2016 University Engagement Recognition Awards

2016 University Engagement Recognition Awards

On behalf of The Ohio State University, the Offices of Outreach and Engagement, International Affairs, Service-Learning, Undergraduate Education, and Student Life recognize faculty, staff and students for outstanding achievement with the University Engagement Recognition Awards program. The overall top partnership, which receives the University Engagement Award, serves as the university's nominee for the national C. Peter Magrath Community Engagement Scholarship Award.

Award recipients will be honored at an awards ceremony on May 3 in the Archie Griffin East Ballroom.

Watch a replay of the University Engagement Awards Ceremony (click "Watch Again and then the right arrow to find the Awards Ceremony).


University Engagement Award (National Magrath Nominee) and Distinguished Community Engagement Award

Star House

Star House

Primary Contact: Natasha Slesnick, slesnick.5@osu.edu

An estimated 1,200-1,500 homeless youth live on the streets of central Ohio every day. Frightened and alone, they avoid the service system because they have been abused and betrayed by the adults who are supposed to care for them. Star House, an Ohio State project, is the only drop-in center for homeless youth in central Ohio. It brings hope and much needed services to help them rediscover productive lives. Yet space was an issue. Two years ago, 600 unduplicated youth came for thousands of visits in one year to the1,800-square-foot Star House. Then the community joined Professor Natasha Slesnick, founder of Star House (2006), and changed everything.

Led by a volunteer advocate, the community raised over $2 million to move Star House to a 14,000-square-foot building, now the rock star of facilities for one of the most vulnerable populations worldwide. Slesnick has dedicated her academic career to researching the most effective strategies to engage, treat and reintegrate substance-abusing homeless youth, ages 14-24, into mainstream society. Her experience with the population has led to significant success. Star House served more than 800 unduplicated youth in 2015. They visited more than 17,000 times. Star House is a model for the nation, being the only research-based drop-in center to our knowledge that continuously studies best practices and uses them in service delivery. This guiding principle sets Star House apart from other agencies serving the population nationwide.

Community Partners Involved: Mid-Ohio Food Bank, Nationwide Children's Hospital, Huckleberry House, Maryhaven, Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio, plus many more.

Ohio State Colleges/Units Involved: College of Education and Human Ecology, Department of Human Sciences


Distinguished International Engagement Award

Ghana Sustainable Change

Ghana Sustainable Change Program

Primary Contact: Kimberly Burton, burton.90@osu.edu

Development issues in Ghana require innovative solutions and committed international partnerships. The Ghana Sustainable Change program (GSC), now in its sixth year, is a unique collaboration between the Offinso North District Assembly (ONDA), and Ohio State University's City and Regional Planning section (CRP) in the Knowlton School. GSC's ultimate vision is Ghanaian communities that are sustainable, resilient, healthy, and embrace their distinct culture and identity. To achieve that vision, GSC focuses on locally-expressed critical needs, supports interdisciplinary service learning, and builds on a strong planning and development foundation.

OSU and Ghanaian faculty, students, and local leaders are provided international, collaborative opportunities for interdisciplinary research and service-based experience while assisting growing Ghanaian communities in achieving their locally-identified development goals. This outreach and engagement prepares future leaders in fields of engineering, planning, public health, environmental management and others that will be able to address development issues facing West Africa. Five years of service-learning, research and development work suggests this program is creating positive change in Ghana. Since 2011, 64 OSU students have traveled to Ghana and completed over 30 projects with local ONDA staff and volunteers who are fully engaged in planning, training, and implementation so that these projects are championed and sustained locally.

Community Partners Involved: Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Offinso North District Assembly, Bring Ahafo Association of Columbus

Ohio State Colleges/Units Involved: College of Engineering, Knowlton School, City and Regional Planning


Distinguished Service-Learning Award

Partner for Promotion

Partner for Promotion

Primary Contact: Jennifer Rodis, rodis.2@osu.edu

Partner for Promotion (PFP) creates a one-year longitudinal educational experience that partners student groups with a community pharmacy and one of its pharmacists to create or expand patient services specially developed for that pharmacy site and its patients. The student takes the project from identifying the problem, to creating a concept, to execution with a goal of creating a project that is sustainable after the year-long learning project is completed. Community pharmacists and students collaborate with university and community resources to enhance the accessibility of community pharmacy services to patients.

