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UNC@Work:
The University of North Carolina:
A 17 member system of engaged campuses
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Campus Leaders Gather for First
Annual UNC Engagement Summit
How can UNC campuses more effectively make a difference in their communities? That was the question facing over 60 campus leaders from across UNC who gathered for the university’s first system-wide summit on community engagement this June. UNC’s engagement activities are wide-ranging: they include everything from opportunities for students to get hands-on experience while helping their communities, to engaged research that combines faculty and community expertise to solve social issues.
As a public institution, UNC is tasked with helping the state thrive, and that mission happens through community engagement. June’s summit participants—the university’s on-the-ground ambassadors of engagement—spent the day strategizing about how to make UNC a more responsive, resourceful, and yes, engaged neighbor.
University engagement efforts can take a variety of forms, and Tuesday’s crowd reflected that diversity, including representatives from academic affairs, student affairs, continuing education, campus communications offices, and more.
The day included talks from Dr. John Saltmarsh of the New England Resource Canter for Higher Education and UNC-Greensboro Chancellor Linda Brady. Dr. Saltmarsh's keynote address provided insights into how universities throughout the country are grappling with the challenges and rewards of engagement.
Dr. Saltmarsh advises the Carnegie Foundation on its Community Elective Classification program, which grants a nationally-recognized designation to colleges and universities that can demonstrate an institutional commitment to community engagement. Eleven UNC campuses have so far earned the designation—more than any other public university system in the country. Dr. Saltmarsh offered thoughts on how to move successfully through the institutional change required to be a more engaged university.
The UNC-Greensboro (UNCG) campus has made a substantial commitment to navigating that change. UNCG's Chancellor Brady gave a top-level perspective on the process of institutionalizing engagement on individual campuses. She focused particularly on UNCG's revising of promotion and tenure guidelines to include more recognition of community-engaged scholarship.
A midday panel offered insights into the genesis and evolution of several successful engagement programs: the Dillsboro Project at Western Carolina University, the Community-Campus Partnership and other initiatives at UNC-Chapel Hill, the Raleigh Colleges and Community Collaborative at NC State, and the Talent Enhancement Demonstration Grant program at East Carolina University.
The day wasn’t all about just listening, though: in breakout sessions and campus work groups, participants strategized about better ways to support, promote, and institutionalize engagement on individual campuses and system-wide. Engagement leaders across the system expressed their commitment to helping UNC to continue to deepen its engagement with North Carolina communities. At the end of the day, Dr. Saltmarsh commented, “This is a really unusual meeting. I don’t know of any other university in the country that is convening all its campuses around engagement like this.”
UNC may be ahead of the national curve on engagement, but there is still more to do. Summit participants wrapped up the day with a planning session focused on what’s next to support engagement efforts across UNC. And of course, what summit would be complete without a brief awards ceremony and an impromptu a cappella song performance about the joys of engagement? A good time, as they say, was had by all.
Interested in getting involved? Contact Suzanne Julian at UNC General Administration (sjulian@northcarolina.edu) for more information on getting connected to this vibrant group.
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@work on the economy:
ECU to Facilitate $700,000 in
Grants for Rural Communities
The North Carolina Department of Commerce and East Carolina University (ECU) have expanded their existing Talent Enhancement Demonstration Grant program for an additional 15-month period. The expansion makes available $700,000 more in funding for capacity building grants to units of local government or partnering non-profit organizations. The grants will assist up to fourteen rural communities.
The newly titled Talent Enhancement Capacity Building Grant program seeks to leverage the resources and expertise of both Commerce and ECU in support of comprehensive economic development activities and to help stimulate economic transformation in communities across the State.
The Talent Enhancement partnership proactively targets distressed, low wealth and limited capacity communities with economic development products, technical assistance and financial resources that help increase competitiveness and build stronger, more vibrant and more capable communities.
Commerce will provide grants of up to $50,000 to 14 selected counties, municipalities or non-profits (with a local government applicant) for capacity building and economic development related technical assistance in partnership with ECU. East Carolina, through a consortium of faculty, staff and students, will offer targeted training through an “on campus” curriculum that includes:
- Grant writing and administration
- Feasibility study development
- Economic impact analyses
- Community survey research
- Community development/planning
- Leadership development
Since August 2009, seven communities have engaged with ECU through the Talent Enhancement partnership with Commerce for similar instruction, training and a broad menu of economic development products and services. Kenny Flowers, Director of Community and Regional Development at ECU stated, “The Commerce investment has added real value for the participating communities and allowed the University to build stronger partnerships across the region. We are ecstatic that our collaboration will continue.”
