc. Dean for Professional Programs, BUS
Project Team Leaders: Collette Niland, Asst. Dean, Office of Undergraduate Affairs, BUS; Victor Mullins, Assoc. Dean, Office of Undergraduate Affairs, BUS; Tammy Lemke, President & CEO, United Way of Champaign; Amy Freuhling, Sr. Assoc. Dir., Business Career Services; Teresa D’Urso, Assoc. Dir., Office of Undergraduate Affairs, BUS
The Social Entrepreneurship summer Institute (SESI) is a summer program that will educate students, through service learning, about civic engagement while at the same time providing community organizations with training on basic business concepts. Non-profit interest in social entrepreneurship is on the rise but is a path fraught with pitfalls; SESI is designed to help non-profits navigate this new terrain. Its two components include an intensive summer training program for community organizations and assistance in the development of a business plan for a possible social entrepreneurship venture.
WILL Youth Media Workshop, Year Five
Principal Investigator: Kimberlie Kranich, WILL Outreach Coordinator, Co-Director of the Youth Media Workshop (YMW)
Project Team Leaders: Shameem Pakha, Franklin teacher and YMW trainer; William Patterson, Assoc. Dir. of African-American Studies and co-director of the YMW; Dave Dickey, WILL radio producer and technical trainer for the YMW; Leon Dash, Swanlund Chair Professor, Dept. of Journalism, and YMW advisor; Arlette Ingram Willis, Dept. of Curriculum and Instruction; Ann Peterson Bishop, Graduate School of Library and Information Science
The Workshop is an after-school program teaches middle school students technical and intellectual skills related to literacy, vocabulary development, public speaking and use of multi-media. The program was born of a desire to improve the achievement gap in the Champaign-Urbana schools by training middle school young women to interview leaders in the African American community and produce radio programs broadcast on WILL-AM-FM based on their interviews. This very successful civic commitment initiative connects a broad range of academic and programmatic campus departments with Champaign and Urban public schools. This grant will enable WILL to continue the Youth Media Workshop for a fifth year and to create formal relationships with the Graduate School of Library and Information Science and the College of Education to blend research, teaching and public engagement. Funding will allow the Workshop and its partners to serve three times as many local school students, to train more educators and teachers in engaging students with YMW programs, and to train UI undergraduate and graduate students to be leaders locally and in their home communities.