The services created by students help to expand quality patient care services in community-based pharmacies. By empowering current and future pharmacists to create sustainable services, the program advances the role of the pharmacist in the health care team, improves outcomes, and increases patient access to care. Partner for Promotion has published five peer-reviewed publications, over 20 abstracts, and received over $125,000 in funding to support this program. The model of Partner for Promotion has been formally adopted at five colleges of pharmacy across the United States and continues to foster the development of patient care services in community pharmacies to address community needs and improve patient health across the country.

Community Partners Involved: Giant Eagle Pharmacy, Nationwide Childrens' Primary Care Clinics, Kroger Pharmacy, Meijer Pharmacy, Tremont Pharmacy, Uptown Pharmacy, Walgreens Pharmacy, Whitehall Family Health Centers

Ohio State Colleges/Units Involved: College of Pharmacy, Technology and Commercialization Office


Emerging Community Engagement Award

Wexner Center/Weinland Park Community Arts Program

Wexner Center/Weinland Park Community Arts Program

Primary Contact: Jean Pitman, Jpitman@wexarts.org

The Wexner Center/ Weinland Park Community Arts Program represents a long-term relationship between the campus-area neighborhood of Weinland Park and the Wexner Center for the Arts. To date, the program has produced the Weinland Park Story Book, The Weinland Park Art Calendar, Red Circle and the Weinland Park Billboard Project, all of which connect community residents with Wexner Center educators and artists who have local and international reach.

Weinland Park is a community packed with residents who value art and artists, but have few opportunities to demonstrate these values on a larger scale. Rather than study the community before approaching Weinland Park, the Wexner Center responded to a request from two prominent residents who approached the Center requesting an artist-driven project representing the neighborhood. Through the process of responding to this request, collecting ideas from a very large and diverse group of community residents, and implementing the first few projects, the Wexner Center staff have been involved in action research, evolving new iterations of the project idea as knowledge of the neighborhood expands and trust levels increase.

Community Partners Involved: Boys & Girls Club/Godman Guild/RISE program, Weinland Park Community Civic Association, Columbus Foundation

Ohio State Colleges/Units Involved: Wexner Center for the Arts


Emerging International Engagement Award

The Ohio State University and South Africa Collaborate to Combat Antibiotic Resistant Superbugs

The Ohio State University and South Africa Collaborate to Combat Antibiotic Resistant Superbugs

Primary Contact: Debra Goff, Debbie.Goff@osumc.edu

Antibiotics are the only drugs where use or misuse in one person can impact the effectiveness in another person. The world is rapidly running out of effective antibiotics due to escalating rates of antibiotic "superbugs." Antibiotic resistant superbugs may be transferred to humans through the food supply or contact with animals. This has significant consequences for both healthy people and ill patients. Hospitals need pharmacists working in collaboration with physicians in antibiotic stewardship programs to optimize antibiotic use. Africa reportedly accounts for 24% of the world's disease and only 3% of the world's healthcare workforce. This imbalance creates health disparities.

The purpose of the OSU-South Africa partnership is to develop a train-the- trainer pharmacists mentoring outreach program for antibiotic stewardship. This program impacts the quality of patients' lives and citizens of South Africa who are impacted everyday by superbugs. OSU faculty work with pharmacists in South African hospitals to understand local barriers related to superbugs. The pharmacists are mentored at OSU by faculty in the College of Pharmacy, Medicine, and Veterinary Medicine during the 2 week program.

Community Partners Involved: University of Cape Town Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa; University of Stellenbosch Tygerberg Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa; Netcare Hospitals South Africa; South African Society of Clinical Pharmacists; and many more.

