Center for Community Engagement & Service Learning: Faculty

Public Good Scholarship Fund Awards

2004-05

Following considerable planning that involved a Provost’s Conference on the Public Good, the Provost, with support from the UPAC Committee has provided an annual fund of $100,000 to promote and increase public good activities at the University of Denver. The Public Good Committee, composed of members representing a cross-section of the University, governs this fund. Dr. David Lisman and Dr. Nicholas Cutforth serve as co-chairs. The Center for Service Learning & Civic Engagement manages the grant activities, supported by the efforts of Center Coordinator, Ms. Sarah Couch.

During this academic year, the Public Good Committee established funding guidelines and a competitive process that includes a Request for Funding Proposal. Two competitions were announced with deadlines of December 1 and February 1. Two types of grants are available, a development grant of up to $1,500 and an outreach grant of up to $10,000. The guidelines stress the importance of meeting a community-defined need. The competition is open to faculty and staff members and University centers. The central goal of the funding is to provide outreach to community groups outside of the university through activities such as technical assistance and applied research, now being called “community-based research.”

Fifteen projects were funded. Below are brief summaries of the projects. The Public Good Committee is working on plans for the next competition, which is slated for early this coming September.

OUTREACH GRANT AWARDEES

Nick Cutforth, Associate Professor
College of Education
Award Amount: $10,000
The Colorado Community-Based Research Network: An Institutional Approach to Developing Research Capacity in Community Organizations and Residents
The Colorado Community-Based Research Network (CCBRN) connects the University of Denver's research resources (faculty, staff, and students) with the needs of the community. The CCBRN will focus on three areas: conducting 5-10 community-based research projects; developing research capacity in communities by implementing training programs for community residents, community organizations, non profits, and high school students; and developing the Library, Research, and Education Center. Success of the CCBRN will be assessed by evaluating the quantity, quality, and impact of the CBR projects on community partners and the extent to which learning is disseminated into the community, within DU, and in broader spheres such as professional organizations, public policy arenas, and philanthropy.

Anne DePrince, Assistant Professor
Department of Psychology
Award Amount: $8,000
Returning Research to Our Community
Service agencies working with children, adults and families exposed to violence often have limited access to cutting edge research that would inform their services. As part of the current project, researchers from DU’s Traumatic Stress Studies Lab and our Denver collaborators will present on current research and provide consultation regarding research issues to 200 participants from community agencies working with children, families, and adults exposed to violence. The meeting program will be developed in consultation with our community partner, Victim Services Network. At the completion of the meeting, proceedings of the meeting will be posted on a newly developed website.

Carolyn Elverenli, Executive Director
Fisher Early Learning Center
Award Amount: $6,557
Leadership Development in Early Childhood Education (ECE)
Research on the importance of leadership in the early childhood field demonstrates the critical importance of the director’s role in developing and sustaining quality early childhood programs. There is a significant community need, therefore, for well-prepared leaders in early childhood education. This public good grant will join the leadership expertise of Dr. Elverenli with the Clayton Foundation Early Childhood Resource Institute, a community-based organization that oversees early childhood programs in the Denver area, to form the Fisher/Clayton ECE Leadership Team. This team will develop and deliver a summer seminar on leadership development for a cohort of 25 area ECE directors. Follow up forums will also be offered in the fall and spring.

Cynthia E. Hazel, Assistant Professor
Child, Family, and School Psychology; College of Education
Award Amount: $10,000
Defining and Developing a Process to Enhance Family and Community Engagement with DPS Middle Schools
Three low-achieving DPS middle school communities have identified a need for greater engagement between families and the schools. Past parent outreach efforts have included little assessment of need or interest as well as limited outcome analysis. This project will develop a process by which community-school engagement can be discussed, defined, and assessed at one site. Project success will be determined by three outcomes: 1) utility to community stakeholders and their satisfaction with the collaboration; 2) learning about community engagement and action research by DU participants; and 3) communication of experiences by community and DU participants to larger audiences.

Nicole Nicotera, Assistant Professor
Graduate School of Social Work
Award Amount: $9,921
Enhancing Child and Youth Civic Engagement Through Intergenerational Collaboration
This project invites young people in three Denver Housing Authority neighborhoods to: (1) learn observation strategies to assess conditions within their neighborhoods, (2) evaluate the results of their observations, (3) create a proposal for neighborhood change based on the outcome of their observations, and (4) present the proposal to the neighborhood advisory board. The primary aim of the project is to provide the participants with supports and skills necessary to collaborate on proposals for neighborhood change. Project activities are expected to provide participants with capacity building and civic opportunities. Pre and post project levels of civic engagement will be measured.

Carl Raschke, Professor
Department of Religious Studies
Rebecca Lobel, Director
Center for Religion and Public Life
Award Amount: $3,298
Sacred Spaces: A Passport to Colorado’s Religious Sites
The Sacred Spaces project is an “adventure in experiential learning” about diverse religious practices in the Denver metropolitan area for members of the local community as well as students. Site visits include experiences of building architecture and the worship, prayer, or meditation environments of representative religious groups, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Visits are led by degreed academic instructors in the study of religion and include discussion and interaction with site hosts. The project is a co-operative venture of the Department of Religious Studies and the Center for Religion and Public Life at the University of Denver.