For more information about the Talent Enhancement Capacity Building Grant program, please contact Kenny Flowers, Director of Community and Regional Development at 252-737-1342 or email flowersk@ecu.edu.
Click here for more on UNC at work on the economy.
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@work in the community:
NCCU Students Pitch In on Third
House in NCCU-Habitat Partnership
North Carolina Central University (NCCU) is making a difference in its own backyard! Since 2008, NCCU has been involved in a focused effort to revitalize and renew the neighborhood around campus. In partnership with Habitat for Humanity, the NCCU team has built three houses and renovated two others in what they have named the Eagle-Habitat Village—a small neighborhood located within walking distance of campus (near the Alston Avenue exit of Durham Expressway 147).
The Eagle-Habitat homes go to students and staff of NCCU, like Ms. Norma Smith, a member of the NCCU housekeeping staff whose Eagle-Habitat home was completed this past May. Ms. Smith will live in the three-bedroom bungalow with her daughter.
The Eagle-Habitat projects offer NCCU students and staff a chance to contribute tangibly to their community, and volunteers turn out in force to lend a hand on build days. This most recent Eagle-Habitat project brought out over 200 volunteers from NCCU in just four short months—from the groundbreaking in February to the dedication ceremony in May. The Habitat builds are part of a larger effort to revitalize the community around NCCU: students and staff volunteers also participate in renovation projects and in cleanup and beautification days around the neighborhood.
The Eagle-Habitat program is supported by funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s HBCU grant program and Self Help Home Ownership Opportunity (SHOP) program, and by a stimulus program that has allowed NCCU to leverage contributions and volunteer labor to provide decent, affordable housing for local families.
For more on the Eagle-Habitat initiative, contact Dr. Rebecca Winders at rwinders@nccu.edu.
Click here for more about UNC at work in the community.
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@work with the world:
WCU Partners with Brazilian Firm
to Produce Renewable Energy
A Brazil-based renewable energy corporation, Vale Energy Solutions (Vale Soluções em Energia, or VSE) has located the headquarters of its U.S. operations at Western Carolina University (WCU). The move allows Vale to take advantage of WCU’s faculty resources and laboratory space in the Kimmel School. Vale is working to develop new technology that will help bring the world’s first “green Olympics” to Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
Robert McMahan, outgoing dean of the Kimmel School, said WCU will help VSE work to develop technology to satisfy a worldwide need: efficient distributed power generation from renewable fuels.
The agreements call for the company to bring to WCU several pieces of high-tech equipment necessary to create two state-of-the-art aerospace engineering labs, including devices to analyze the strength and vibration of turbine blades and to test their stress and thermal characteristics, McMahan said.
James Pessoa, president and CEO of VSE and TAO, said the agreement represents just the first step in a long-term partnership. “This is a great honor for me and for VSE to be here to sign and to celebrate our technological collaboration agreement for the development of advanced turbines,” Pessoa said. “I’m certain that this is the starting point of a long-range and very fruitful collaboration between VSE and Western Carolina University.”
Among possible projects in the future is a potential “game-changer,” another new form of turbine that would produce not only non-polluting energy but also fresh, drinkable water from such sources as salt water, brackish water and industrial effluent, Pessoa said.
Steve Warren, chairman of the WCU Board of Trustees, called the partnership a celebration of “a different way of thinking about how a modern-day university educates its students,” as the university has embraced a new form of scholarship that enables students and faculty to apply their scholarly work in ways that can help the surrounding region.
VSE discovered the capabilities available at WCU in its Center for Rapid Product Realization through an engineering consultant who lives in nearby Franklin and whose son is a student at Western Carolina. Known as the Rapid Center, the facility focuses on education and applied research in core areas of product development, rapid prototyping, laser machining, re-engineering and parametric modeling.
The “engagement arm” of the Kimmel School, the Rapid Center provides technical assistance to companies, organizations and entrepreneurs. Over the past five years, it has worked with more than 250 businesses across the Southeast on projects ranging from a new form of artificial poplar siding for houses to a device to help patients with rehabilitation from knee surgery, and from packaging for a Christmas tree ornament manufacturing company to tiny fiber-electronic connectors.
[story shared from WCU's website]
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Fact of the Month!
Did you know that in 2010, UNC students devoted more than 825,000 hours to businesses though UNC-facilitated internships? These internships give students real-world experience to help prepare them for the workforce, while also benefiting North Carolina businesses during tough economic times.
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Click here to receive monthly issues of UNC@Work.
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