Ohio State Colleges/Units Involved: College of Pharmacy, College of Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, Wexner Medical Center Department of Pharmacy, Wexner Medical Center Department of Medicine Infectious Diseases


Emerging Service-Learning Award

Collaborative Service Learning: Project Experience in Sustainable Business Practices

Collaborative Service Learning: Project Experience in Sustainable Business Practices

Primary Contact: Neil Drobny, drobny.3@osu.edu

The partnership between Hexion and Ohio State reinforces the commitment of the two partners to being sustainability leaders. Both organizations recognize the importance of providing the next generation of leaders and citizens with knowledge and tools needed to make the world sustainable. The partnership specifically strengthens Ohio State's commitment to augmenting classroom education in sustainability with service learning, in this case through a service learning experience incorporated into coursework on sustainable business practices.

Since 2013, Hexion has partnered annually with Dr. Neil Drobny in his Spring Semester course BA 3642.02, providing 40 50 students with projects that guide students to research issues important to Hexion's sustainability strategy and to analyze options for strengthening Hexion's execution of its sustainability agenda. The partnership also supports Ohio State's goals of supporting students in their transition from academia to the workplace.

Community Partners Involved: Hexion Inc.

Ohio State Colleges/Units Involved: Department of Management & Human Resources, Fisher College of Business; School of Environment & Natural Resources, College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences; Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics, College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences


Excellence in Community Partnership Award

The Works: Ohio Center for History, Art & Technology

The Works: Ohio Center for History, Art & Technology

Ohio State Newark has partnered with the nonprofit museum The Works: Ohio Center for History, Art & Technology for more than 10 years to benefit the community and promote science education, a partnership that has allowed the campus to extend its reach deep into the community. Among the programs that The Works has facilitated with Ohio State Newark: Kids Tech University, STEMfest and Camp Architecture.

STEMfest! at the Works provides a good example of the many benefits of the partnership. Every year, OSU Newark faculty, staff and students serve as coordinators and judges for STEMFest community event. The goal is to connect industry, education and community to teach middle and high school students the importance of real-world math, science and engineering problem solving. Teams of high school and middle school student groups are challenged with three problems developed by community partners in business and industry and to present their solutions at a community event at the Works. At the event, businesses such as Boeing, Rolls Royce, and Owens Corning also offer hands-on activities to show guests how science, technology, engineering, and math is applied within their industry.

Delta Dental Foundation

Delta Dental Foundation

In 2005, the Ohio State University College of Dentistry, in collaboration with the Columbus Health Department, Children's Hospital, Columbus Public Schools and several community agencies, obtained funding to build and operate a mobile dental unit, to increase access to dental care for underserved children in Franklin County, Ohio. This effort became known as the Ohio State University Dental H.O.M.E. Coach and has sought to address a documented state and local need including the finding of the 1998 Ohio Family Health Survey that access to dental care is the state's number one unmet health care need.

Through Delta Dental's corporate citizenship and philanthropy, which includes Delta Dental Foundation, they commit millions of dollars to support programs, organizations, and events dedicated to advancing their goals. The generous funding from the Delta Dental Foundation has contributed greatly to the following outcomes from September 2010 May 2015: Approximately 53,661 procedures were delivered to underserved children in the Columbus area at 76 schools or sites through 15,702 patient encounters in 1,320 days.


Staff Award for Excellence in Community Engagement

Luke O'Quinn

Luke O'Quinn

Luke O'Quinn is the program coordinator for the Learning in Fitness and Education (LiFEsports) Initiative at Ohio State. LiFEsports is a positive youth development program housed in the College of Social Work and Department of Athletics which serves approximately 650 youth and their families in the greater Columbus area. Youth and their families engage with this OSU program by attending the four-week, tuition-free LiFEsports summer camp, year-long sports clinics, and the Youth Leadership Academy (YLA). Luke has been a full-time staff member at LiFEsports for the past two years. He has played an integral part in the development and implementation of the YLA, a curriculum-based leadership program for youth ages 15-18. This program emerged because youth who attended the traditional LiFEsports summer camp (ages 9-14) still wanted to "give back" and "stay involved" with this university-based program. The YLA was developed as a result, and serves 60 youth in the greater Columbus area this year.