Trace Reddell, Assistant Professor
Mass Communications and Journalism Studies
Award Amount: $10,000
Digital Media Outreach Center
The Digital Media Outreach Center at the University of Denver is designed to provide instrumental support for Colorado-based non-profit and not-for-profit organizations that wish to develop, establish and maintain a digital presence. DMOC will partner with the Community Resource Center’s NPower program, which has an extensive history of offering training, technical assistance and consultation for NPOs. With support from Microsoft and others, NPower Colorado is well-situated to assist DMOC’s efforts. With built-in opportunities to extend curriculum-based learning to community-based projects, DMOC involves our students in socially redeeming projects that should encourage them to remain civically engaged throughout their professional lives.

Brooke Rohde, Curator of Collections
Museum of Anthropology; Department of Anthropology
Award Amount: $9,353
Anthropology is for Everyone: Exposing At-Risk Kids to DU, Anthropology, and Museum Work
This project brings students from the Gemini School, part of a co-ed short-term residential center for troubled youth, to the DU campus for anthropology and museum activities. Students will attend introductory anthropology classes, taught by Anthropology faculty and staff; they will also travel to the Ludlow Massacre Memorial Site in Trinidad, Colorado to participate in an archaeological ground survey. Using their new knowledge of anthropology, students will then design an exhibit featuring African basketry for the DU Museum of Anthropology gallery.

Randi Smith, Lecturer
College of Education
Award Amount: $10,000
Denver Peak Academy Collaborative Team
For many homeless youth, the key to breaking the cycle of homelessness is an education. However, the complications of homelessness make it difficult for young people to complete their high school requirements and earn a diploma. Denver’s Urban Peak, with help from some other community agencies, received a charter from Denver Public Schools to develop a school specifically for homeless youth. The DPA Collaborative Team includes faculty and students from DU’s Graduate School of Social Work and College of Education, who will join forces with Urban Peak to address the planning, implementation, and evaluation of this new school.

Chris St. Cyr, Assistant Professor
School of Art & Art History
Award Amount: $4,428
Disability Center for Independent Living (DCIL) Design Accessibility Project
There are millions of people living in the United States with some form of physical (hearing, visual impairment) or cognitive (spatial, comprehension) disability. The design field has ignored this part of our population when it comes to creating solutions for communicating information and experiences. The DCIL Design Accessibility Project (DDAP) will provide the Disability Center for Independent Living with a consistent design system that will create awareness of their organization among the people they serve: the disability community, volunteers, donors, and community partners. In addition to this, DDAP has a goal of researching and testing all of the discovered design solutions for accessibility compliance and general usability.

Matthew Taylor, Assistant Professor
Department of Geography
Award Amount: $9,952
Bringing Potable Water to War-Torn Communities in Ixcán, Guatemala
This plan begins to remedy the lack of potable water in many of Guatemala’s rural communities. This work is part of a multi-year plan in collaboration with local communities. During the first year one community in a region of Guatemala particularly hard-hit by the civil war will receive locally produced clay water filters lined with colloidal silver, which removes harmful bacteria. Provision of water filters will expand to other communities in subsequent years. In an attempt to provide a region of Guatemala with a permanent supply of potable water we will use satellite imagery and a Geographical Information System (GIS) to design an optimal pipeline route to deliver water from safe springs.

DEVELOPMENT GRANT AWARDEES
Todd Breyfogle, Director
University Honors Program
Award Amount: $1,500
Social Studies Today: Conversation in Context
This project is an educational partnership between the DU Honors Program and K-12 teachers and students from the Adams 12 Five Star School District in Thornton. The project aims: 1) to increase the content knowledge of undergraduates and social studies teachers; 2) to assist in the development of social studies teaching resources and their classroom application through undergraduate service learning; 3) to enhance the pedagogical skills of social studies teachers (and, consequently, the learning of K-12 students) through specialized coaching while exposing undergraduates to the teaching
profession.

R. Bruce Hutton, Professor
Department of Marketing; Daniels College of Business
Timothy D. Sisk, Associate Professor
Graduate School of International Studies
Award Amount: $1,500
Albania – Study Abroad Pilot Program
The Graduate School of International Studies (GSIS) and the Daniels College of Business (DCB) propose working with the Colorado School of Mines, University of Tirana (Albania), the Polythechnic University of Tirana, Heifer International, and GlobalNETWORK, an established nonprofit educational organization founded by DU graduates. The program represents an educational partnership that will connect issues of economic prosperity, environmental integrity, and social equity.

Sheila Wright, Associate Professor
College of Education/Provost’s Office
Roberta Waldbaum, Assistant Professor
AHSS/Languages and Literature
Award Amount: $2,000
Pathways to Civic Engagement: The University in a Global Society
This funding will support the planning of an international conference on Public Good in Bologna, Italy in early 2006. The conference will focus on development of curricula and universities’ engagement with the public on global issues of immigration, human rights, tolerance and related topics.