Undergraduate Student Award for Excellence in Community Service

DaVonti' Haynes

DaVonti' Haynes

John Glenn College of Public Affairs

Since coming to Ohio State in 2012, DaVonti' Haynes has been actively engaged in community service and service-learning initiatives. His first interaction with community service work at Ohio State was via a Buck-I-SERV trip during spring break of his freshman year. Since that trip, he has dedicated every spring break to volunteering with a Buck-I-SERV trip. As a freshman, he also founded the A Day in the Life of a Buckeye program. As a sophomore, he was engaged in STEP where he utilized his STEP stipend to work with Columbus City Schools and gain a deeper understanding of the issues students faced. Going into his third year, he joined the Social Change staff and was able to create the Mentor-A-Buckeye program. Starting in Spring 2016, he leads a program known as Principal Pride at Dominion Middle School; mentoring students through a series of activities and events, focusing on leadership, identity, cultural competency, citizenship, and service in an effort to improve attendance, grades, behavior, and critical thinking skills.


Graduate Student Award for Excellence in Community Service

Adithya Jayakumar

Adithya Jayakumar

College of Engineering

Since starting at Ohio State, Adithya Jayakumar has volunteered multiple times through various organizations locally, nationally and internationally. Locally, he has participated in Community Commitment, MLK Day of Service multiple times and various other Pay it Forward events. He has volunteered with FLOW (Friends of the Lower Olentangy Watershed), the Heinzerling Memorial Foundation, and the Open Shelter among many others during this time as well. In 2014, he lead a group of 11 students on a Buck-IServ trip to the lower ninth ward of New Orleans, where they helped build houses affected by Katrina. And last summer, he lead a group of students on a Service Learning trip to Panajachel, Guatemala and helped build a Grey Water Recycling system.


Professional Student Award for Excellence in Community Service

Jacqueline Mostow

Jacqueline Mostow

College of Medicine

Since starting at The Ohio State University eighteen months ago, Jacqueline Mostow has made a huge effort to be involved in the Columbus community. Community service has always been part of her lifestyle. The largest amount of her service work goes toward a teen radio project at Barack Community Recreation Center, where she works with a friend who is a peer in the College of Public Health to hold a weekly workshop at the Center focused on topics chosen by the teens. She is interested in eventually focusing on adolescent medicine, and having the opportunity to form long-term relationships with some of the teenagers has given her the unique opportunity to really hear their stories, which cannot happen to the same degree in a clinical setting. She has also been closely involved with redesigning and restarting the Clinica Latina, a student-run free clinic for Spanish speaking patients. Finally, she has been involved in various women's health community service efforts.


Student Group Award for Excellence in Community Service Programming

Theatre Arts Group

Theatre Arts Group

Theatre Arts Group (TAG) began at Columbus North International School (CNIS) in September 2014. A current OSU senior saw that the school did not have a theatre program, and wanted to provide opportunities for students to experience theatre and develop skills in ways they would not have otherwise. TAG started as weekly after-school meetings consisting of theatre lessons and activities, improv games, a trip to see CAPA's "A Christmas Carol," and attempts to write a play with 5-10 students. Working alone with minimal help from a teacher at the school, the founder struggled to build the program as she envisioned. However, in January 2015, she recruited a team of six more OSU students. With this group, TAG was able to accomplish much more, including recruiting more students, writing and producing a successful play, and taking the students to see OSU Off the Lake Productions' "Legally Blonde the Musical." In February 2015, TAG received a year-long $4,000 mini-grant from the OSU College of Education and Human Ecology P-12 Initiative. This grant has allowed TAG to focus on developing as a program and building its partnership with CNIS without worrying about a lack of funding for the past year. With this freedom, TAG has grown to 25-30 members and OSU members work regularly with the principal. TAG's recognition as a CNIS extracurricular activity and the partnership with the school in general continues to grow.